Fighting Gender Barriers

 The quote by Simone de Beauvoir, says it all. 

I wrote 300 Unsung Women to shine a light on women who fought against the gender barriers accomplishing as much or more than their male counterparts with or without recognition.

Originally, I thought I would do a calendar on the birth date of each woman, but then I found I had up to nine women for some dates and nothing for another. It was then I decided to feature 300 women. 

In the book, women made a difference in over 60 areas of life dominated by men. Many of the women worked in more than one area.

So many women friends, who supported my project, offered me names. 

The hardest part was condensing my research into 200 words or less and still capturing the essence of the woman. 

Here's a sample of the women you could meet in the pages and part of their bios: 

• Dorothy Irene Height was accepted at Barnard but not allowed to enroll. They already had their two-negro quota. She earned two degrees elsewhere. Although she helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, she wasn't invited to speak.
• Gabrielle Maria Petit served as a spy against the Germans for the British in WWII. She acted as underground mail service until she was caught and shot.
• Henrietta Leavitt was one of the women that "worked cheaper " than a man to count stars for astronomer Edward Pickering, The morality of women working at all was questioned. 
• Another astronomer Vera Cooper Rubin wasn't allowed to present a paper at American Astronomical Society when pregnant. She did some ground breaking research on dark matter, but was refused positions because she was a woman.
• Mary Ann Camberton Shadd Cary was the first black woman publisher in North America.
• Grace O'Malley was a pirate in Ireland. She met with Queen Elizabeth 1.

A woman was the founder of forensic science. Others were archivists. Women inventors of things like windshield wipers and dishwashers received neither credit nor money for their inventions.  

Some of the women were discouraged from anything but the womanly arts. One family locked a library so the girl couldn't read. 

Many, who were successful, had fathers who encouraged learning. One father, who encouraged his daughter, was happy she found work but would not let her take a salary. For those with supportive fathers, it was easier, but for those that were discouraged, they merely fought harder to do what they felt they had to do.

300 Unsung Women is available at Blackwell https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/300-Unsung-Women-by-D-L-Nelson/9798990385504 in the UK and in North America Barnes and Noble www.barnesandnoble.com/ 

Visit https://dlnelsonwriter.com to see D-L other publications.