Hey there, friends! I figured we were long overdue for another one of these: believe me, I’ve a neverending list of forgotten female-identifying figures I want to share with you. There are many more where this came from. :)
That said, let’s keep this intro short, and jump right into these wondrous ladies! Enjoy!
8) Fatima al-Fihri (c. 800 – c. 880 CE) – Founder of the World’s Oldest University: Fatima al-Fihri was born to a wealthy, well-educated family in Qayarawan, Tunisia, around 800 CE. Outside of that, very little is known about her early life until the 9th century: with her father and a sister, she migrated from her home country to Fez, Morocco, forced to leave during a violent ousting of Muslims from Cordoba and Qayarawan. Several years later, upon her father’s death, Fatima received a massive inheritance; using these funds, she founded a mosque and educational institution in Morocco, named the University of al-Qarawiyyin after her birthplace. She oversaw the construction and organization of the school herself—something fairly unheard of at the time—initially intending it to aid with the influx of Muslim immigrants, but, ultimately, wanting and accomplishing so much more. Officially established in 859 CE, the University was the first degree-granting educational institution in the world, and became a major intellectual center during medieval times, boasting majors such as natural sciences, languages, medicine, and astronomy. It’s rumored that Pope Sylvester II studied there; Fatima herself received a degree from her university: you can still find a paper in her handwriting in its library today. (Said library is one of the oldest and largest still existing in the world today, holding over 4000 original manuscripts dating back hundreds of years!) In Fatima’s time, the University of al-Qarawiyyin became “a bridge of knowledge between Africa…the Middle East, and Europe.” It paved the way for modern universities, and today, 1500 years later, it still grants degrees to hundreds of students a year. Such a legacy has ensured Fatima al-Fihri a place as a Moroccan icon: she is admired for her kind heart, wise mind, and endless perseverance. So why don’t we talk more about her? Part of the problem could be that most of the documents created by and about Fatima were destroyed in a fire in 1323. Without the documentation, we can’t really tell what happened after her University education. What we do know, though, is that this woman was a veritable revolutionary badass in her construction of this University, and she deserves a place in the history books. (Sources/For More Information: Manchester University Press; I Can Be She; Women in Science – Portland, OR; Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality)
7) Trotula of Salerno (11th and 12th centuries) – The First Gynecologist: We don’t know much about the life of Trotula outside of her professional accomplishments. She has both an unknown birth date and an unknown death date. Similar to our previous badass, we can trace her back to the de Ruggiero dynasty, a wealthy family of some small acclaim in early Italy: she was a likely a daughter of theirs. Also similarly, no early records can be found until she moves to Salerno in the early 12th century. At the time, Salerno was the epicenter of medical advancement, combining Arabic discoveries with what was then Western medicine; it was home to the School of Salerno, the world’s first medical college, and which, oddly for the time, allowed women to both study and teach within its walls (remember, this was a time where most men didn’t receive an education, much less women). Trotula both attended the school and taught there; it’s widely believed that her husband (possibly Johannes Platearius?) and two sons also taught there. Regardless, none of that matters as much as what this incredible woman did. She became one of the most sought-after, trusted physicians of the time, specializing in obstetrics, gynecology, cosmetics, and skin disease. She was a pioneer in women’s health, and likely the first female professor of medical practice in the Western world. Throughout her life, she would write several books, but her most famous is Passionibus Mulierum Curandorum (The Diseases of Women): it is composed of 63 chapters about the female body, designed to teach male physicians about women’s health. Her publications also doled out advice on menstruation, conception, pregnancy, C-sections, and childbirth. Within all that, she expressed some pretty radical thoughts for the time: that infertility could also be the fault of the man (it was considered sacrilegious to place the blame on the husband); that women should receive pain-dulling opiates during childbirth if they so chose (appalling for the time because women needed to be punished for the sin of Eve, of course); and that women were not inherently lesser in body and mind and thus got sicker more quickly. She was an advocate for women’s practitioners, for holistic treatment, for doctors asking questions about ailments, and for balanced diets, exercise, and low-stress lifestyles, all modern concepts for the time. Her thoughts and essays were circulated for centuries—in Latin, French, English, German, Flemish, Italian, and Catalan—until 1566, when a man republished her book under his own name. That invasion led to historians and students of medicine to question, for years, whether Trotula existed or not: for a long time, they believed her to be a man. Still to this day, some historians doubt her existence. Frankly, I think it’s another case of woman turning anonymous, hidden behind the man who took credit for her work. Trotula of Salerno was a badass lady doctor centuries before anyone knew the meaning, and she deserves to be honored as such. (Also, fun fact for my English nerds: Trotula has been immortalized as Dame Trot in many a medieval work, notably The Canterbury Tales!) (Sources/For More Information: Kings College; Brooklyn Museum; SciHi; for more reader-friendly versions, visit Nasty Women Writers or Order of Medieval Women)
6) Pearl DeVere (1859 – 1897) – The Pearl of Cripple Creek: Pearl DeVere was born in October 1859, just outside Chicago, IL; her real name remains unknown: “Pearl” was a stage name, adopted after she became involved with the Gibson Girls. Similar to our last two (you sensing a theme here?), we don’t know much about Pearl’s childhood. We know she was raised in a fairly wealthy family, and that she learned to sew whilst working with the Gibson company. After becoming pregnant as a teenager, she married a man named Arthur Young, set the baby up for adoption, and, after the baby’s birth, moved to Denver under the name “Mrs. Martin” – I have absolutely no idea what happened to Arthur or where he went, but just accept that he’s basically out of the picture as soon as she moves to Denver (best guess is, since she came under the guise of a widow, that that may have been the truth). Shortly after her arrival in Denver, Pearl became a prostitute, and quickly earned herself a tidy sum: known as “red-haired, beautiful, strong-willed, and a smart businesswoman,” her success in Denver was only an inkling of what was to come. In 1893, she moved to Cripple Creek, CO, following the Gold Rush. She wrote back home that she was to become a dressmaker and milliner, but, of course, that never happened. Upon arrival, Pearl entirely changed the misogynistic brothel game. To note, real quick: the Cripple Creek of the 1890s was a successful mining town, having attracted somewhere around 8,000 miners; it quickly gained a reputation for lascivious lifestyles, and established with some immediacy a Red Light District separated along ethnic lines. The District generated a huge amount of revenue for the town, as both prostitute and madam were taxed. Pearl changed the rules of the game. Immediately after her move, she established a bordello called the Old Homestead, boasting the most exquisite women. Her expectations, rules, and regulations were high. The women under her employ/protection were well-educated, well-versed in etiquette and mannerisms, and notably healthy, seeing a doctor at least once a month; the men allowed in had to pass a background check, provide references, and pay a cover charge of $100-150 before paying the woman around $250 (around $9000 total in today’s money, so you can imagine). The Old Homestead quickly became the most sought-after brothel in town, with Pearl playing the part of both savvy businesswoman and fierce, maternal protector. In April 1894, two gigantic fires blazed through Cripple Creek, causing Pearl to rebuild…and my god, did she. The new Homestead opened with even more pomp and circumstance than the last: opening in 1896, it was outfitted with electricity, running water, a telephone, an intercom system, and two ballrooms; and furnished with expensive wallpaper and furniture, crystal chandeliers, velvet drapes, and rather expensive portraits of nude women. She and her girls threw beautiful parties, complete with chef-prepared food and the priciest of champagne, wherein all the town was invited (though many of the wealthier ladies were too embarrassed/angry to attend). During this time, too, Pearl’s philanthropy knew no bounds: she contributed to the care of unwed mothers, to the poor, to education for the town’s children, to building the town’s infrastructure, and more. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to last very long. On June 4, 1897, Pearl retired from party preparation earlier than usual, claiming a cold’s headache, and took morphine to help her sleep; the next morning, at the age of 36, she was pronounced dead. Technically, we don’t know why. It could’ve been an accidental morphine overdose. Some think she took a friend’s medicine instead of her own. Whatever it was, it’s been lost to history. Upon her death, it was revealed that Pearl didn’t have enough money for a funeral, having put it all into the Old Homestead and her philanthropic work. As her employees and friends were about to auction off some of her belongings, an anonymous check arrived, stipulating that it must be used only for Pearl’s funeral. And what a celebration of her life it was: Pearl DeVere’s was one of the most lavish, well-attended funerals Colorado has ever seen, and she remains the only prostitute to have received an official headstone. Now, Cripple Creek has a Pearl DeVere Day every year, honoring her philanthropic stamp on her town. Though she is clearly known and loved there, she isn’t elsewhere. She should be. A brilliant businesswoman, a resilient lady, and a mother to many, Pearl DeVere should be celebrated for her badassery. (Sources/For More Information: What’s Her Name Podcast, Ep. 2; Us Represented; Legends of America; Visit Cripple Creek; The Old Homestead House Museum)
5) Eve Adams (1891 – 1943) – The Queen of the Third Sex: Eve Adams was called everything from “The Novelty Girl” to “a bit of an anarchist” to “the queen of the third sex” to “a self-possessed ‘man-hater.’” She was an outspoken, unapologetic gay Polish Jew, and one of the most prolific Bohemian writers of the 1920s, famed for hosting daily queer- and immigrant-friendly salons in Greenwich Village. So why is she hidden in the tomes of history? Let’s talk about it. Eve Adams’s early life is a little hard to track down (again, sense a theme?). We believe she was born Chawa Zloczower (with very variant spellings) on July 27, 1891, the first of seven children born to a Jewish grocer in Mlawa, Poland. On June 4, 1912, at the age of 20, she landed (alone) at Ellis Island aboard the S.S. Vaderland; upon arrival, she spoke seven languages, including Hebrew. Clearly, she was a woman of wanderlust and lack of belonging, writing to a friend: “In all the world, I am a foreigner, and in the country I was born, a Jew.” After arriving, she adopted the English translation of her name, and changed her surname to Adams: it was a play on the androgyny she preferred, being simultaneously Adam and Eve. This name change was only the tip of the iceberg on her proud perseverance: in a time when queer people were both ostracized and arrested, she didn’t hesitate to wear men’s clothing or maintain public relationships with women. Her way of living drew her to a particular group of friends. While working in New York’s factories, Eve met and befriended the anarchists of the day, among them Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and Henry Miller. By 1919, she was traveling around the US, selling leftist publications; this brazen involvement got her on J. Edgar Hoover’s list, the FBI labeling her an “agitator” and proceeding to tail her movements whenever possible. Eve kept on keeping on. In 1922, she co-managed a bohemian tearoom in Chicago during her stay there; she was so inspired that, upon returning to NYC, she opened Eve’s Hangout in 1924. It was a safe space for immigrant Jewish intellectuals, women, and queer folk, all of whom legally barred from traditional salon spaces. At Eve’s Hangout, they were allowed to be openly, unapologetically themselves without punishment, a place to trade ideas, philosophies, and art without fear. This—one of the first true lesbian establishments in the United States—became especially important as police raids and crackdowns increased between 1924 and 1926. In a time when underground informants arrested and deported queer folks for “indecency,” when tourists were bussed into Greenwich to gawk at the “perverts,” when raids were targeted specifically at queer-patronized places, Eve provided safety and comfort for those who couldn’t find it elsewhere. In 1925, under Evelyn Adams, Eve published 150 copies of Lesbian Love, designed to be circulated among her friends: a book of short stories based on people she knew, the work is noted as being “the earliest portrait of the lesbian community released in the United States by a lesbian author.” Unfortunately, its deserved success (or notoriety, dependent upon who you asked) led to Eve’s legal downfall. In 1927, she was arrested by an undercover officer, Margaret M. Leonard: either Margaret obtained a copy of Lesbian Love or tried to have sex with Eve (how that became unclear is beyond me). Eve was convicted of indecency and obscenity and kept in jail for 18 months; on December 7, 1927, she was deported to Poland, a result of her lack of citizenship, kept from her because of her sexuality. We lose her for a few years, but, in 1930, she pops up in Paris, selling illegal books from Parisian cafes. In 1933, she meets and falls in love with cabaret singer Hella Oldstein Soldner: the two lived together even after Soldner married a man. This semblance of bliss didn’t last long: by June 1940, Eve and Hella had fled to the south of France, attempting to escape the Nazis. Eve wrote tirelessly to friends in America, trying to secure them safe refuge; nothing was successful. In December of 1943, Eve and Hella were arrested, taken to a concentration camp, and eventually murdered at Auschwitz. In one fell swoop, we lost one of the most important queer artists and activists of the 20th century. And she was largely forgotten until recently: with the collected efforts of biographers, playwrights, and relatives (one of whom told by his father, Eve’s brother, on his deathbed: “You must look for Chawa.”), Eve Adams has returned. Eve’s Hangout has been proclaimed an LGBT historical site, her home in Paris is honored with a plaque entitling her “a pioneer activist for women’s rights,” and she has been honored by the Polish and American embassies. One extant copy of Lesbian Love exists, reprinted in her biography. The woman who gave so much to her community and her people has come back to us. And if her story wasn’t enough to make you tear up, perhaps a letter from Eve will: to a friend, she wrote, “Why, my dear man, if I wanted to write my experiences of my wanderings and people and adventures which still continue with every blessed day, it would take me years to write and I could fill volumes, not chapters.” You sure could have, Eve. (Sources/For More Information: Atlas Obscura; The New York Times; NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project; The Daring Life and Dangerous Times of Eve Adams)
4) Hannie Schaft (1920 – 1945) – The Red-Haired Assassin: Hannie Schaft was born Jannetje Johanna Schaft in Haarlem, North Holland on September 16, 1920. She grew up in a politically active, socialist household: her father was a teacher at Rijks Kweekschool and a member of the Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party; her mother, the daughter of a socialist pastor. She was a shy girl, withdrawn, interested primarily in her studies and bookish pursuits, exacerbated after losing her sister to diphtheria in 1927. Eleven years later, in 1938, Hannie left home to study law at the University of Amsterdam: inspired by her upbringing, her books, and her diverse array of friends, she specialized in international law and had aims of being a human rights lawyer; her ultimate dream was to travel to Geneva and revive the League of Nations. While at university, she joined the admired Amsterdam Female Student Association, and became close friends with two Jewish women, Philine Polak and Sonja Frenk (by 1940, the three would be inseparable roommates). During this time, the Nazis were slowly encroaching on Holland: three years before Hannie came to Amsterdam, the Dutch equivalent of the Nazis had won 8% of the national vote. Hannie would certainly have been well-aware of this. In 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland; Hannie spent months sending care packages and aid to Polish POWs via the Red Cross. She attended anti-fascist lectures, becoming compatriots with the burgeoning resistance movement. In May of 1940, the Nazis finally invaded the Netherlands, while Hannie was at home in Haarlem: resistance is immediately called for, leading to the brutal executions of 18 resistance fighters later that year. By fall of 1940, the persecution of Jewish people in the Netherlands had begun in full-force, first with dismissals, then with the rounding up and deporting of over 400 Jewish men. Hannie was horrified. After Jewish people were barred from entering public parks, she declared, “If they can’t go through that park anymore, I won’t either.” Her first physical acts of defiance came soon after: she stole identity cards for Amsterdam’s Jewish students, allowing them escape. It was said that she could find and steal an ID of the correct gender and age within a matter of hours, bringing them to a friend to forge, then delivering them safely to the person in need. In addition, Hannie collected items for displaced Jews in hiding, providing them food, shelter, and clothing, among other things. She was smart, she was cunning, she was fearless, and she wanted to do more. On March 13, 1943, the Nazis declared that all graduates must work in Germany and sign a Declaration of Loyalty; 85% of students, including Hannie, refused. In recompense, she was forced to leave university. In the summer of that year, following mass deportations and executions in her hometown, Hannie succeedeed in contacting and joining the Council of Resistance; immediately, she was partnered with sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen: at the time, the three were, respectively, 19, 16, and 14. After taking shooting lessons, Hannie became an excellent shot, and their plan was concocted and sealed. Hannie, Truus, and Freddie became “seducers” of the Germans and Nazi sympathizers, flirting their way into receiving info on German defenses and plans. After that was accomplished, they allowed themselves to be “tricked” into a rendezvous in the woods, where one of the women would meet and kill the Nazi. That sounds and is brutal, but before we go any further, let me say this: all three refused to do anything that would convict or injure innocents, turning away offers that dealt with kidnapping children, especially. Hannie and her sisters-in-arms were assassins with hearts. During this time, Hannie also transported illegal literature, stole and sent out weaponry, forged false IDs, and transported hidden individuals safely from place to place (and apparently blew up a train, though I cannot find where that comes into the story). She became one of the top members of the Dutch resistance, so successful at what she did in anonymity that she was known to the Nazis only as “the girl with the red hair.” That changed one terrible night in 1944: Hannie was carrying out a routine assassination (yeah, those are weird words) with Jan Bonekamp, a young man and good friend with whom she had worked before. This one went horribly wrong. After Hannie completed her role in shooting the Nazi messenger off his bike, Jan was shot in the stomach by the same dying man; before Jan died, under intense torture, he gave the Nazis names and addresses of his colleagues, including Hannie’s (he also may have been a Nazi sympathizer, but that remains unproven). After this betrayal, Hannie’s parents were taken hostage, in hopes they would lead Hannie out; thankfully, after the Oversteegens convinced Hannie not to go, her parents were released without a scratch. At this point, Hannie had to assume a new identity. She became Johanna Elderkamp, born in Zurich, a black-haired, glasses-wearing, unassuming young woman. And it worked for quite a while: during this time, she helped carry out at least eight major attacks on Nazi officials and collaborators. Unfortunately, on March 21, 1945, Hannie was caught at a routine border check-in, when Nazi officers found resistance newspapers and a revolver in her bag. She was taken to the Amsterdam House of Detention and isolated and interrogated for days, during which she saved the lives of at least five women by taking responsibility for attacks and assassinations they were accused of. The Dutch resistance received assurance that Hannie would not be killed, but, as we all know, they are Nazis and they lie: on April 17, 1945, only three days before the Dutch liberation, Hannie Schaft was taken to the Bloemendaal Dunes and shot. Supposedly, they missed first, causing her to call out “I shoot better!” before a machine gun killed her. She was buried haphazardly on the side of the road, amongst many of her resistance kin. On November 27, 1945, she was given a state funeral and proper burial by the Dutch Royal Family, during which she was called “the symbol of the Resistance” and lauded for her bravery and kindness. In 1951, weirdly, celebrating her legacy was prohibited due to the Communist Party claiming her as one of their own, but that has since passed. Now, Hannie Schaft has multiple schools named after her, multiple books and movies about her, a plinth in her honor, and a yearly celebration of her life. Yet we don’t talk about her outside of Holland…why? (Sources/For More Information: The National Hannie Schaft Foundation; Heroes of the Resistance; Wikipedia [all the info is correct on this one, just for ease of reading]; Seducing and Killing Nazis; History.com; Not Your Father’s History, “I Can Shoot Better Than That”)
3) Te Puea Hērangi (1883 – 1952) – The Māori Mother: Full disclaimer before delving into this badass lady: there is a lot of Oceanic history intrinsic to this story, involving tribal identifications, colonization, and legal movements; I can’t fit all of it in here, and will be focusing more on Te Puea Hērangi herself, so I highly recommend clicking the links at the end of this to fully dive in. Onto the important stuff! Te Puea Hērangi was born on November 9, 1883, in Whatiwhatihoe, New Zealand; she was the daughter of the second Māori King, and the granddaughter of an English surveyor on her mother’s side. A worthwhile note here: the Māori people do not traditionally have royalty or noble hierarchies. The titles of “King” and “Queen” were adopted in an attempt to legitimize their existence in the eyes of the European colonizer, thus stopping the stealing of their land and mistreatment of their people (if you know anything about European colonization, you’ll know this didn’t really work). She was born into a world of extensive land confiscation from the Tainui, and was raised with a “poignant memory” of the war of the 1860s. She lived between worlds as a child, moving to Mangatāwhiri and attending primary school in Mercer and Auckland between 1895 and 1898. By all accounts, she was a joyful, exuberant child, one who grew into an equally extroverted, adventurous adult. As a young adult, she was quite risqué, what some would dub “promiscuous:” she engaged in a variety of (consensual) relationships, including one with a white man named Roy. For a time, she entirely cut herself off from her people, likely enjoying the lack of generational traumatic stress. In 1910, however, she returned after a talk with her favorite uncle; upon her return, she had fully accepted her role as protector, fighter, advocate, and set to work with passionate immediacy. Though some resented Hērangi’s taking over of the role (again, remember: no traditional royalty), her influence was fully established during WWI. She staunchly opposed the New Zealand conscription policy, drawing on her father’s words against taking up arms since making peace with the Crown in 1881; her immovable stance and support of her people ignited the white folks’ ire: to punish Hērangi and her people, they only conscripted/kidnapped Māori from the Waikato-Maniapoto district, her ancestral lands. Still, Hērangi refused to budge. Emphasizing unity in the newly-revived Māori religious system, she gathered the men in protest groups, and, when they were arrested and severely punished in 1918, she sat outside the prison where the men could see her, giving so strong a hope that the prisoners would recall it decades later. That same year (1918), Hērangi’s people were devastated by an outbreak of influenza, exacerbated by the marshland they had been forced to live on; she determined to establish a better home for them within a few years. In 1920, Waikato leaders were able to purchase 10 acres of confiscated land on the Waikato River. In 1921, Hērangi began moving her people to the small new town, to be called Tūrangawaewae; the years that followed would be filled with obstacles of both literal construction and white prejudice. It was during this time that Hērangi—unwavering, strong, kind, maternal—became a beloved leader to her people, something of a mother. In the late 1920s, she formed a group called Te Pou o Mangatāwhiri (after the post erected to indicate where white people’s land stopped, which white folks of course ignored), for both storytelling purposes and teaching their young people the haka. In 1927, they embarked on a performance tour to raise funds for the erection of a carved house and were wonderfully successful, the 1929 opening marked by a hui attended by 6000 people. During this decade, Hērangi gained an intense public fame, marked with friendships that brought her into contact with journalists and important government officials; in the papers, she became known as “Princess Te Puea.” This publicity—though not necessarily wanted—was a boon in the helping of her people. Starting in 1927, she became embroiled in negotiations over stolen land that would last over 20 years, the fight kept alive partially due to her governmental influence. In the late ‘20s, she turned her attention to establishing a stable economic base for her wage-labor people: teaming up with a friend who had just become native minister, she acquired small land allotments for her people, working tirelessly to build up a dairy farming industry; as it grew, so, too, did their number of townships, with Hērangi personally visiting each to aid its growth. By the mid-1930s, her people had become well-established. In 1937, she was appointed CBE in honor of her achievements. In 1940, she and her husband purchased a small farm, and lived and worked there for the next 12 years. Though several other legal and economic accomplishments occurred after that, they are not the most important of Hērangi’s work. She was known as a unifier, a mother, gathering the people of her township at the beginning and end of each day to celebrate, to tell stories, to bond; she fostered and adopted hundreds of orphans (that is the statistically corroborated number, I kid you not), and was heavily involved in the advocation of education for Māori children. In short, Te Puea Hērangi fought injustice and prejudice to gain recognition for her people among other Māori and Pakeha (white people) alike. She gave them stability, she revived and advocated cultural tradition, and she cared for hundreds who couldn’t care for themselves. When she passed away on October 12, 1952, from a long-fought illness, she left behind a legacy of advocacy, kindness, strength, iron will, and intellect. She truly was an unstoppable woman. And I didn’t even cover it all. (Sources/For More Information: What’s Her Name, Ep. 4; The Dictionary of New Zealand; An Encyclopedia of New Zealand; Lest We Forget)
2) María Irene Fornés (1930 – 2018) – The Ignored Genius: I first encountered María Irene Fornés when I interviewed her biographer/good friend Michelle Memran last year. Upon watching Memran’s documentary on the playwright, The Rest I Make Up, I immediately fell in love with her contagious energy and brilliant mind. A playwright whose “achievements far outstripped her fame,” Irene (as she always asked to be called) was a contemporary of Edward Albee, Sam Shepard, and Lanford Wilson, yet hasn’t received the same acclaim until recently. Why? Let’s delve in. María Irene Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba on May 14, 1930, the daughter of a poor service worker and a teacher. Though she received very little formal education, Irene’s parents were bibliophiles with a fully stocked library, and they passed that love on to their daughter; in Memran’s documentary, some of the first footage is of Irene’s overflowing bookshelves, books cascading onto the floor, onto chairs, in and out of cupboards, everywhere they would fit. In 1945, after her father’s death, Irene moved to New York City with her mother (a woman she would remain close to until the latter’s death) and one sister. She held a variety of odd jobs, discovering her first creative pursuit in the late ‘40s: painting. She studied with the famed abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann; the man’s “push-pull method” would later factor into and inspire her work as a playwright and director. During the 1950s, she spent a good portion of the decade living in Europe, largely Paris. Whilst there, Irene was privy to the premiere of Beckett’s now-classic work, Waiting for Godot. Though she didn’t speak French very well, the play moved her in such a way that she knew she had found her calling. After returning from Paris in 1959, she spent a year or two in textiles before moving in with her then-lover, Susan Sontag, and jumping headfirst into the underground theatre scene. Her first play, entitled The Widow, premiered in 1961, when Irene was 31 years old (many would consider that a “late start” for a playwright, though I think that whole concept is BS). Between 1961 and 2018, she would write upwards of 40 pieces, including 1977’s Fefu and Her Friends, 1983’s Mud, 1985’s The Conduct of Life, and 1989’s What of the Night? Highly experimental and inventive, playing with language, game structure, and absurdist themes, Irene defined the off-Broadway of the late 20th century. She directed each of her shows: many would (and still will) proclaim that you cannot separate Irene the playwright from Irene the director. In 1973, Irene established an Avant Garde collective called New York Theatre Strategy; she would serve as the managing director there until 1979. In the midst of that pursuit came Irene’s big breakthrough, the aforementioned Fefu and Her Friends. Now considered a feminist classic, the play follows the titular character and seven others through a full day in their life, exploring themes of control, womanhood, and perception; Part 2, notably, removes the fourth wall and invites the audience to move throughout the theatre in simultaneously-occurring scenes. It is a dark, subversive, provocative black comedy, a style Irene became known for. Similar to Chekhov (whom she quoted as being a major influence), Irene’s focus was on self-examining characters and moral queries; more often than not, her plays were feminist, queer, or both. In 1981, she founded the INTAR Hispanic Playwrights in Residence Lab, a place she would run until 1992. As you may be able to tell, Irene was as passionate a teacher as she was a playwright; in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, she notably taught at NYU, mentoring and inspiring the likes of Paula Vogel, Sarah Ruhl, Nilo Cruz, and Eduardo Machado. Her teaching method was as experimental as her writing: she liked to focus on getting playwrights in touch with their bodies, not just their minds, and would often employ physical and visualization exercises instead of the typical writing seminar of the time. In the early 2000s, around the time Memran met her, Irene was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She fought hard, but—as one can see in the heartwrenching documentary—it was a losing battle. On October 30, 2018, at the age of 88, María Irene Fornés passed away at her care home in Manhattan. She was one of the giants of the theatre community, yet she nearly disappeared after her diagnosis. Why? There’s a myriad of issues. One, the coverage of the late 20th century (and still today, let’s be real) was extremely sexist and male- and white-centric; Irene was ignored for the likes of Sam and Edward. Two, Irene was a Hispanic playwright. Three, Irene was a proud queer woman. Put all of that together, and you do not have a situation rife for remembering your name outside of anything but notoriety, no matter how much of a genius you are/were. Luckily, Irene’s name is starting to come back: the Fornés Institute and Memran’s documentary have brought her work back to light, leading to her being taught and produced far more often than before; there have been several festivals dedicated to her already; and the INTAR Lab is fighting harder than ever to keep her legacy alive. As it should be. She was a genius artist, a brilliant woman, and a kind, life-loving person. In other words, a badass. (Sources/For More Information: American Theatre; The New York Times; The Fornes Institute; Encyclopedia Britannica; The Rest I Make Up; American Theatre [on her legacy])
1) Nawal El Saadawi (1931 – 2021) – The Godmother of Egyptian Feminism: When this revolutionary woman passed earlier this year, her photo graced newspapers such as The New York Times and Huffington Post; you may have seen her name a time or two. However, most do not know what our final badass gal (for this edition) did. Nawal El Saadawi was born on October 27, 1931 in Kafr Tahla, the second of nine children. At the age of 6, she underwent female genital mutilation (where a woman’s clitoris is forcibly removed); throughout her life, she would write graphically about the trauma of the experience, recalling screaming in pain as her mother smiled next to the people performing the procedure. Her pain turned to anger, funneled through education (oddly extensive for the time, the one thing her parents were progressive on), intellect, and revolution. By the age of 10, she was blackening her teeth with soot and dirt to ward off potential suitors. In fact, Nawal would go on to scandalize the traditional Arabic world with her marriages: she had three. In 1955, she married her first husband, fellow university student Ahmed Helmi; the two had a daughter before divorcing two years later. This was followed by an incredibly brief marriage to a lawyer (another divorce, of course). In 1964, she married fellow activist Sherif Hatata; they had a son together, but she divorced him in 2010 after it was revealed he had an affair. As you can imagine, this was highly uncommon for her hyper-traditional culture, especially at the time she was doing it. Now to back up a touch. In 1954, she graduated with a medical degree from Cairo University and went on to practice medicine in the country: this was another radical move of the time, as only men were considered tough enough to endure rural medical hardship. During the 1960s and 1970s, Nawal rose through the ranks of the Ministry of Health, eventually returning to Cairo. In 1974, however, she was dismissed: her anonymous published writings on female sexuality (covering an array of sexual health and sexual desire topics) came to the public eye. It’s almost a miracle that they waited that long to fire her, as, at that point, she was already an incredibly outspoken activist, on the objectification of women, on women’s health, on Marxist beliefs, and on her dismay and anger at the continued support of what she proclaimed to be Israel’s terrorist tactics. All in all, she was already a damn good, fearless activist. In October 1981, she was one of 1800 activists jailed as an enemy of the state shortly before President Sadat’s assassination. Three months later, she was released, having written a memoir during her incarceration. In 1982, her book, The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, was published in the US for the first time, receiving confused reviews. One said that Nawal had a “directness” that “put off American readers.” Classic. The next year brought another publication, this one Memoirs from a Women’s Prison. Shortly after, under President Mubarak, Nawal was put on police guard, supposedly to protect her from an Islamic death list. She did not think the same, and, fearing for her life, Nawal retreated to the United States in the 1990s, remaining in exile there for three years. During her time in the States, she taught at Duke University from 1993 to 1996. In 1996, she returned to Egypt, still facing intense harassment from conservatives accusing her of apostasy and heresy. Let me tell you, Nawal was not afraid. In 1999, she published a memoir of her early years, entitled A Daughter of Isis. In 2004, she announced she would run against President Mubarak, but ended up boycotting the election after her followers were threatened. In 2011, at the age of 79, Nawal attended one of her final official protests in Tahrir Square. On March 21, 2021, at the age of 89, Nawal El Saadawi passed away at her home, after proclaiming, “I have lost my fear of death.” Over her life, she had published over 50 works of fiction and non-fiction, had led revolutions, had worked tirelessly for the improvement of women’s lives. It is worth noting that Nawal had quite the biting, brash tone: she called traditional Islamic pilgrimages acts of paganism, and castigated everything from the veil to tight-fitting clothing. Regardless, with her humanization of sex workers, her fight against genital mutilation, and her resistance to oppressive governments, Nawal El Saadawi has earned the title of Godmother to the Egyptian feminist movement. One thing that is not controversial is that this woman did so very much. (Sources/For More Information: The New York Times; The Guardian; NPR; Encyclopedia Britannica; The Guardian [interview])
And that’s all for now, my friends. I do hope you enjoyed reading about these women as much as I enjoyed writing about them. :)
Rhiannon
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