Random women who deserve to be noticed

[Suranis]

https://www.nature.com/immersive/inspir ... index.html

Winner announcement

We are proud to present the winners of the Nature Awards for Inspiring Women in Science 2023.

The Science Outreach category winner is Main Bhi Curie programme from SwaTaleem foundation located in India. The judges panel applauds the community-engaging approach and the very impressive team behind it.

The Scientific Achievement category winner is Hortense Le Ferrand, an assistant professor from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. She is advancing the field with bio-sustainable materials which can be used in cooling of electronics, construction material and robotic sensors.

Xiwen Gong received the Runner Up title and Judges' Special Commendation was given to Mary Adjepong.

Keep reading to learn more about the winners.

[Suranis]

I was looking for something on a local bookshops website when I noticed this. Might be worth a read. I'll put the link to the local website but I'm sure you could look it up wherever yourself

https://www.omahonys.ie/wise-gals-the-s ... 67870.html

Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage

by Nathalia Holt

'As much le Carre as it is Hidden Figures.' AMARYLLIS FOX, author of Life Undercover

'A sweeping epic of a book [which] rescues five remarkable women from obscurity and finally gives them their rightful place in world history ... A book you won't regret reading. Five women you won't forget.' KATE MOORE, author of The Radium Girls

'As entertaining as it is instructive.' GENERAL STANLEY MCCRYSTAL

The never-before-told story of a small cadre of influential female spies in the precarious early days of the CIA - women who helped create the template for cutting-edge espionage (and blazed new paths for equality in the workplace).

In the wake of World War II, four agents were critical in helping build a new organisation now known as the CIA. Adelaide Hawkins, Mary Hutchison, Eloise Page, and Elizabeth Sudmeier, called the 'wise gals' by their male colleagues because of their sharp sense of humour and even quicker intelligence, were not the stereotypical femme fatale of spy novels. They were smart, courageous, and groundbreaking agents at the top of their class, instrumental in both developing innovative tools for intelligence gathering - and insisting (in their own unique ways) that they receive the credit and pay their expertise deserved.

Adelaide rose through the ranks, developing new cryptosystems that advanced how spies communicate with each other. Mary worked overseas in Europe and Asia, building partnerships and allegiances that would last decades. Elizabeth would risk her life in the Middle East in order to gain intelligence on deadly Soviet weaponry. Eloise would wield influence on scientific and technical operations worldwide, ultimately exposing global terrorism threats.

Meticulously researched and beautifully told, Holt uses firsthand interviews with past and present officials and declassified government documents to uncover the stories of these four inspirational women. Wise Gals sheds a light on the untold history of the women whose daring foreign intrigues, domestic persistence, and fighting spirit have been and continue to be instrumental to the world's security.

336 pages.

[Foggy]

Dang, I am so glad I started this thread.

[Kriselda Gray]

I was looking for something on a local bookshops website when I noticed this. Might be worth a read. I'll put the link to the local website but I'm sure you could look it up wherever yourself

Thanks, sounds fascinating! I love books about spycraft

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Coooooool!!! Thanks for starting this thread, Foogie!

[Suranis]

Ok. Heres where I get to be controversial again in service to the truth, and since I got thrown out of a group on discord for doing this last night I Have to say I'm being stupid about this, but I cant help myself.

I saw this pop up on my "suggested" thing from a facebook group called "The REAL BLACK History" and I saw this and though "ooh this will be good for this thread.

Anna Mengin.jpg (46.56 KiB) Viewed 27627 times

Ya, fantastic. But I decided lets just check her out on wikipedia to find out more about this Black woman. And then I said... "Oh god I'm going to get really attacked for this..."

Because that woman in that picture, that good looking Black young woman? That's not her.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Mangin


First of all her name was Anna Mangin. Its a common trick to slightly misspell a name to confuse people trying to do further research, but lets leave that to one side. The thing is on the top of the Wikipedia page is this passage

As Nantucket local historian Frances Karttunen observed:"back in 1845, entrepreneur Abraham Nahar and his seamstress wife Elizabeth had joined 102 other members of Nantucket’s New Guinea community in signing a petition to the Massachusetts legislature seeking relief from segregation of Nantucket’s public schools. The success of the struggle to integrate the island’s schools meant that Annie Mattie was educated along with white and non-white children at the South School on Orange Street. One of her contemporaries recalled that. “To one unacquainted she would, unquestionably, have passed for a white girl, yet she was of African parentage, was true to and dwelt with colored people. She was a young woman of rare character and attractiveness.

So, uh. she was very light skinned. Not like that Black woman. Plus Wikipedia has this picture of her, and she does not resemble that Black woman at all.

Annie_M._Nahar_(later_Mangin).png (360.27 KiB) Viewed 27627 times

So they put a picture of a darker black woman there, probably because that a lighter skinned woman was unacceptable. And the fact that they call themselves REAL Black history means they are pretty aggressive about it, in a way that people accuse White people of with things like depictions of Jesus and so on.

As an aside, it's interesting that attempts at desegregation of Schools were going on even back in the 19th century. But, ya she was an educator and she did invent the Pastry Fork.

Rant over. Anna Mangin seems to have been a very remarkable woman no matter the colour of her skin, and deserves to stand in history as she was.

Anna M. Mangin made a major contribution to everyday domesticated household needs in the 19th century. Her invention was the pastry fork. [1]

To hear Andrew Mangin tell it, his wife first came up with the concept of a simplified manner of making pastry by an improvement to the pastry fork, and "then and there described it to him. The description was so clear and minute that Mr. Mangin often says, when speaking of the incident, 'I saw that fork just as plain as I see you now.' " Andrew Mangin went out to his tool shed and whittled a prototype of the fork out of yellow pine. Once Anna approved the model, Andrew had a more substantive model of the fork made, first from iron, and then from white metal. Anna Mangin received the patent for the pastry fork on March 1, 1892.[17]

The pastry fork had many uses, including beating eggs, thickening foods, making drawn butter, mashing potatoes, making salad dressings, and most importantly, kneading pastry dough. "The curved piece at the upper end of the handle is what Mrs. Mangin calls the cutter or trimmer for pie crust."[18] The pastry fork improved the lives of many people, and eventually led to more electric mixing inventions that are used to this day. Kneading pastry dough by hand is a grueling process that can cause arm cramping and other pains. Also, the dough often does not get fully incorporated when mixed by hand. If the dough does not fully incorporate during the kneading process, then it will not rise, resulting in a dense, and in most cases, underbaked consistency. [1]

Exhibition

Anna Mangin's pastry fork was displayed at the New York Afro-American Exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.[1] The exhibit was located in the women's exhibit building on the second floor, where Mangin had a corner area to showcase the invention.

[Foggy]

Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. She became a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court around 1005, and continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work, reflected in The Diary of Lady Murasaki. After several years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and became the subject of scholarly criticism. The Tale of Genji was translated into English in the early 20th century; scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murasaki_Shikibu

[Ben-Prime]

Murasaki Shikibu (c. 973 – c. 1014 or 1025) was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. She became a lady-in-waiting to Empress Shōshi at the Imperial court around 1005, and continued to write during her service, adding scenes from court life to her work, reflected in The Diary of Lady Murasaki. After several years, she left court and retired with Shōshi to the Lake Biwa region. Within a decade of its completion, Genji was distributed throughout the provinces; within a century it was recognized as a classic of Japanese literature and became the subject of scholarly criticism. The Tale of Genji was translated into English in the early 20th century; scholars continue to recognize the importance of her work, which reflects Heian court society at its peak.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murasaki_Shikibu

I still remember having to read that at 18, in a comparative literature class at NYU, in the late 1980s. I can still see the heavy softcover tome in my mind's eye. It was at the time one of the thickest books I'd ever had to carry around to class and I had to wrestle it into my backpack. And I say all of this fondly.

[keith]

I normally don't like pasting Xcrement on the board, but this too interesting to pass up.

[tweet][/tweet]

[RVInit]

[Slim Cognito]

Martyna Wojciechowska

She is a Polish filmmaker and journalist who has traveled all over the world documenting difficult social situations women and children endure worldwide but her focus is women empowerment despite oppression and abuse. Her series, Woman At The End Of The World, has over 70 episodes, the latest season currently in editing.

I'm still unclear what American channels carry or will carry her series, including the upcoming season but will update when I have that information. It currently runs on TVN in Poland. The dance troupe I recently joined was honored to be the subject of one of her newest episodes (pre-me). Although our group certainly would not be considered in any way oppressed, she found it uplifting to see a group of older woman still kicking ass and taking names, or, as others may refer to it, dancing their 60, 70 and even 80-year-old butts off in costumes totally inappropriate for their age group. Also too, there is the charity work they do for visually impaired veterans which they also cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyna_Wojciechowska

[Suranis]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkjr34r2zzo

Irish woman whose forecast saved D-Day dies at 100

Maureen Sweeney has died at the age of 100

Published
18 December 2023, 10:38 GMT

Updated 7 hours ago

Maureen Sweeney, the Irish woman whose weather forecast changed the course of the D-Day landings has died at the age of 100.

In 1944 Mrs Sweeney and her husband Ted worked at a coast guard and weather station in Blacksod Bay, County Mayo on Ireland’s west coast.

They were tasked with taking hourly barometer readings night and day in the lead up to the Allied invasion of Normandy.

Their reports contributed to the date of the invasion being pushed back due to an impending storm.

"We were told that our reports were the first to show any change coming in for good weather or bad weather," she told the BBC in 2016.

On 3 June the readings showed a storm approaching from the Atlantic.

This information led to the invasion of Nazi-occupied France by Allied troops being postponed by a day, allowing the weather to improve.

The landings, which were the biggest invasion by sea in history, marked the start of the campaign to free north-west Europe from German occpation.

Their success helped pave the way for the defeat of the Nazi regime

The invasion of Normandy by allied forces was postponed by a day

Despite the official neutrality of Ireland during World War Two, information gathered by the Irish Meteorological Service was shared with the Allies.

Preparations for the invasion of Normandy has been in the works for years, with Allied leaders agreeing that the invasion could only be attempted under certain weather conditions.

The most important of these were were wind and visibility.

The original date chosen for the invasion was 5 June 1944.

But at 13:00 on 3 June, 21-year-old Ms Sweeney was first to forecast a severe storm approaching Europe from over the Atlantic Ocean.

Her forecast was then phoned into London.

In 2014, Mrs Sweeney recalled to the Irish Independent that she had received a phone call from London asking for the readings to be checked again.

These observations from the west of Ireland formed an important part of the forecasting decisions of a team of American and British forecasters who urged that the invasion be delayed.

Maureen Sweeney and her husband Ted worked at a weather station in Blacksod Bay, County Mayo

In 2021, Ms Sweeney was awarded a special US House of Representatives honour.

Her family said she passed away peacefully at the Sonas Tí Aire Nursing Home, Belmullet, on Sunday.

Her husband Ted died in 2001.

Mrs Sweeney's funeral Mass is due to take place Friday at 12:00 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Aughleamon.

She is then to be buried in Faulmore Cemetery

[RTH10260]

Remember the tenacity of 400,000 Welsh women a century ago. Then use your power to shape events today
As we celebrate the return to Wales of the peace petition sent to the US in the 1920s, we should also harness its spirit of togetherness

Rowan Williams
Sat 30 Dec 2023 09.00 CET

One significant anniversary in 2023 passed almost without mention. In May 1923, the Welsh women’s peace petition was initiated – a plea from the women of Wales to the women of the US, urging the US to take its place in the newly formed League of Nations and encouraging its full participation in the permanent court of international justice, which had come into being in 1922. The text refers to American-Welsh cooperation in the 19th century, and welcomes the steps taken after the first world war to control the arms trade and tackle what we now call human trafficking and the movement of illegal drugs.

These are issues that give it a startlingly contemporary ring. But more startling is the fact that nearly 400,000 women in Wales signed. The petition, with all its handwritten signatures (amounting to several miles’ worth of paper), was received formally in Washington DC, and travelled all over the US, as far as the west coast. Housed in a purpose-made chest of Welsh oak, it ended up in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC – where, after an initial flare of enthusiasm, it was forgotten for decades. In its country of origin, it was commemorated only by a small plaque in the Temple of Peace in Cardiff.



https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... e-petition

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Fascinating!

[Annrc]

Interesting. Thank you for sharing.

[Suranis]

This is St Munditia, in St Peters Church in Munich in Germany.

Martyred in 310 AD in Rome, Saint Munditia is the patron saint of single women.

munita.jpg (116.91 KiB) Viewed 27054 times

I found it interesting because there is so much around about death being a terrible thing and bodies should be put out of sight and mind, but this is a skeleton on display as though it is nothing to be ashamed of, and it is made beautiful. It's a healthy thing, to me anyway.

There's more photos of displayed Saint Skeletons on this page, if you are interested. https://www.ranker.com/list/preserved-s ... sa-sartore

[Suranis]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jack-black-mom/

Jack Black's mom was Judith Love Cohen, a NASA engineer who helped create the abort-guidance system that rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts.
Rating:
True


On April 24 2021, a Reddit post about NASA engineer Judith Love Cohen went viral. Citing a story by Jason Kottke from 2019, the post suggests that Cohen was not only an accomplished NASA engineer, but also the mother of actor and musician Jack Black:

[Today I learned] Judith Love Cohen, who helped create the Abort-Guidance System which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts, went to work on the day she was in labor. She took a printout of a problem she was working on to the hospital. She called her boss and said she finished the problem and gave birth to Jack Black.

This assertion is true. As described by her son, University of Southern California engineering professor Neil Siegel (Jack Black's half-brother) in an 2016 obituary he penned, Cohen's "first passions were dancing and engineering," and "by age 19, she was a dancer in the Corps de Ballet of the New York Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, and a student in engineering school of Brooklyn." She later obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at USC. Her career at NASA spanned multiple well-known projects, according to Siegel:

Her engineering career included roles on the teams that created the guidance computer for the Minuteman missile, the Abort-Guidance System in the Lunar Excursion Module for the Apollo space program, the ground system for the Tracking Data, and Relay System Satellite (recently retired after nearly 40 years of operations on orbit!) among others.

It was, Siegel said, her work on the Apollo project she was most proud of:

My mother usually considered her work on the Apollo program to be the highlight of her career. When disaster struck the Apollo 13 mission, it was the Abort-Guidance System that brought the astronauts home safely. Judy was there when the Apollo 13 astronauts paid a “thank you” to the TRW [now Northrop Grumman] facility in Redondo Beach, [California].

The story of Jack Black's birth occurring while Cohen solved an engineering problem from a hospital bed comes from this obituary as well. "She actually went to her office on the day that Jack was born," Siegel wrote. "When it was time to go to the hospital, she took with her a computer printout of the problem she was working on. Later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And . . . oh, yes, the baby was born, too."

Jack Black, the aforementioned baby, would grow up to become a prolific actor and musician. In September 2019, Black paid tribute to his mother on Instagram with a 1959 photo of her next to Pioneer Spacecraft

[Suranis]

Not a living woman but I think this counts;

In Mikladalur Harbor on Kalsoy, part of the Faroe Islands in Denmark, stands a striking 9 ft-tall statue made of bronze and stainless steel, depicting the mythical Kópakonan (The Seal Wife). Unveiled in August 2014, this sculpture was crafted by artist Hans Pauli Olsen and serves as a tribute to the selkie legends prevalent in this region. These tales, particularly two famous myths about the Seal Wife, are deeply rooted in Faroese folklore. The legend describes selkies as humans who chose the sea over life, transforming into seals. According to myth, once every year on Twelfth Night, they could shed their seal skins, assume human form, and revel in earthly pleasures for a short time. ( Jay Swank (@dvos_jay))

Picture is large hence the spoiler.

► Show Spoiler

Selkie.jpg (283.03 KiB) Viewed 26911 times

[John Thomas8]

Cathay Williams, Civil War soldier:

[Volkonski]

Jodie Foster: Gen Z can be 'really annoying' to work with

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment- ... press.coop

Foster singled out British actor Ramsey for praise, recalling how she first met The Last of Us and Game of Thrones star at Elle's Women in Hollywood celebration.

Foster described it as a "wonderful event" but noted that all of the attendees were "wearing heels and eyelashes".

"There are other ways of being a woman, and it's really important for people to see that. And Bella, who gave the best speech, was wearing the most perfect suit, beautifully tailored, and a middle parting and no makeup."

Foster added that when she was young she would not have been able to dress like Ramsey in a suit and no make-up at a showbiz event.

"Because we weren't free. Because we didn't have freedom. And hopefully that's what the vector of authenticity that's happening offers - the possibility of real freedom," she added.

[keith]

This came to me via faceache, but there ain't no way to post from faceache so I'll just link to her wikipedia article instead.

Wikipedia: Cecilia Payne Gaposchkin

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (born Cecilia Helena Payne; May 10, 1900 – December 7, 1979) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.[1] Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.

Also: Snopes: Did this Woman Really Discover What 'the Universe is Made of'?

Cecilia Payne (who went by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin most of her life) was instrumental in discovering the ubiquity of hydrogen in our universe, and the data she derived for her 1925 dissertation are likely the most significant contributions to our modern understanding of the true composition of stars. Despite this, she was, at the time, encouraged to downplay her paradigm-challenging results at the behest of men who would later verify them as accurate.

Because Harvard did not give Ph.D.'s to women, she received the first-ever astronomy doctorate from Radcliffe College, Harvard’s sister institution that is now part of Harvard University. She was the first person of any gender to receive an astronomy doctorate through the Harvard College Observatory, and her Ph.D. — awarded in 1925 — predates the formation of the Harvard Astronomy Department, which was founded in 1931. Her thesis became the first monograph published by the Observatory.

Faceache meme claim: “Cecilia Payne was the first person ever to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy from Radcliffe College with what Otto Strauve called “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”

This is true and also undersells her achievements. She was also the first person to get a doctoral degree through the Harvard College Observatory, and her thesis was the first item published as a monograph by that institution. In 1929, noted astronomer Strauve did indeed write that her thesis was “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”

[Suranis]

Hazel Ying Lee loved to have fun. She liked playing pranks, and some described her as hilarious. She was also adventurous and athletic, enjoying swimming and playing handball. But maybe most of all, Hazel was courageous and loved flying planes. About Hazel's love for flying, her sister said she "enjoyed the danger and doing something that was new to Chinese girls."

Hazel was born to Chinese-American immigrant parents in Portland, Oregon, in 1912. At nineteen, Hazel watched a friend fly. That experience marked the beginning of her lifelong love. She saved money and, with the financial help of the Portland Chinese Benevolent Society, earned her pilot's license, making her the first Chinese-American woman to earn one.

Wanting to put her aviation skills to good use, Hazel accepted an invitation to become a Women Airforce Service Pilot for the U.S. during World War II. The program had been created to add more pilots for the U.S. in the war effort, though these female pilots were non-combat, focusing their efforts on testing and ferrying aircraft and training pilots. They were also not officially considered part of the military and thus received no military benefits. Hazel joined as the first Chinese-American pilot.

Hazel's attitude towards the work was described well by a fellow pilot — "I'll take and deliver anything." "Calm and fearless," she had a great attitude and brought her sense of humor to the job. After an incident in which her plane went down in a farm field and a person on the ground mistook her for an enemy Japanese combatant, Hazel shared the story with her fellow pilots to exuberant laughter and continued her work proudly supporting the U.S. war effort.

Sadly, however, on November 23rd, 1944, while flying in bad weather in North Dakota, she crashed with another plane upon landing. She suffered severe burns, and two days later, she passed away. Hazel was buried next to her brother, a U.S. soldier who was killed while fighting in France three days after Hazel's passing.

Of the 38 female pilots to die during WWII, Hazel was the last one.

Hazel.jpg (44.39 KiB) Viewed 25684 times

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

My godmother, Adele Thorell, trained student pilots in this program. One of the students crashed the plane and Adele lost her leg from the crash.

[Suranis]

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2024/0 ... wo-graces/

A statue dedicated to legendary Mayo pirate queen Grace O'Malley has been unveiled in Newport.

It is the culmination of a campaign to promote Newport as the town of the 'Two Graces' after a statue of Grace Kelly was unveiled last year by her son, Prince Albert of Monaco.

The initiative was undertaken by the Newport Business Association to celebrate two iconic women with close ties to the town and to help promote tourism in the area.

The statue of Grace O'Malley is the work of local artist Mark Rode, who also sculpted the statue of Grace Kelly.

It depicts the pirate queen at the bow of her boat pointing out to Clew Bay and will be a focal point at the entrance to the town.

It was unveiled by Nano O'Malley McMahon, the current Chieftain of the O’Malley Clan.

...

One the event organisers Darragh McGee said: "Newport has had a long-standing historical link with the pirate queen Gráinne Mhaol, the Irish version of her name which is now more popularly termed as Gráinne Uaile.

"She was the fierce protector of Clew Bay and the Barony of Burrishoole (Newport), a larger than life figure known for her commanding leadership and consummate bravery.

"Gráinne Mhaol was our revered seafaring queen. She was a proud, independent woman who defended her homeland and its people with honour."

That's a very sanitized opinion of Grace O'Malley who spent most of her time attacking stuff, including Desmond Castle in Askeaton, Co Limerick, where I grew up. She was a very fierce Woman however, and there is a story that she gave birth on her ship. The next day she was below cuddling her baby when the Second in Command rushed in and told her that the Ship was in trouble as it was losing a fight with another ship they were attacking. She came up on deck screaming "Can't I spend one single day lying with my new baby?" and basically screamed at her men till the battle turned around.

She was captured in the fight for Askeaton Castle and spent a night in the Dungeon before being sent to England for an Audience with Queen Elisabeth I. In that audience Elizabeth could not speak Irish and Grace could bot speak English, so they conversed in Latin. Apparently Grace charmed the hell out of the Queen and fed her some bull shit about how she was a lowly Irish woman who was forced into Piracy by the depredations of Nicholas Malby, Elisabeth's agent in Galway, who was trying to take her land and the lands of other Irish Lords. Regardless she was sent home with the Queen's favour, much to Malby's fury.

Of course she went straight back to attacking shipping.

Anyway that's my offhand knowledge of Grace O'Malley. It has to be said that her husband was no weak guy, he was off raiding people on land like she was doing on sea.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Cool!