Written by Marianne Mansfield
She’s a woman ahead of her time.
Who comes to your mind when you read those words? Last weekend I heard a minister refer to a beloved aunt in that manner. Later in his talk he told us that she was 102 when she died.
So I challenged myself and then asked some friends this question: Name a woman or women considered ahead of her/their time. At first I struggled with my answers. My mind kept churning backward in time. Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart. Mother Theresa, Indira Gandhi, Joan of Arc. I would, of course, stand by my selection of any of these women, or many more whom I don’t have the space to list.
But I wanted to focus on current times, and contemporary women. And, women with whom the general public would be familiar. If that last weren’t true, I’d tell you about my Aunt Rosemary, five feet nothing, who owned and operated a tavern in downtown Indianapolis after WW II. With malice toward none, she managed unruly customers with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat stowed behind the bar, but within easy reach. What made Aunt Rosemary a woman ahead of her time was that she led her life in a profession dominated by men, and created her own accommodations within her setting which contributed to her success. Of course there was the Louisville Slugger, but it was also the well-earned respect she was gifted with from the staff and her ‘regulars’.
Coming up with a list of contemporary women came slowly at first, but as the juices flowed and my friends chimed in, the pace picked up. Not to that of a roaring river, to be sure but at least to that of a stream fed by spring run-off. So, in no particular order here are some of the women who made today’s list.
Malala Yousafzai, whose insistence that girls in Pakistan had the same rights to education as did boys, damned her to an assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012. Malala not only survived the bullet the terrorists tried to put through her brain, she has also gone on to accept the Nobel Prize for Peace and to continue her advocacy for the education of women. Our world is made a little sweeter each time Malala casts her deep brown eyes on another girl and raises her up.
Mo’ne Davis, the first girl to pitch a shut-out in Little League World Series history in 2013. Mo’ne was thrust into the media spotlight for her gender in a sport dominated by young boys. What garnered her more attention, however, even than her smoking fast ball, was her quiet dignity and poise. She became the first Little Leaguer, boy or girl, to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, and has since published her memoir, “Remember my Name.” We will, Mo’ne. We will.
Sandra Day O’Connor. Sandra was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. Her appointment, made by Ronald Reagan, came in 1981 and ushered in a present-day tradition of nominating to the highest court in the land the most qualified person, regardless of their XY gene make-up. It would take more than this column to note Sandra’s many influences on the Court’s decisions during her tenure on the bench, but for our purposes her drive onto the national stage makes her a woman ahead of her time. Sandra pried open a previously padlocked door, and then stood aside as the likes of Justices Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, Sonia Sotamayor and Elana Kagan strode through.
I could go on, and it is tough not to write about each woman in detail. However, there is something more to be said here, and conclusions to be drawn, but before we get to that I want to list some of the other women who have earned a prominent place on the list.
Anne Lamott: a writer of fiction and non-fiction who is also a progressive political activist and public speaker.
Billie Jean King: A former World Class tennis player who transformed women’s sports and is a well-known activist for gender equality.
Sally Ride: American physicist and astronaut who became the youngest person and first American woman to travel into space.
Danika Patrick: the most successful woman in American open wheel racing.
And the list could go on, and on…Jane Goodall, Pat Summitt, Anna Deavere Smith.
There is an elephant in this story, however, and to fail to acknowledge it is to fail the legacies of all women who are ahead of their times.
Look again at the bios above. Think of the bio of any woman you imagine should have been included here. Two strobe beacons of significance glare out.
The first is that many of the adult women are single. Is that a price a woman must pay to be ahead of her time? Is this the Hobson’s choice she faces as she moves forward? Choose marriage or choose to be a pathfinder?
Or is it that women who are leaders choose to live lives devoted to the contemplation of complexities and therefore need solitude to optimize their work?
And, note as well, that more than a few women who fall into this character are openly gay. Is that significant? I don’t know, but it is worth pondering.
The second elephant, and the one I find both largely disheartening and totally maddening is that the majority of women on the list above are considered ahead of their time because they broke into a field of endeavor formerly dominated by men. While it can be said that they broke new ground, it was new ground for women. Yes, of course, their excellence in their chosen fields is unparalleled, but what they are known for is being firsts. First woman American astronaut, first woman Supreme Court justice, first young woman pitcher in a Little League World Series with a curve ball that would make you weep.
To be sure, I know there are women out there who are breaking new ground simply by being firsts. Unfortunately, when I set out to make this list, I couldn’t come up with any.
Maybe that’s because the time women are ahead of right now, in 2015, is a time to come one day when accomplishments in any field are judged not by who made them: When deeds are judged solely by their significance to the pursuit of excellence, which, in my mind, has no gender.
Marianne Mansfield has lived in Southern Utah since 2010. She and her husband followed their grandchildren to this area fromMichigan. In her former life she was a public school educator. More than half of her career was spent as an elementary principal, which is why her response to most challenges is, “This isn’t my first rodeo.” She grew up in Indiana, and attended Miami of Ohio,Ball State University and Michigan State. She is a loyal MSU Spartan and Detroit Tiger baseball fan. She has been writing fiction and opinion since her retirement in 2004.
