Nine Incredible Women

1.  Rosalind

Not a lot has been said and written about Rosalind Franklin and her role in the discovery of the double-helical structure of DNA.  After earning her Ph.D. in chemistry at Cambridge University she worked at Laboratoire Centrale des Services Chimiques de l’Etat in Paris, where she learned X-ray crystallography. As an excellent experimentalist, she moved back to England to work at King’s College in London.

At King’s College Rosalind took impeccable X-ray crystallographic images of DNA, better than any other researcher at the time. Without telling Rosalind, her coworker Maurice Wilkins showed the images to James Watson and Francis Crick of Cambridge. Watson and Crick then used these images to develop their double-helical model of DNA. Controversy has surrounded this event, especially with regard to how much credit is due Rosalind in the discovery. In any case, she could not share in the recognition Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received in winning the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine since she died tragically of ovarian cancer in 1958 at the age of 37.

2.  Christine

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-31260540_ITM

Christine McFadden was a successful veterinarian with a nice home and four children, three from a previous marriage and one with her ex-husband, John, a former sheriff’s deputy. Her ex-husband John entering the house, shooting all four children and then himself. Having lost everything in her life that mattered in her life, the pain she experienced was overwhelming and she did not feel she could go on.  Another woman experiencing her same pain reminded her that her children live on in her heart.  Now realizing that they are always with her, she has the strength to go on. 

By sharing her story, she saved the lives of 16 other women that saw her on the Oprah show. 

3.  Lisa

Lisa Ling takes you to the places you rarely think of, tells you the story no other news show is airing, to show you how women across the globe are living.  Bride burning, homeless families, and what life is like inside North Korea, are just a few of the stories she has brought to us.  Her reports are never sensationalistic.  Thank you Lisa for not making me sit through one iota of a second of celebrity talk.

4.  Penny

She was born and raised in a very small village on a Greek island.  (To this day, that village does not have electricity!)  At the age of 17 she was wed to a much older man in an arranged marriage.  Penny’s husband traveled to the US to find a house and a job and returned for Penny.  Nine months pregnant and traveling alone in the lower deck of the ship because men and women were not allowed to be together even if married, she suffered terrible sea-sickness the entire trip.  She learned English by watching TV and raised three children with an abusive husband.  She continues to inspire me and share her lessons in life and I feel truly lucky to have been able to spend so much time with her. 

5.  Elizabeth

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15064707/

Thanks to women like Elizabeth, blazing her way through the field of science and making tremendous advances, the field is so readily accessible to young women today.  It wasn’t too long ago that women weren’t even allowed to attend a university!  Thank you Elizabeth.  What is most amusing is the (male) writer of this article clearly does not have much of a grasp on the science Elizabeth masters.  Her personal laboratory is 50/50 males and females, which is considered an anomaly in her particular field which is currently dominated by males. 

6.  Ellen

One of the funniest people I have ever seen.  She can be witty and funny without resorting to the sarcasm, put-downs, and raunchy trashy talk that so many of today’s comedians resort to.  Ellen is a truly good human being inside and out. 

7.  Harriet

Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. In 1849, she fled to Philadelphia but returned to Maryland the next year to begin the first of many Underground Railroad trips to lead family and friends to freedom using caution, skill, and wit. Some passengers she even escorted to Canada. In the Civil War, Harriet was a spy and scout for the Union in the Sea Islands. In 1896, she spoke at the convention of the American National Woman Suffrage Association convention.

8.  Wilma

General Wilma Vaught is one of the most-decorated military women in U.S. history and the Air Force’s first female general. Retired in 1980, Wilma was the driving force behind the building and dedication of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial in Washington, DC. She served on the Committee on Women in the Armed Forces in NATO, 1984-85. Wilma was also a member of the International Women’s Forum.  Thank you Wilma for helping to pave the way for all women so that they can feel free to defend the country they love so much.

ALL Women in the Military past and present

Fighting for their country despite rampant sexism.  I am working on a separate piece on the history of women in the military.  Example:  on the government’s website for military women the first section is “Discrimination Issues”.  The first topic in the Section?  Hair Issues.