Top 100 Women in History: Annie’s List

Feministe has a post asking for readers’ Top 100 Women in History.  I started to comment, then gave up realizing I’d take over the blog if I kept going—plus it’s too much trouble doing hyperlinks in comment fields. But here, I can go on and on and on……(and yes, it’s very literary-centered, but that’s my thing, and it’s not in any logical order):

 

 

·         Mary McCarthy (of the flying diaphragm scene in The Group, and one of the New York intellectuals)

 

·         Tillie Olsen (writer—“I Stand Here Ironing” and Silences– and activist)

 

·         Rebecca Harding Davis (working class writer of haunting “Life in the Iron Mills”)

 

·         Lucille Clifton (who loves her hips)

 

·         Margaret Fuller (author of Woman in the 19th Century)

 

·         Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (of course)

 

·         Judy Syfers (author of “Why I Want a Wife”)

 

·         Sojourner Truth (“Ain’t I A Woman?”)

 

·         Louisa May Alcott (not just of Little Women fame, she supported her entire family for decades)

 

·         Emma Goldman (I still think of Maureen Stapleton playing her in the film Reds)

 

·         Zitkala-Sa (author of The School Days of an Indian Girl)

 

·         Sui Sin Far (author of Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian)

 

·         Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Women)

 

·         Leslie Marmon Silko (author of Ceremony)

 

·         Georgia O’Keefe (awesome artist)

 

·         Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein (literary and social couple of 1920s Paris)

 

·         Kate Chopin (her story “The Storm” was turn of the 20^th century soft porn, and beautifully written; her novel The Awakening is a feminist masterpiece)

 

·         Alice Walker (for “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” especially)

 

·         Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“The Yellow Wallpaper” and “Herland” are both feminist classics)

 

·         Adrienne Rich (“Diving into the Wreck” and her collection of essays “Of Lies, Secrets and Silences”)

 

 

I’ll continue another day….I’ve barely begun with this list!

So Much to Read, So Little Time

There are several recent articles that I’ve read that I so very much wish to write about–but considering the presentation I have to give in less than 12 hours, and the 70+ researched essays needing grading, that will just have to wait.

But I post links and brief descriptions here for those who want to read ahead:

• “Social Networks and Happiness” by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler and published in Edge: The Third Culture.  I’ve been collecting articles/blog postings, etc. about Facebook for a few months now (ever since I joined, in fact). I usually get 2-4 researched essays each term on the topic, too. This article confirms other recent studies that claim happiness is contagious: it seems, according to the authors, that this is true in a social network also. 
• “Gender Bender” by Alex Morris published in New York Magazine has already been discussed on several blogs, so it will be old hat by the time I get around to writing about it. Basically, Morris suggests that feminism is partly to blame for the rise in binge drinking among professional women, a dangerous causal analysis. 
• “Shelf Lives: Paging Through Feminism’s Lost and Found Classics”  published in Bitch Magazine: This article profiles six feminist works from the 1960s-1980s, only two that I’ve read (Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room and Toni Cade’s The Black Woman: An Anthology). I’m curious about the 4 other titles now and have already added them to my pages-long book wish list.
• I love most of what Caitlin Flanagan writes, including her latest Atlantic article raving about Twilight (the film and the series), “What Girls Want”  Here she focuses particularly on the success of the film and the series to appeal to teen girls’ secret sexual desires.  She almost makes me want to read the books.
• And, while we’re on the subject of sex, here is a funny posting by Danit Brown titled “No, Really, That Wasn’t Me: Three Dangers of Writing About Sex.”  Her references to Judy Bloom’s Forever (probably the Twilight of my generation) brought back fond memories. 

Happy Reading!