Top 100 Women of the 20th Century
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| 51 | Julia Cameron
As a career writer, Julia Cameron is a bit of a maverick, and the advice she gives those looking for publication is equally non-conformist. Author of the million-selling creativity guide The Artist's Way, she advises freelance writers to follow their creative impulses first and find the market once the work is done. |
| 52 | Aung San Suu Chi
Nobel Peace prize winner and democratically elected leader of Burma. She spent 5 years under house arrest. |
| 53 | Edith Cowan
The first female politician in Western Australia, and possibly the first *elected* female politician anywhere (Lady Astor got her seat in the Lords) She now has a university named after her here in Perth. |
| 54 | Aretha Franklin
Soul singer. |
| 55 | Indira Ghandi
Prime Minister of India. |
| 56 | Barbara Jordan
In l976, Barbara Jordan became the first woman and first African-American to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. In 1978 she announced that she would not seek re-election and returned to Texas as a full professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. She remained there, and became a counselor to Texas Governor Ann Richards. |
| 57 | Madonna
Pop singer. |
| 58 | Berthe Nohse Morris (Sunlit Wolf's Grandma)
Refusing to marry at 18, she attended nursing school and traveled to western Tennessee, an area she'd heard was horribly lacking in healthcare. She promptly spent all of her inheritance on 500 acres of woodlands in the lower Mississippi River bottoms. She began working for the local health department - her job was to drive to poor areas and vaccinate the children and teach the residents about cleanliness and proper sanitation. She was a leader in the healthcare community, and respected to the point of idolatry. |
| 59 | Grandma Moses
A crusty, feisty, upstate New York farmwife and grandmother. Grandma was discovered 1938 as an artist soon to gain national renown. She started with yarn, house paint on pine boards, etc., and exhibited her work along with her preserves at county fairs. The inscription on her headstone reads, "Her primitive paintings captured the spirit and preserved the scene of a vanishing countryside." |
| 60 | Emmeline Pankhurst
... and her daughters, for bringing the fight for womens' sufferage into the mainstream and really defining my image of being a strong woman. (I forget how many times they ended up in prison and went on hunger strikes - passionate all of them). |
| 61 | Valentina Tereshkova
First womyn cosmonaut (Vostok VI - June 16-19, 1963). |
| 62 | Tasha Tudor
An octogenarian New England artist, farmer, and entrepreneur. She has been writing and illustrating children's books since 1938 and now captivates a worldwide audience. That audience is intrigued not only by her stories, but also by her rendering of the traditional New England countryside depicted in those stories. |
| 63 | Alice Walker
Essayist and novelist, Alice has been through it all! When she was a child, her older brother shot her in the head (blinding her in one eye). This wild woman went on to college and has become a voice for oppressed women everywhere. Her novels include The Color Purple, Posessing the Secret of Joy (a novel about a woman has undergone "female castration"), and The Temple of My Familiar." I (Sephy Wolf) have heard her speak and she describes her deity as "the Earth" and she thinks of all life as sacred. She is gentle yet outspoken, warm and humorous. |
| 64 | Marrian Williamson
Author of Woman's Worth. |
| 65 | Donna Wilshire
Donna began her professional acting career three decades ago. She is a member of Actor's Equity and AFTRA (performers' unions), has performed on stage in New York City, in Regional theatres, and on television soaps. She has taught acting and other theatre courses at leading universities and was producer-director of her own theatre. She is a playwright and also contributes regularly to publications dealing with feminist issues. Her most recently published book is Virgin, Mother, Crone; Myths and Mysteries of the Triple Goddess. |
| 66 | Mariam Anderson
the first black mezzo-soprano to perform at the Met. She broke the colour barrier at the Met, under whose rigorous and racist dictatorship of Rudolph Bing, she had been excluded. |
| 67 | Lady Astor
The first woman elected to the House of Commons and to sit on Parliament. Known for reforms in women's and child welfare laws, she was from Virginia. |
| 68 | Margaret Atwood
Born in Ottawa, in 1939, this Candian feminist author has been 'Writer in Residence' at universities in Canada, the US and Australia. She has written over 20 books of poetry and short fiction. She has also written 9 novels, the most known being The Handmaid's Tale, 1985, and The Robber Bride, 1993, and numerous children's books, non-fiction books and television scripts. |
| 69 | Judi Bari
Environmental and social justice organizer who fought against the liquidation logging of California redwood forests by big timber corporations. She died March 2, 1997 of breast cancer. |
| 70 | Mary Ritter Beard
Edited the suffragist periodical, The Woman Voter, helped organise womyn textile workers in New York City and belonged to the Suffrage Movement. She also organized the World Center for Women's Archives and wrote many works about women and equality. |
| 71 | Gladys Brandt
She spent 40 years as an educator in the islands. She was the first female principal in Hawaii. She served as Director of the High School Division for Kamehameha Schools. Later she chaired the University of Hawaii Board of Regents, served on the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts and the Board of Governors of ASSETS School. This year (1998), the Governor appointed her as a Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. |
| 72 | C. J. Cherryh
Science fiction author. |
| 73 | Dame Agatha Christie
Prolific author and dramatist, and a Commander of the British Empire! A highly intelligent woman. |
| 74 | Susanna Cheung
When she came to Honolulu from her native Hong Kong in 1961, she was a stranger in a strange land. She did not understand the customs, culture, or the language spoken here. But she understood that love and compassion are not defined by language, culture, or race. With that understanding plus hard work and dedication, she created on Oahu, Opportunities for the Retarded, Inc. ORI is recognized as one of the best organizations in the nation for helping retarded people live useful, fulfilling lives. |
| 75 | Hillary Rodham Clinton
New Yorkk State Senator and former First Lady of the United States. |