Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    
    	Mary Kay Ash.
    
    		Basically because of her belief in women and 
    	their abilities; that they deserve more than they have
    	received in the past; her philosophy of living life by 
    	the Golden Rule; and her priorities:
    
    			1.  God first
    			2.  Family second
    			3.  Job third
    
    		She's a woman who has really made her own way 
    	in this world. 
    
    

    A number of the senior professors that I had in college. They
    were the first truely intellectual women I had encountered.
  

    Several whom I admire, for the follwoing reasons:
    Tenacity, endurance, courage.
    
    One went from a battered woman status to being a "First" in her
    chosen career, in her state.
    
    Another, with 3 children in tow, went from  a high school diploma
    to a 4 year college degree "summa cum laud".
    
    Another went from "2nd generation welfare mother" to "Dec techie
    status" and is now a manager at a large company.
    
    Ordinary women all.
    
    Bob
    
    

    A certain technical manager here ...
    Accomplished mom and engineer,
    always BTU (big thumb up),
    small in stature, with a big heart.
    A real Silicon Hero...

    A female psychotherapist and Dr. of Education, never married, who
    lives alone with her dog in a beautiful old house, has scads of
    friends, travels whenever and whereever she wants, and KNOWS she
    has it good! 
    
    Gloria

She inspires me to plan how to continue to be creative and productive long
after the rest of my peers have quit.

Don.

    
    One woman I admire is Alice Walker.  In a country where it has
    certainly always helped to be born male, white and rich, she was
    born female, black and poor, but has gone on to win a pulitzer prize
    for "The Color Purple" which was, of course, then made into a movie.
     She also, I believe, achieved this success without compromising
    her ideals.
    
    Lorna
    

    There is a similar topic in Soapbox about heros.  
    
    To me:  Grace Hopper is definitely inspirational.
    Cory Aquino, for her courage both prior to the "election" and now,
    for all the hard work it will take her to run her country.
    Sally Ride - being an astronaut cannot be easy.
    

    Just last night I asked my boyfriend if he took my picture into
    work and where did he put it.  He told me, right about the picture
    I have of Grace Hopper.  Now, I don't think I "top" her but it was
    nice to know that I was near a very inspirational woman.
    
    

I have no words to adequately express my admiration for this woman.

Mother Theresa, Molly Rush, Emma Goldman, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Shirley
 Chisolm, and of course Dr. Ruth.

Grace Hopper's good for epigrams, but how can anybody admire somebody who
 had a part in inflicting COBOL on the world? (-:)

As for people I actually know, there's Jackie Fidler, who teaches at ULowell,
 and Nancy Bodwell, formerly of Rape Crisis Services of Greater Lowell.
  <_Jym_>

    Madame Curie & her daughters, Djuna Barnes, Viginia Woolf, 
    Lisa Meitner, Grace Hopper, Eleanor Roosevelt, Diana Arbus,
    Margaret Atwood, & Sally Ride. Topping my list: Mom, who 
    saw to it her 3 daughters got a college education & support 
    for their careers, who studied art at 60 & beyond, and who 
    mercifully listened to me ramble on & on about physics & 
    literature & politics in my stormy teens...
    

    my one and only... my mother..
    
    not for only raising me and making me see things that i could never have
    seen without her, but for being a friend. She is the most unique,
    honest, considerate, intelligent, interesting person i have ever
    known and to think that i missed all that for 10 years!!! 
    
    She is an accomplished woman, going on her fourth business venture
    and doing very well in all of them. If i can attain all the qualities
    that she has, then i will be able to admire myself as much...
    
    toni

    Geraldine Ferraro
                   
    
    She's a brave woman who has open a new door--maybe not as widely
    as she and we had had hoped--for women at the cost
    of her own career, privacy and family harmony.  And despite obstacles
    and criticisms that a man with the same experience never would have
    encountered, she remains loyal to the dreams she has for this country
    and for this country's women.

    Many men have suffered similiar invasions of their privacy.  I don't
    have the names on the tip of my tongue but I do recall men declining
    nominations for vice-president based on events in their past which
    would have influenced voter decisions.
    
    Geraldine Ferraro was a brave woman...but she had situations in
    her past that did not meet the standards of a good vice-presidential
    candidate (male or female).
    
    As a feminist I do not want to see any woman achieve goals because
    she is a women...I want to see women achieve because they deserve
    and/or can handle the role they are seeking.

    I have a feeling that feminists do not like her, and I don't enter
    her name to offend, I do admire her for her honesty and conviction
    and her philosophy.
    
                                                   
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    The other night All Things Considered profiled a Black woman
    who had just died at the age of 105. She had been a major
    contributor to the unionization of the pullman porters. Apparently
    the only way they were able to organize a union was for their
    wives to do the work so that their husbands could not be fired.
    They interviewed many of the members of her church all of whom
    had much praise for her. I did not hear her name but she was
    definitely a woman to admire.

    She was the most incredible woman I have ever known. She was married
    with one child while putting herself through undergrad as well as
    law school in Boston college. Originally, she had quit high school
    to support her intensely poor family. She adopted me when I was
    13 and.....
    
    she was terminally ill with breast cancer
    
    She died three years ago this Easter at 36 years old. Upon request
    she was cremated and her ashes were sprinkled on a lilac bush. Her
    final kind gesture to survivors was the beauty of life renewed instead
    of the remembrance a tombstone can bring.
    
    If I live to be half the woman she is I know there is a God.

She was born the during WWII, while her father was serving in the
Pacific.  At age 15, she was diagnosed as having Lupus, a disease
that still knows no cure.  She had to stay in the dark for 9 months,
because the sun caused her to break out in a purple rash.  The doctors
said she wouldn't see 20.  They were wrong.  She went on to nursing school
after high school.  She was plauged by constant bouts with a disease that
brought on complications of pnuemonia, severe arthritis, and poor vision.
She married at age 23.  The doctors said that the disease had made her
infertile.  They were wrong.  Several months later, she was pregnant.
The doctors said theat the baby would never be carried full term.  They
were wrong.  The baby was born, healthy, on April 12, 1965, after a full
9 month term.  She quit nursing school to spend more time with her child.
She joined the local volunteer Ambulance squad, and began training local
police and fire staff in First Aid, and advanced life support.  2 years
later, she was pregnant again.  The doctors told her that this pregancy
could threaten her life.  She chose to have the child.  My sister Catherine
was born, healthy, on September 9, 1967.

Every year, she would have bouts with her disease.  She would be hospitalized,
often for weeks, but each time she fought back, and won.  She raised 2 children,
gave thousands of hours to the community as a Red Cross volunteer, EMT
instructor, and ambulance attendant.  She spent as much time with her family
as any other "housewife" did, and still managed to have a career that helped
more people than our engineering careers ever will.  All this while living on 
borrowed time.

At the age of 42, she was diagnosed as having Cancer.  She fought the disease
as she had fought before, never believing that she would lose the struggle.
This time, the doctors were right.  She died on June 28, 1985.  Her ashes
were scattered over a lake near our home.  She had so much love to give, and 
she made the world richer by her passage through this world.  I can only
hope to do the same.

Dave