"Unless and until we can reconstruct our past, draw on it, and transmit it to the next generation, our oppression persists." -- Dale Spender, Women of Ideas and What Men Have Done to Them
In recognition of women everywhere, I decided to explore what I find to be common denominators with regards to testing greatness in women. In order to understand "great" women, I found that women who were "great" had the following characteristics: 1) intelligence; 2) motivation; 3) strength (not just physical strength); 4) little if any emotion; 5) love or lack of love for human life and for themselves; 6) dominance; 7) education; 8) busy; 9); perception or vision; 10) confidence; 11) ambition; 12) talent; 13) morals; and 14) struggles or challenges. Some of the women who fit these characteristics are: Elizabeth Blackwell (1st American to earn medical degree), Emma Goldman (one of the first to speak out on birth control), Aphra Behn (1st women to make a living as a writer), Elizabeth Inchbald (1st woman to wear her own hair on stage), Joan Crawford (1st woman CEO for Pepsi-Cola), Maria Agnesi (10th century prodigy in mathematics); Janet Guthrie (1st woman race car driver) , Esther Morris (Wyoming's 1st woman justice of the peace) to name a few. This list is anything but complete; however, this list proves that we may not recognize all these names, but, in some way, they have faced challenges and beaten the odds to pave the way for all of us to succeed.
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Karen Holleran is owner of JustWrite and is a college educator. Ms. Holleran teaches Composition, and Business and Technical Writing, and is the author of So, You're Going To College!, her first book, published in April 1998. She also presents papers in medieval literature, Victorian literature and composition. Ms. Holleran recently finished editing two books in Astrology. She resides in Davenport, Iowa.