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Powerful Women in a Men's World

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Profiles

  • Public domain image from the U.S. National Archives.
    Sen. Margaret Madeline Smith (1897 - 1995)
    U.S. Senator Margaret Madeline Smith (Chase) Margaret Chase Smith was a U.S. Senator and U.S. Representative from Maine. She was the first woman elected to both the House and the Senate, and was also...
  • Dr. Katherine Julia Bishop (1889 - 1975)
    Katharine Julia Bishop (Scott) Dr. Bishop was a trained anatomist, medical physician, researcher and educator best known for co-discovering Vitamin E Early Life In 1889, Bishop was bo...
  • Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard (1839 - 1898)
    Frances Elizabeth Caroline Willard Held DAR membership # 243 Willard was an American educator, temperance reformer, and women's suffragist. Her influence was instrumental in the passage of t...
  • CC BY-SA 4.0 Jaan Künnap
    Junko Tabei (1939 - 2016)
    Wikipedia Junko Tabei (Japanese: 田部井 淳子, Hepburn: Tabei Junko, née Ishibashi; 22 September 1939 – 20 October 2016) was a Japanese mountaineer, author, and teacher. She was the first woman to reach th...
  • Estelline Mabel Pike (1908 - 1990)
    Estelline Mable Pike (Lovin) Estelline Pike was born June 5, 1908 as Estelline Mable Lovin, daughter of Ada I. Stevenson, and Jackson Sperlin Lovin, a railroader in Estelline, Texas (near Amarillo...

I keep coming across semi-invisible (by which, I suppose I mean to HIStory ;-)) women, who quite obviously wield power or change their society behind the scenes of (& often by manipulating) the males whose stories are told, and I can't find a good project to attach them to - in order to give them a trace on Geni.

There are lots of projects for great women, who do impressive things (especially era-specific projects) - but none that encompass women who affect the course of their society irrespective of whether they are laudable -

eg -by divorcing one king and offering yourself to whoever beats him, causing a battle that wipes out most of the Irish nobility at Clontarf: Gormflaith

- or by quietly manipulating the politics of the colonial government who appoint you as a puppet regent, in the interests of your tribe: Nonesi Great House Wife, Twice regent of the abaThembu

- or by killing off your powerful son-in-law to change the balance of power in favour of a new son-in-law: Pepin, the Mayor of the Palace of Austrasia: Anseflede

I'm sure people can think of lots of others, or come across them in the course of researching for Geni, so I'm provisionally calling this project: 'Powerful Women in a Men's World', and asking for people to attach them & their stories here as we find them - whatever era or area they are in.

Work-in-progress - please jump in. We're having an interesting Discussion here about exactly what niche this is trying to fill.

Resources and References: