The Great American Women

~ Clarissa

The Republican candidates are getting a lot of flak for not managing to name any important American women last night.

I was going to laugh at the poor hapless fellows and the lady who stood out with her great Hillary impression, but then I realized: I would have the same problem they did if asked these questions.

I can spend all day naming the British, Spanish, Ukrainian, French, and even Russian women who achieved greatness but aside from Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks, I can’t name any American female greats. Is this my (and the candidates’) ignorance, or do these great women really not exist?

P. S. Please don’t name women whose achievement consists of marrying some important man. I find that sort of thing to be deeply offensive.

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Published by Clarissa

57 thoughts on “The Great American Women”

        1. I keep saying that she is a fairly young, inexperienced politician because counting the years she was married to Bill as experience in politics is beyond bizarre.

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          1. But would she have ever dared to move to New York as a carpetbagger from (wherever she’d have been living if she hadn’t followed her husband to Arkansas), and then tried to run for an extremely high-profile Senate seat as a totally unknown lawyer named Rodham?

            The only other non-New Yorker that I’m aware of who swept into the state and promptly got elected Senator was Bobby Kennedy.

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          2. “counting the years she was married to Bill as experience in politics is beyond bizarre”

            Well, being first lady is a real thing in the US much more so than in any other country that I know of. And it’s recognized that some first ladies are involved in policy decisions (as weird as that might sound). And that’s bipartisan Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan were both involved in their husband’s administration.

            Weird, but….

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            1. Yes, I’m sure they are very involved serving the tea and providing adulation.

              As for Carter and Reagan, both were so vapid and useless that I wouldn’t be surprised if they asked cleaning stuff for advice.

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            2. ..but they would never have been first ladies if not for their husbands. Remember Lurleen Wallace, who served as her husband’s ersatz governor of Alabama after he was term-limited, until she died of cancer in 1968, and he ran for President?

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              1. Widow’s succession also used to be a thing. Where in a politican who died in office was succeeded by his widow usually until the next election (where she may or may not run for the office herself) or until a special election could be called (at the state level she was often appointed by the governor).

                It seems to be mostly an english speaking thing and seems to have been most common in the US. I remember hearing about cases as late as the 1970s.

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widow's_succession

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  2. “or do these great women really not exist?’

    Of course they exist.

    For starters – since we’re having this exchange using computer software, at least one worth mentioning is Grace Hopper and her ground-breaking accomplishments.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper

    And another great American computer scientist I can think of off the top of my head – Radia Perlman (who helped make the Internet as we know it possible).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radia_Perlman

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    1. Here is the problem, though. I’ve never heard of these names. This is not necessarily significant since I’m an immigrant but do you believe that these are generally recognizable names? How many people would know them?

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      1. “do you believe that these are generally recognizable names? How many people would know them?”

        Not as recognizable as they should be, unfortunately (because the general public can’t name many great scientists & tech people). But as we’re living in the digital age – in part thanks to their genius – there’s no excuse not to know them; they certainly deserve the recognition.

        But if you’re limiting the discussion to people that the general American public will find recognizable, that makes things more difficult… I think people in the entertainment industry, music and movies, would be most recognizable (and there have been some greats there too, like Ella Fitzgerald). There are also some humanitarians & activists I can think of, like Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton (founder of the American Red Cross and famous Civil War nurse), and hopefully people would know of Ida B. Wells, though I’m not sure. Maybe some poets too with name recognition – like Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou. And people would be likely to recognize Amelia Earhart.

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          1. I’d be willing to bet you’d have a hard time finding an American under 40 who would recognize the name Rachel Carson, although she was briefly a well-known household name in the mid-Sixties because of her highly controversial book .

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            1. I’m not the best judge of how recognizable people are, it’s true; I spend a lot of time in the company of nerds, of which I am one 🙂

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    1. I suppose it’s difficult to find a woman who is 1) generally recognizable, 2)not super feisty and 3) helps the politician pander to the audience in a particular way.

      Helen Keller was extremely liberal. Most people only learn about how she learned to speak and write.
      Mother Jones is a union leader so that’s verboten among anti-union people.
      Emily Dickinson finds favor with older people and more literary people.
      Hedy Lamarr might not be recognized by younger people.

      Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman were extremely brave women, but way too threatening and assertive for some of the primary voters.

      Rosa Parks is comparatively ladylike with the myth that she was just a tired seamstress who just decided one day not to get up from her seat.

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      1. “I suppose it’s difficult to find a woman who is 1) generally recognizable, 2)not super feisty and 3) helps the politician pander to the audience in a particular way.”

        This is an excellent point.

        And there are areas that the general public doesn’t seem to take a deep interest in, like science… I can think of great female scientists and doctors from the U.S., but relatively few people will know about them even though people benefit widely from their contributions (and this can happen to great male scientists too. Very few people know about Norman Borlaug, for instance – for environmental issues, they’re likely to think of Al Gore and his documentary).

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        1. Difficult in the US but quite easy in many other countries, even some pretty backwards ones. This is an interesting phenomenon that, I believe, deserves to be analyzed.

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    3. There are a bunch of women missing from this discussion. The fact that they might not currently be famous speaks more to the illiteracy of the current generation than to the importance of what they did:
      Margaret Brent, thought to be America’s first feminist
      Molly Pitcher, Revolutionary War heroine, took over a canon when her husband was disabled
      Mother (Elizabeth Ann) Seton, Roman Catholic Saint
      Lucretia Mott
      Dorothea Dix
      Julia Ward Howe
      Elizabeth Blackwell (1st female physician in US)
      Mary Baker Eddy
      Louisa May Alcott
      Jane Addams
      Grandma Moses
      Nellie Bly
      Anne Sullivan
      Emily Green Balch (1947 Nobel Peace Prize)
      Margaret Sanger
      Jeannette Ranken (1st female in Congress)
      Frances Perkins (FDR Secretary of Labor)
      Georgia O’Keeffe
      Zora Hurston
      Pearl Buck
      Marian Anderson
      Margaret Chase Smith
      Margaret Mead
      Clare Boothe Luce
      Margaret Bourke-White
      Ayn Rand
      Babe Didrikson Zaharias (Olympic gold and professional golfer)
      Barbara Tuchman, Harvard historian and Pulitzer winner
      Katherine Graham (publisher, Washington Post)
      Betty Friedan
      Helen Gurley Brown
      Marilyn Monroe
      Sarah Caldwell
      Audrey Hepburn
      Sandra Day O’Conner
      Alice Rivlin, economist
      Barbara Walters
      Ruth Bader Ginsberg
      Sylvia Plath
      Wilma Rudolph, Olympian

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        1. You should have read Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” instead (and probably have).
          Here’s the cover of the currently in-print edition of that 1847 novel.

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  5. It isn’t surprising that you can’t think of any “great” American women. I can’t think of any great Russian or Ukrainian woman, and that surely isn’t because they never existed.

    The problem with naming “great woman” of any nationality who have global name-recognition is that international name-recognition is usually achieved only by being a national political leader (Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi) or by trivial celebrity status (Beyonce), and the later category can’t genuinely be called “great.”

    Until very recently in America, the country hasn’t had internationally known female political figures. (Our first female Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, is the first example that pops into my mind.) Also, because of prior educational restrictions on women, we haven’t produced internationally known (or even nationally known) scientists like Marie Curie, and I can’t think of any internationally known American female authors like Emily Bronte.

    But surely the Republican candidates could have come up with a few non-controversial names like Suffragette Susan B. Anthony (whose face was first real woman’s on a U.S. coin in the late 1970s) and aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, for starters.

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  7. Clarissa, it isn’t surprising that you can’t think of any “great” American women. I can’t think of any great Russian or Ukrainian woman, and it’s not because they don’t exist.

    Until the digital information age started, most people, male or female, achieved international name-recognition only when they were political leaders with worldwide influence (the first Queen Elizabeth, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi). Internationally known women in other fields (French scientist Marie Cure, British author Emile Bronte) were and are rare.

    In America, internationally known female political figures (Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice) were non-existent until very recently because our culture kept them out of politics, as well as most other professions where they might have gained prominence. The majority of Americans today would have a hard time recognizing most of the names that your other readers have mentioned above.

    But the Republican candidates should have at least been able to come up with a few non-controversial nationally known women like Suffragette Susan B. Anthony (the first American woman to have her face on a U.S. coin) and aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, for starters.

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      1. The point is that if certain Ukrainian or Russian women were INTERNATIONALLY known, I would have heard of them. I’ve never resided in England or France, but I’m aware of Bronte and Curie and Joan of Arc.

        Most of the NATIONALLY known American women listed in your readers’ posts are now ancient history as far as the U.S. news cycle, and aren’t mentioned in American schools or even universities. So most Americans your age won’t recognize their names. (It really pains me to type that, but it’s true.)

        The only reason anybody remembers Amelia Earhart is because every few years some publicity seeker claims to have found her airplane.

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        1. The news cycle is the same everywhere.

          Anyways, N just came up with 2 more: Edith Wharton and somebody called something like Grace Hopper.

          And I came up with the amazing Betty Friedan.

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          1. “The news cycle is the same everywhere.”

            Actually, it’s not. How much news about purely internal domestic Russian or Ukrainian affairs — or ANY overseas location — do you ever see on your American television channels, or even in the extremely thick Sunday edition of the New York Times?

            Did you see ANY news reports in mainstream American news media about the Canadian elections, or about how the Australian prime minister just got canned by his own party last week? When is the last time you saw/read anything about the U.S. Ambassador to Japan Caroline Kennedy?

            America is important to the rest of the world because it’s the last remaining superpower — and the cowering abdication of that responsibility makes fearful news worldwide. But most Americans couldn’t care less what happens beyond our shores, or our northern and southern borders, and the American news media reports accordingly.

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            1. Believe me, the interest in and awareness of what happens in the US by other countries is vastly exaggerated. Everybody is just as self-involved and ignorant about everybody else.

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              1. When I was stationed in Germany and Italy in the 1980’s, I saw a lot more news about America on the German and Italian language stations than I saw about those countries on the U.S. English-language military channel (no satellite TV at the time).

                If nobody cares anymore…well, I really don’t blame them.

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          2. Grace Hopper was the first I mentioned on the thread 🙂 Glad N reminded you of her… if he works in a field related to computers or tech I’m not surprised he knows about her, but more people should.

            There are also Nobel Laureates in science like Barbara McClintock, Gertrude B. Elion, and Rosalyn Yalow, and people who made major contributions to NASA like Margaret Hamilton (pioneering software engineer for the Apollo Space program) – and astronauts like Sally Ride. Physicians like Virginia Apgar and Jane C. Wright, geneticists like Mary-Claire King…

            And few people have mentioned ground-breaking musicians (e.g. Mary Lou Williams, Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, Rosetta Tharpe).

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              1. Grace Hopper was a pioneering computer genius. She discovered the first computer bug — a real moth that had shorted out a connection between the analog electrical wiring of the barn-sized computers of her time.

                She had the misfortune of being in the Navy instead of the Army or Air Force. The U.S. Navy kept geniuses like her on active duty until they were geriatric, at yeoman’s wages. If she’d been in the Army or Air force, she’d have been retired in her early 60’s, and then would have made a fortune as a civilian consultant.

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              2. “She discovered the first computer bug — a real moth”

                Though it was her work on compilers and programming languages that marked her as a genius, I love reading about a time when de-bugging could involve actual bugs.

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  10. Just a few off the top of my head in no particular order

    Politics

    Dixy Lee Ray
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixy_Lee_Ray

    Phyllis Schafly (I’m sure no one here likes her, but her stature is very real)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly

    Ann Richards
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Richards

    Barbara Jordan
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Jordan

    Shirley Chisolm
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm

    Journalism and/or political writing

    Helen Thomas
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Thomas

    Florence King
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_King

    Molly Ivins
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins

    Adela Rogers St. Johns
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adela_Rogers_St._Johns

    You’ll probably loathe it, but for several decades in the 20th century there was an unrecognized genre in American writing that might be called housewife humor (though popular with male readers too) based on humorous descriptions of daily middle class life, usually slightly fictionalized versions of their own lives.

    All told, they offer a pretty good introduction to mainstream post WWII american society and values.

    Shirley Jackson (who sort of pioneered the genre iinm with “life among the savages”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Jackson

    Betty MacDonald
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_MacDonald

    Jean Kerr
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Kerr

    Erma Bombeck
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erma_Bombeck

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  12. “maybe the US foreign policy sucks so bad because Obama handed it over to Michelle to make her feel important.”

    I don’t think he dislikes her that much…. Anyhoo, AFAICT there’s no real equivalent to the US First Lady in other countries where politicians wives are often not seen at all or only show up for picture opportunities at social functions.

    Not only is each first lady supposed to choose and pursue ’causes’ some of them were very active politically as well. I can hardly remember a presidential election where the candidates’ wives were not an issue at some point (I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but it’s long been part of the system). At the more involved end of the spectrum Rosalynn Carter and Nancy Reagan regularly attended Cabinet meetings which I can’t imagine in most countries (and Nancy Reagan was always the driving force behind his political career, whatever you think of it).

    The biggest exception that I can remember is Laura Bush who kept an unusually low profile for a first lady. If you arrived in the US during that period you might not have realized that she was an exception.

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    2. The biggest exception for me is Eleanor Roosevelt. Why?

      (1) She was an independent advocate for human rights and openly disagreed with some of her husband’s policies. She was an activist for the rights of blacks and Asians long before that was fashionable. (There’s a picture of her as a passenger with one of the pilots of the famous Tuskegee black fighter squadron. She flew for an hour with him just to make the point about the competency of black pilots.)

      (2) After her husband’s death, she was an advocate for US membership in the UN, was a delegate, and was the first chair of the US Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

      (3) She chaired JFK’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

      (4) She wrote a syndicated newspaper column.

      (5) In 1999, over 30 years after her death, she was ranked by Gallup as one of the 10 most esteemed women of the 20th Century.

      (6) She is the source of a remarkable number of inspirational quotes, including
      “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
      “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” (Nobody from the GOP knows that quote either, right?)

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      1. I’m honestly very uninterested in “professional wives” who turn their private decisions to marry into a spectacle for all of us. I find this very American habit of forcing people to pay for somebody else’s spouse not to feel bored to be completely disgraceful and distasteful. And it isn’t just a problem in politics. My first real alma mater was destroyed precisely because every professor at the department started to place his or her useless spouse into teaching positions. And today there is no department because people want to be taught by professionals and not people who chanced to sleep next to professionals.

        I have absolutely no idea why people whom we, as taxpayers, hire can’t do us a favor and not inflict their useless family members on us.

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        1. Every single POTUS was married The ones who were not married or were widowers had female relatives serve as First Lady.

          Several women who were not presidents’ wives have served as First Lady, as when the president was a bachelor or widower, or when the wife of the president was unable to fulfill the duties of the First Lady herself. In these cases, the position has been filled by a female relative or friend of the president, such as Martha Jefferson Randolph during Jefferson’s presidency, Emily Donelson and Sarah Yorke Jackson during Jackson’s, Mary Elizabeth (Taylor) Bliss during Taylor’s, Mary Harrison McKee during Benjamin Harrison’s presidency, upon her mother’s death, and Harriet Lane during Buchanan’s.

          It’s also implicitly demanded of women that if your spouse is POTUS, you cannot hold outside employment. Voters look upon a male candidate whose wife doesn’t drop her job to help him campaign very negatively. Basically, being a First Lady is like the ultimate Women’s Auxiliary of Politics.

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          1. There are also millions of excuses behind inflicting people without degrees in the field (or sometimes without any degrees at all) on students. Somehow, their personal choices and difficulties should become an inconvenience for everybody else. I will never get that, not in a million years. What’s next? My dentist’s husband will try to drill my teeth because he’s inconvenienced by her profession and feels bored?

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            1. Politics is different then those professions you mention because politics has very few official rules and qualifications and lots of unofficial rules that are often treated like official ones. In contrast, being a professor/dentist/doctor has many official qualifications and rules including continuing education.

              This is going to be a very long election season for you, isn’t it? 🙂

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              1. Neither would I consent that my handyman ‘ s wife substitute him in his duties. And that’s a handyman, not the president of a large country.

                Everybody should just go their job and not bring bored amateurs in to work for them.

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