Jean Kilbourne is a feminist author, lecturer, and filmmaker, critical of the media and advertising, who has published three books and four films. One of her main focuses is the effect of advertising on women's images of themselves. "Why 6,000,000 women who used to carry a little red book now carry a little red lipstick," says an …
Rose Winslow on Hungry for the Vote
"God knows we don’t want other women ever to have to do this over again.” Rose Winslow was brought as a baby to the United States by her Polish parents so that she could grow up in a free democratic country. Her father labored as a coal miner and steel worker and as a child …
Sandra Steingraber on Making a Difference
Sandra Steingraber has been called a "poet with a knife". She is a renowned ecologist, a cancer survivor, award-winning author, mother, and poet. She is the Rachel Carson of our times calling us to wake up and rid our earth of the toxins that affect the development of our children. Like Rachel she has been attacked by …
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Gila Green on Betrayal
Canadian Gila Green moved to Israel in 1994 where she writes, edits, teaches and publishes fiction. Find her classes at WOW. She has just published her first novel. Betrayal is a theme that threads through my entire debut novel, King of the Class. On a macro level, the setting of the novel is the post-civil war Israel of the future; …
Madeline Grumet on Reading Texts
"Our stories are the masks through which we can be seen, and with every telling we stop the flood and swirl of thought so someone can get a glimpse of us, and maybe catch us if they can" Madeleine R. Grumet Madeline Grumet is Professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel …
Lisa Delpit on Teaching
"We do not really see through our eyes or hear through our ears, but through our beliefs." Lisa Delpit is Director of the Center for Urban Educational Excellence. She is the author of numerous books on educating children of poverty and color and on improving teacher education. As a child she experienced segregation growing up …
Victoria Woodhull on the 47%
Victoria Claflin Woodhull, the first woman candidate for the presidency of the United States, ran for office in 1872, sixty years before women had the right to vote. The first woman stockbroker, opening a brokerage firm on Wall Street with her sister in 1870, and first woman newspaper publisher, Woodhull was born poor, received only three years of …
Leymah Gobwee on Peace
Women wake up--you have a voice in the peace process! Leymah Gobwee won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Inspired by reading Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and theologian John Yoder, and Kenyan author Hizkias Assef, this mother of four brought the women of Liberia together to face down a corrupt government and end war. Through public singing and praying in …
Susan B. Anthony on the Right to Vote
I wonder what Susan B. Anthony would say in this age of voter identification and suppression? This is what she said at her trial for voting illegally in 1873. ...the United States Constitution, the supreme law of this land, says, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States...are citizens; no State shall deny or abridge the privileges …
Margaret Atwood on the Need to Scratch
Award-winning Canadian author Margaret Atwood was born in 1939. She has written upwards of twenty books, numerous short stories, and poems. Her writing has consistently crossed genres and poked at sacred cows. Atwood characterizes her writing as social science fiction. In the historical novel Alias Grace, Atwood tells the tale of Grace Marks, a young …
Mother Jones on Labor
“My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.” Mary Harris Jones was born in Ireland in 1830 or 1837 depending on the source. She was trained as a teacher and taught for several years in a convent. Her great strength came from early tragedy. …
Beatrice Potter Webb on Ruling the World
Beatrice Potter Webb (1858-1943) is best known for the work she did as a social reformer and economist with her husband Sidney Webb and for coining the term collective bargaining. Together they published the book The History of Trade Unionism and traveled England trying to break down the poor laws. In 1895 they founded the …
Harriet Kesia Hunt on Critics
Harriet Kesia Hunt (1805-1875) was a self-supporting spinster school teacher when she first became interested in medicine. Her younger sister suffered a debilitating aliment that was exacerbated by the treatment she received from the physicians. Hunt studied homeopathic medicine under Elizabeth and Richard Mott who identified her sister’s illness as tuberculosis and cured her. In …
Felicia Hemans on Marriage
A forgotten woman poet... Felicia Hemans was born in Liverpool in 1753 and died in Dublin in 1834 although she spent most of her life in Wales. She was an acclaimed poetess during her lifetime, admired by Byron, Wadsworth, and George Elliot among others. However, she is forgotten today; her flowery poetry out of style. Separated from …
bell hooks on I wanted to write…
A passionate scholar, philosopher, and educator, bell hooks is the critically acclaimed author of books on racism, feminism, education, class, and culture. A listing of just some of her titles shows the breadth and depth of thought and concerns: Critical Thinking, Teaching to Transgress, Sisters of the Yam, Teaching Community: The Politics of Hope, Art …
Jane Addams on Democracy
Jane Addams [1860-1935] is well-known for her work at Hull House helping the indigent. She is lesser known for her crusade for women's suffrage and world peace, and her philosophical writings. In 1931 she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Addams had three ethical principles we would do well to hold today. Teach by …
Jeanne Bouza Rose On Resiliency
Jeanne Bouza Rose has over thirty years of experience in education having taught first, second, third, fourth graders and designed an enrichment program for an entire school population of seven hundred. Having had a life changing Fulbright teaching exchange in Scotland, and having found rewarding artistic inspiration in photos taken during visits to the Orkney Islands over …
Lucretia Mott on Truth
The Quaker minister, Lucretia Mott, lived from 1793 to 1880. During that time she fought to reform society in every way she could. She believed that forming organized groups and taking action against social injustice was the way to bring about change. She founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833), was the impetus behind the …
Gila Green on Beginning
Gila Green grew up in Ottawa, Canada and moved to Israel in 1994. Her short story collection White Zion was a finalist for the Doris Bakwin Literary Award (Carolina Wren Press). Her writing has been nominated for seven awards including The Best New Writing Eric Hoffer Award, Walrus Literary Award, TenTen Fiction Contest and Haaretz Short Fiction …
Tara Fox Hall on Getting Published
Tara Fox Hall’s writing credits include nonfiction, horror, suspense, erotica, and contemporary and historical paranormal romance. She also coauthored the essay “The Allure of the Serial Killer,” published in Serial Killers - Philosophy for Everyone: Being and Killing (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Her first e-novella, Surrender to Me, was published in September 2011. Her first full-length novel, …
Women, Words, and Wisdom 