Rather than pontificate, I thought I would share the names of women active in causes for women or humankind in general whom I most admire.
The text comes mostly from my piece for the podcast of Left Ungagged, with some additions.
These are some of my favorite female heroes throughout
history, or at least history since the mid-16th century.
Grainne Ui Mhaille, or Grace O’Malley, chief of the
O’Malleys, pirate queen of West Connacht, most powerful ruler of all Connacht,
and leader of a formidable band of Viking Highlander pirates from the mid-16th
century through the beginning of the 17th century. Some of my ancestors in Connemara probably
sailed and fought with her. Read her bio
on the website Badass of the Week; it’s not only accurate, it’s hilarious.
Constance Markievizc, suffragette, socialist, labor activist,
revolutionary, and first woman in the world to hold a cabinet position, in the
Irish Republic from 1919-1922. She
fought with the Irish Citizen Army in the Easter Rising, then throughout the Anglo-Irish
War.
Emma Goldman, leading anarchist and labor of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries who significantly
anarchist ideology and in her sixties went to Spain during its Civil War
to support the Republican cause. A
feminist who eschewed “mainstream” feminism, she initially supported the
Russian Revolution then turned away when the Bolsheviks dropped their mask.
Helen Keller, the deaf and blind activist who helped form
the Socialist Party of America, and its intellectual wing, the Intercollegiate
Socialist Society, and was highly influential in the early stages of the
Industrial Workers of the World.
Ida B. Wells, the suffragette, sociologist, feminist, and
co-founder of the Natioanl Association for the Advancement of Colored People
along with W.E.B. Dubois. One of the
great lights of Afro-American history from the early 20th century.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, the “Rebel Girl” and organizer for
the Industrial Workers of the World who helped found the American Civil
Liberties Union and later joined the Communist Party USA, ultimately becoming
its national chairperson.
Rosa Luxemburg, the premier Marxist theorist of her day, more
so even than Kautsky or Lenin or Trotsky, feminist, antiwar activist,
economist, and revolutionary socialist who helped found the Communist Party of
Germany. Her history of the Russian
Revolution is a must read.
Amy Licht, the CPUSA activist who led the Chattanooga local
in the early 1930s, who, in addition to all she did for the unemployed, the
working poor, and Afro-Americans in the area is the person who spearheaded the
defense of the Scottsboro Boys until the lawyers took over and then continued
to lead the public fight outside the courts. Comrade Licht is why I am a communist, though not of CPUSA.
Claudette Colvin, at age 15 the first Afro-American in
Montgomery, Alabama, to refuse to give up a bus seat to a white person and move
to the back of the bus in 1954, nine months before Rosa Parks did the
same. The decision was Claudette’s and
Claudette’s alone.
Rosa Parks, whose arrest for following Claudette’s example
initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott and who besides being a staunch advocate
of desegregation was a fierce warrior for women’s rights, especially the rights
of Afro-American women, often against the preferences of her male colleagues in
the NAACP. Years before initiating the boycott
in Montgomery, she fought to have white men who raped Afro-American women
prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Though none were ever convicted, many victims at least saw their cases
in court.
Annie Mae Aquash, the Mikmaq activist with the American
Indian Movement in the late 1960’s and early 1970s who was a victim of the
FBI’s CONINTELPRO. She took part in the
seizure of the Mayflower II in 1970, the Trail of Broken Treaties and the
occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C.,
the occupations of Wounded Knee, Anicinabe Park in Ontario, and the Alexian
Brothers abbey in Wisconsin.
Tina Manning, Paiute-Shoshone activist of the Duckwater
Shoshone Tribe and wife of American Indian Movement leader John Trudell, who
was assassinated for her political activities on behalf of her people, mainly
in the area of water rights. Arsonists
burned down the home she shared with John and their children; she, their four
children, and her mother died, while her father survived but with serious
injuries.
The Dixie Chicks, for their stand against the Iraq War and
the consequences which they suffered because of it.
Rosie Kane, Scottish Socialist Party leader and former MSP
who took the oath of loyalty to the queen with “my oath is to the people”
written on her hand. No longer in the
Holyrood parliament, she is still with SSP and is an activist in many causes.
Tulsi Gabbard, the Congressperson from Hawaii who stepped
down from being deputy chairperson of the Democratic National Committee because
of its myopic cheating against Bernie Sanders during the 2016 campaign and one
of the foremost and solid leaders of the DP’s progressive wing.
Mhairi Black, the MP to Westminster from the Scottish
Nationalist Party whose speeches on the floor always give me goosebumps.
Kshama Sawant, the Occupy activist and Socialist Alternative
member who won and still holds a seat on the City Council of Seattle and is
taking a prominent role in the formation of an actual national people’s party.
Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, who has
fought for the rights and dignity of not just Afro-Americans but all victims of
police and legal misconduct, for trans and non-gender specific people, domestic
workers, and students, and who can give one hell of a great speech.
Winona Laduke of the White Earth Ojibwe, environmentalist,
defender of tribal land claims and reservations, and former candidate for Vice
President of the United States from the Green Party USA.
Malala Yousafzai, and if you don’t know her and why I
include her you are more deaf and blind than Helen Keller.
Ahed Tamimi, the teenaged Palestinian anti-occupation
activist jailed by the Zionist State of Israel on charges of terrorism for
slapping an Israeli Occupation Forces soldier—once—in defense of her cousin.
Lorde, aka Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor, who after learning for herself the truth of the situation for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories cancelled a schedule concert in Israel and stuck to her guns in the face of a tsunami of official and online troll abuse.
Harriet Tubman, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin as well as countless polemics against Afro-American slavery, ran a large section of the Underground Railroad, conducted escaped slaves along it, not only took up arms in the War of the Rebellion but led troops regular and otherwise in battle.
The women of Pussy Riot, some of the bravest and most
principled in the world today.
The group of students from UTC whom I have marched with
several times the past year and a half who have given me the nickname “Protest
Dad”.
All of the women of all ages in or from Iran whom I’ve gotten
to know since the beginning of the Green Movement in Iran.
My females colleagues in the Left Ungagged project.
Maxine Cousin, my friend and comrade who died recently who
fought tirelessly against racism and police brutality since the 1980s, founded
Concerned Citizens for Justice along with Lorenzo Irvine, and who with Lorenzo
and others led the fight to change Chattanooga’s racist elected at-large city
commission in the late 1980s. She died 4
February 2018 and is buried in Chattanooga National Cemetery, where her father,
Wadie Suttles, is also buried, interned after beign beaten to death by guards
in the former Chattanooga City Jail.
U.S. politicians Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Linda Sarsour,
Nina Turner, Sharice Davids, Debbie
Haaland, and Pramila Payapal.
Women’s
rights defenders in Iran Nasrin Sotoudeh,
Masih Alinejad, Narges Mohammadi, Fariba
Davoodi Mojaher, and Azar Majedi.
Climate
crisis activist Greta Thunberg, who sparked a global revolution to save the
planet and life on it.
Virginia
Woodhull, the first woman to run for POTUS, as candidate of the Equal Rights
Party in 1872 (with Frederick Douglass as her running mate).
Margaret Chase
Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress and New Deal
Republican who staunchly opposed Joe McCarthy and became the first woman to
campaign for nomination of the Republican Party in 1964, going up against Barry
Goldwater, the man who normalized dog-whistle racism in national politics and
who abandoned the party’s stance as defender of black civil rights.
Shirley
Chisholm, the close ally of Ron Dellums (first socialist elected to Congress
since WW 2 and first black socialist elected to Congress ever) who became the first
woman to run for nomination of the Democratic Party in 1972, which was the very
same year that Madeline “There’s a Special Place in Hell for Women Who Don’t
Support Each Other” Albright campaigned for Edmund Muskie.
Monika Lewinsky, who has managed to rise above the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune forced upon her by the Clintons and the world press to become one of the strongest advocates against bullying and public-shaming in the world today.
