When They Say “Name At Least Five Great Women”

Sanbella
Sanbella
Aug 26, 2017 · 5 min read

When someone mockingly defies me to name a list of women who have changed the world, I feel incredibly livid at their patronizing attitude. My blood begins to seethe. Isn’t it lamentable enough that I receive this question from both males and females? Ignorance about any subject can only be fixed through education, which, needless to say, most people are selective about. For your information: yes, there are phenomenal women out there—many of them. But while they may be many, they have never been enough.

The heavy under-representation of women in all aspects of culture, whether science, politics, art, mathematics, or literature, is an issue we cannot afford to brush aside. The creativity and inventions of women have always been suppressed and silenced by the prejudicial, traditional views of society, and our fight for inclusion has always been a constant war that ends up getting dismissed either as ‘laughable’ or ‘exaggerated.’

When I am asked why we barely hear of women who have contributed to the world positively, I can only blame men for all the sexist views and decorum they have inculcated in societies, some of which, in many countries, are still prevalent to this day.

Like men, women have as many scholarly ambitions and career goals that they endeavor to achieve. However, unlike them, they do not have the path readily paved for them, and are impeded by numerous obstacles and hurdles—sometimes insurmountable ones—along the road. Men do not get denied access to education because of their gender, nor was it ever considered taboo for a male to pursue ‘big’ careers like medicine and engineering, or to simply write, paint, or compose music. There are many women that could’ve been, but never got to be, so do take that into account the next time you ask me that, and then claiming that women have inferior intellectual skills.

Take the example of Maria “Nannerl” Mozart, Wolfgang’s older sister, who was a gifted fortepianist, composer, and harpsichord player. She, along with her brother, went on tour to several cities to showcase their talent. She was a major source of inspiration to Wolfgang, who constantly lauded her work, thought of her as an ‘idol’ and ‘wanted to be more like her.’ All these bubbles burst when you find out that, eventually, her parents forbade her from proceeding because she was a woman, and a musical career would risk her reputation. Virginia Woolf, the successful feminist writer we all know of, faced no different hardships. She never received a formal education; she was not allowed to attend Cambridge like her brothers did. Instead, she resorted to stealing books from her father’s study.

And the list goes on.

Think of all the women who had an incessant passion for something but had not even a modicum of courage to showcase their brilliance in fear of being shamed for being indecorous or corrupt. Think of all these forgotten poems inked on papers that got soaked with tears, the lost solution to a baffling mathematical conundrum, and the mellifluous musical melodies that floated in the air before eventually dying into nothingness, because they neither survived nor got recognized.

Most importantly, think of even the inspiration that girls could have, but have never, gotten instilled with. Just how many latent talents could’ve been unleashed by the encouragement that was hardly ever given to them.

For example, as a poetry enthusiast, while I definitely love Edgar Allan Poe and Langston Hughes, I, in fact, derive purer inspiration from Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Emily Dickinson, and Maya Angelou. And that applies to all fields, especially science culture, where women were considered really unfit to belong. If we do not educate girls about great women that they may aspire to be like someday, they tend to quit even dreaming about becoming one.

Did you know that J.K. Rowling was not the only female to adopt a masculine-sounding pen name? When the English writer Mary Anne Evans chose the pseudonym George Eliot, she had done so, she says, “to ensure that her works may be taken seriously.” For similar reasons, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin wrote under the pseudonym George Sand to veil her sex. Additionally, the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, wrote, respectively, under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. In an explanation, Charlotte wrote:

“The ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because…we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.”

And, to answer your question, there are many females that have left a positive mark on the world. Did you forget amazing people like Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Fatima Al-Fihri, Anne Frank, Ada Lovelace, Shirin Ebadi, Malala Yousafzai, or did you simply choose to overlook them? Perhaps another reason you may not know of influential women, apart from the fact that they’re underrepresented in, if not excluded from, almost all fields, is because they also get their works unfairly attributed to other men.

Finally, I must say: If white women had gone through this many hardships and hindrances to pursue an education or a career, what must have colored women gone through? Honestly? And what possible inventions or improvements could’ve many more of them achieved in the world had they not been tied down by the combined injustice of racism and sexism?

In the end, nobody can say that women were solely created for motherhood and have other ‘priorities and responsibilities’ to look after. Women are versatile — they can be a thousand things at a time if they wished to. If all these male-dominated areas helped raise the voices of women instead of stifling them, I am positive they will attain fantastic results. After all, women are women, and that’s great enough!

YUNiversity Interns

Amazing Students Around the World Creating Amazing Content. Our interns’ bios can be found at http://www.TheYUNiversity.net/faculty

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Sanbella

Written by

Sanbella

Writing intern for the YUNiversity

YUNiversity Interns

Amazing Students Around the World Creating Amazing Content. Our interns’ bios can be found at http://www.TheYUNiversity.net/faculty

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