The women I admire
Today is international women’s day, and one of the questions I got asked was which women do I admire. It made me stop and think, not because there a not a ton of amazing women I admire, but rather why that should even be a question. I have never been one for holding a torch to people, enjoying those in the headlines for who they are rather than putting them on a pedestal. Yet, given the explicit lack of women in many public fields it would be churlish of me to hand wave admiration away as a fleeting and personal thing.
The woman I answered the initial question with is Prof. Lynn Conway — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Conway — whose amazing computational work has been mirrored by her trans activism over the last two decades. For me she exemplifies the shoulders that I personally stand on, both in terms of a woman in STEM and a trans woman from the period before trans issues were publicly acceptable. She is an amazing mind and effective speaker, someone who deserves all the accolades she has accrued over the years.
Prof. Kimberlé Crenshaw — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimberl%C3%A9_Williams_Crenshaw — is another of my personal feminist icons. As an academic her work has forged a new school of feminism that enables identity to be more than race, gender, class, profession, age and all the other intersections that come with being human. She fought for black women’s rights through the courts and in academic papers, and to this day she continues to advocate fearlessly on critical race theory. That she opened academia’s eyes to the structures of oppression and sparked a new generation of thinking makes her an absolute hero in my eyes.
Over the last decade I have built up a strong feminist circle in my life, and each of the women within it have both helped shape my understanding of womanhood and shown me the joy in life. Feminism came later in life to me than it really should have, but through the night long conversations, larks, and copious bottles of wine my understanding developed and matured. Of course, I am a feminist, that was the only conclusion I could come to, and thanks to these wonderful ladies I have it grounded in lived experiences.
There are many, many more women whose lives have inspired and touched my own in ways I cannot really convey in writing. Every time I read female writers works, engage in any form of content created by women, or the women I work with I am always learning and developing. This is what makes International Women’s Day so potent for me, in that as much as it is a chance to celebrate the headline female icons, it is also a chance to tack stock and pride in the women within and around our lives. Feminism is never a done deal, there will always be more to pick over and systems of oppression to break down. Today is a chance to celebrate how far women have come and just how far we have left to go for an equal and equitable society. For me, that is the impact International Women’s Day has, and one that benefits all of us.
