in case you didn't know, march is women's history month. though i missed my opportunity to post this on march 8th, national women's day, i didn't want to skip out on sharing with everybody some of my favorite women in history!
alexandra david-neel was an explorer, spiritualist, buddhist, anarchist, writer, and general all around badass. i read her book magic and mystery in tibet for a summer class on buddhism during college and have considered her the ultimate she-ra ever sense. in 1924 the city of lhasa tibet was forbidden to foreigners, but she went anyway and documented it in her writings (she had been travelling the region for some time by this point and was sneaked in disguised as a chinese doctor). she was a female freemason, co-wrote an (at the time) unpublishable anarchist treatise, was prima donna of a touring french opera company, and adopted a sikkimese monk who had long been her travelling and meditation companion.
hedy lamarr (
who apparently answered the vanity fair proust questionnaire 97% similarly to me) was an actress called "the most beautiful woman in europe,"and the inventor of wifi. ok, maybe not officially the inventor of wifi, but she and composer george antheil co-invented an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, which laid the groundwork for modern wireless devices and was considered so essential to the national defense department its details were considered unpublishable by government officials. her birth name was hedwig, which means she's featured in harry potter too. awesome.
julia child was, obviously, the media cooking personality "the french chef" extraordinaire, as well as a decorated research assistant for the secret intelligence division of the US government during world war two. during her war experience, where she was honored with the emblem of meritorious civilian service, she met her husband who introduced her to the magic of french cuisine. her 726-page debut book, mastering the art of french cooking, was an american sensation and she established the julia child foundation in 1995 which now issues grant funding to various non-profits.
lois long was a writer and socialite of the 1920's whose career as the new yorker's nightlife writer "lipstick," earned her her reputation as "the epitome of a flapper." she became a media darling, despite her longstanding anonymity while writing under her pseudonym, for her wild escapades, satiric wit, and immersion in the jazz age 20's decadence. an icon in an era of american hedonism, she and her assistant decided to wear roller skates in the new yorker's office because their cubicles were too far apart.
