Women Behaving Courageously: Meet Two Gracious Warriors
As I set out to write my latest book ‘Women Behaving Courageously: Gutsy women, young and old are transforming the world’ I pondered the women who, in this crazy day and age, were taking the world by storm each in their unique way. I chose 25 modern day warriors and hundreds of heroes. In my last extract, I shared with you two examples of ‘Quiet Warriors’ – Dame Jane Goodall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Today I want you to meet two ‘Gracious Warriors’:
Christine Blasey Ford is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University; she was also a research psychologist at Stanford University.
In July 2018 she heard that Brett Kavanaugh was on the shortlist to become Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She immediately contacted the Washington Post and her congresswoman Anna Eshoo and told the story of sexual abuse by Kavanaugh when they were in college. She asked for confidentiality.
Her aim was that someone should know that Kavanaugh was not a credible person to be offered such a powerful position: a lifetime tenure in the Supreme Court.
In September 2018 she stepped into the glaring global spotlight to give details of her abuse. She spoke with calm dignity, told her story, endured an invasive cross-examination and stood her ground. Not once did she lose her cool, not once did she become emotional and at no stage did she become irrational.
An FBI investigation was ordered yet dozens of witnesses who were at the party in question were never interviewed. Kavanaugh, who during his cross-examination had been decidedly emotional, angry, volatile and at times incoherent, was confirmed into a lifelong appointment on 6 October 2018.
Meanwhile, Ford received hate male and death threats that were so concerning, she and her family were forced to move out of their family home and she was no longer able to continue in her professional role. Even months later she was still receiving abusive threats and had moved home four times.
Someone was so incensed by her treatment that they set up a GoFundMe account for her. At the time of closing the account, US$647,610 had been amassed. Ford used some of the money to pay for security for herself and her family and planned to donate the balance to trauma survivors.
In November 2019, she was awarded the ACLU of Southern California’s Roger Baldwin Courage Award for speaking out against Kavanaugh.
‘Thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically altered by sexual violence have reached out to share their own experiences with me and have thanked me for coming forward. At the same time, my greatest fears have been realized—and the reality has been far worse than what I expected. My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats. I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable. These messages, while far fewer than the expressions of support, have been terrifying to receive and have rocked me to my core.’
Michelle Obama was raised in a household that valued education. Michelle and her brother were both able to read by age four. By sixth grade, Michelle was placed in a gifted programme, which led to her attending Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, Chicago’s first school for gifted children. She went on to attend Princeton University and from there to Harvard Law School.
This is where her form of militancy began, taking part in demonstrations calling for the enrolment of more minority students and professors.
Michelle became the associate dean of student services at the University of Chicago and developed the university’s first ever community service programme. This led to her being employed as executive director of community relations and external affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center.
After meeting Barack Obama and being asked to make speeches as he started on the campaign trail, it was clear that she was a natural orator. One person in one of Barack’s audiences had said, ‘You are great, Barack, but your wife, she is something else!’
Being the mother of two daughters, Michelle became vocal and passionate about protecting women from sexual harassment and encouraging schools and families to teach their girls to speak up if they were feeling uncomfortable or unsafe. She believed that girls should be taught the power of saying ‘No’ or ‘Don’t touch me’ so that from a very early age as they grew into young women, their confidence was inbuilt.
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As the first black family to move into the White House, they were subject to a particularly vengeful form of bullying from a part of the country that still hadn’t come to terms with an integrated society.
No matter how many insults were flung her way or Barack’s way, her reaction was always ‘They go low, we go high’. During her eight years as America’s first lady, Michelle Obama paid for her entire wardrobe, including designer clothes, out of her own pocket.
‘I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters, two beautiful, intelligent, black young women, playing with their dogs on the White House lawn, and because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters, and all our sons and daughters, now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.’
And I leave the final word in this extract to Darcy Eikenber
‘A leader is someone who has the clarity to know the right things to do, the confidence to know when she is wrong and the courage to do the right things even when it’s hard’.
If you are a female reading these extracts and think ‘Ah yes – that’s OK for these women, but I’m too old, not educated enough, not confident enough, not famous enough’ then please think again. As I share these extracts you will see that every woman I’ve chosen as a warrior, and later when I start introducing my ‘heroes’ was probably a reluctant warrior. Possibly never though they would ever need to be a warrior, but when the moment came, they stepped up.
I hope these stories give my readers the courage to step up to whatever challenges they are facing. Never get in the way of a woman on a mission!
AND You can grab a free electronic copy of the book?right here because if I can inspire you to be more, do more and rock a boat, then I will be delighted. If you decide NOT to rock any boats, that’s OK also, if the book simply inspires you then it has done it’s job.
Ann Andrews, CSP. Author, speaker, profiler, Life Member PSANZ
Author of:
Women Behaving Courageously:?How gutsy women, young and old, are transforming the world
Founder at Craig's Table- Recipient Summa Comp Laude 2021-22 Recipient Bloom Making a Difference Award 2023
3 年Ann Andrews CSP my late Mum used to say "if your path lead you to a mountain and there is no path around the mountain then the only thing to do is move the mountain" At the time I never fully understood the mountains my Mum had to traverse, nor was I aware of what she was teaching me. My Dad would read poetry to me, he always seemed to know the right piece to read or quote. My work over the last 20+ years has been leading me in one direction, I admit at times I refused to budge and quit more times than I am comfortable to admit. However these last few months have been the most trying of all, none of it has anything to do with covid, all of it has come because I kept hearing my Dad quote parts of W.B. Yeats "The Second Coming" "things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" "surely some revelation is at hand" Followed by my Mum telling me that most mountains have a slightly obscured way forward. Suffice to say I arrived at the mountain once more, something inside me said to truly understand what it was that I was seeing, gather all that I knew to be both true and correct even though it was far outside my ability to even recognise what comfort zone looks like. And just as Bilbo finally understood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN5_axWunlA) the key hole was located, and the process to open the door began.