Women's History Month Week 2 Recap

ICYMI: Here's a recap for you featuring all the amazing women we shared about on our social media this week. 

March 10th: In 300 BCE Athens it was forbidden for women to be physicians, so Agnodice disguised herself as a man to learn midwifery. Her popularity incited the jealousy of male physicians, who accused her of corruption and brought her to court. At trial, Agnodice revealed herself and, supported by leading women of the city, was acquitted. Then a law was passed allowing freeborn female citizens to practice medicine. Whether or not she was an actual historical figure, her story inspired midwives from the late seventeenth century onward who saw in it a justification for female practitioners grounded in antiquity.

March 11th: Octavia Butler (1947-2006) found a love of writing at the age of ten after her mother bought her a typewriter. Though she had dyslexia, it didn’t prevent her from reading or writing. Her published works challenged the industry’s perceptions of its readers and writers and showed them that science fiction could be for anyone and in 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship! Learn more about her here: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/culture/octavia-e-butler/index.html

And if you want to read even more by her, check out her essay on empathy, hierarchical behavior, racism, and tolerance:   https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010830.octaviabutleressay.html

March 13th: In 1991, Julie Dash made her first feature-length film, “Daughters of the Dust,” which went on to become the first film by an African American woman to receive a general theatrical release in the U.S. It was added to the National Film Registry - a list of distinguished films preserved as national treasures - in 2004 by the Library of Congress. To read more about her and “Daughters of Dust,” visit https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/interviews/a40983/daughters-dust-julie-dash-interview/. 

March 14th: Toni Morrison (Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Playwright), born in 1931, is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist. Among her best known novels are 'The Bluest Eye,' 'Song of Solomon,' 'Beloved' and 'A Mercy.' She received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first African-American woman to be selected for the award.  

March 15th: Bobbi Gibb (b. 1942) was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1966 even though organizers denied her application because she was female. She wanted to prove that women were physiologically capable of running long distances and ended up finishing before two-thirds of the male runners! Women weren’t officially allowed to compete until 1972 and it wasn’t until 1996 that Gibb was officially recognized as the winner of the 1966, 1967 and 1968 Boston Marathons. Visit: http://www.espn.com/espnw/culture/feature/article/15190954/50-years-later-paying-tribute-bobbi-gibb-first-woman-run-boston-marathon to read more about her!

We hope you'll read more about them and be sure to check back next Saturday to see the next set of women we shared about!

Happy Reading,
Jade, Reference Librarian