We go wild for any story of a fearless female, whether she’s charting new courses across the world, breaking down the barriers set by the boys who came before, or just plain pushing the limits that life sometimes presents. For a little inspiration during Women’s History Month — or whenever — take your pick from these 16 true tales of badass broads and dames who dared.
Find a Way: The Inspiring Story of One Woman's Pursuit of a Lifelong Dream
by Diana Nyad
When Diana Nyad arrived on the shore of Key West after fifty-three hours of grueling swimming across an epic ocean, she not only set a world record – becoming the first person to swim the shark-infested waters between Cuba and Florida with no cage for protection – she also succeeded in fulfilling a dream she first chased at age twenty-eight and at long last achieved when she was sixty-four. In her riveting memoir, Diana shares a spirited account of what it takes to face one's fears, engage one's passions, and never ever give up. For no matter what life may throw at you, or how many times you may have experienced defeat, it is always possible – as long as you commit to living life to the nth degree, no regrets – to "find a way." Bonus: After you've read the book, check out the new Netflix film “Nyad” starring Annette Bening and Jodie Foster.
Carson McCullers: A Life
by Mary V. Dearborn
While Carson McCullers's literary stature continues to endure, her private life has remained enigmatic and largely unexamined. She was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia. Her dream was to become a concert pianist, though she'd been writing since she was sixteen and the influence of music was evident throughout her work. As a child, she said she'd been "born a man." At twenty, she married Reeves McCullers, a fellow southerner, ex-soldier, and aspiring writer. They had a fraught, tumultuous marriage lasting twelve years and ending with his suicide in 1953. Her first novel – The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter – was published in 1940, when she was twenty-three, and overnight, Carson McCullers became the most widely talked about writer of the time. Now, with unprecedented access to the cache of materials that has surfaced in the past decade, Mary V. Dearborn gives us the first full picture of this brilliant, complex artist who was decades ahead of her time, a writer who understood – and captured – the heart and longing of the outcast.
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks
by Jeanne Theoharis
Jeanne Theoharis's definitive political biography of Rosa Parks examines her six decades of activism, challenging perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement. Presenting a powerful corrective to the popular iconography of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress who with a single act birthed the modern civil rights movement, scholar Theoharis excavates Parks's political philosophy and six decades of activism. Theoharis masterfully details the political depth of a national heroine who dedicated her life to fighting American inequality and, in the process, resurrects a civil rights movement radical who has been hidden in plain sight far too long.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay
by Nancy Milford
If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the hero of the Jazz Age, Edna St. Vincent Millay, as flamboyant in her love affairs as she was in her art, was its heroine. The first woman ever to win the Pulitzer Prize, Millay was dazzling in the performance of herself. Her voice was likened to an instrument of seduction and her impact on crowds, and on men, was legendary. Yet beneath her studied act, all was not well. Milford calls her book "a family romance" – for the love between the three Millay sisters and their mother was so deep as to be dangerous. As a family, they were like real-life Little Women, with a touch of Mommie Dearest. Savage Beauty is the portrait of a passionate, fearless woman who obsessed American ever as she tormented herself. Written with passion and flair, Savage Beauty is an iconic portrait of a woman's life.
Fierce Ambition: The Life and Legend of War Correspondent Maggie Higgins
by Jennet Conant
Marguerite Higgins was both the scourge and envy of the journalistic world. A longtime reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, she first catapulted to fame with her dramatic account of the liberation of Dachau at the end of World War II. Brash, beautiful, ruthlessly competitive, and sexually adventurous, she forced her way to the front despite being told the combat zone was no place for a woman. Her headline-making exploits earned her a reputation for bravery bordering on recklessness and accusations of "advancing on her back," trading sexual favors for scoops. While the Herald Tribune exploited her feminine appeal, it was Maggie's dogged determination, talent for breaking news, and unwavering ambition that brought her success from one war zone to another. Here, journalist and historian Jennet Conant restores Maggie's rightful place in history as a woman who paved the way for the next generation of journalists, and one of the greatest war correspondents of her time.
A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire
by Emma Southon
The history of Rome has long been narrow and one-sided, essentially a history of "the Doing of Important Things." And as far as Roman historians have been concerned, women don't make that history. Emma Southon's A Rome of One's Own is the best kind of correction. This is a retelling of the history of Rome with all the things Roman history writers relegate to the background, or designate as domestic, feminine, or worthless. This is a history of women who caused outrage, led armies in rebellion, wrote poetry; who lived independently or under the thumb of emperors. Told with humor and verve as well as a deep scholarly background, A Rome of One's Own highlights women overlooked and misunderstood, and through them offers a fascinating and groundbreaking chronicle of the ancient world.
The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture
by Courtney Thorsson
One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan's Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves "The Sisterhood," the group – which also came to include Audre Lorde, Paule Marshall, Margo Jefferson, and others – would get together once a month over the next two years, creating a vital space for Black women to discuss literature and liberation. The Sisterhood tells the story of how this remarkable community transformed American writing and cultural institutions. Courtney Thorsson explores the group's everyday collaboration and profound legacy. The Sisterhood advocated for Black women writers at trade publishers and magazines such as Random House, Ms., and Essence, and eventually in academic departments as well – often in the face of sexist, racist, and homophobic backlash. Thorsson traces the personal, professional, and political ties that brought the group together as well as the reasons for its dissolution. Highlighting the organizing, networking, and community building that nurtured Black women's writing, this book demonstrates that The Sisterhood offers an enduring model for Black feminist collaboration.
West with the Night: A Memoir
by Beryl Markham
If the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix – she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic. Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty. West with the Night deserves its place as one of the world's great adventure stories.
Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
by Margot Lee Shetterly
Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used pencils, slide rules, and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley's all-black "West Computing" group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia
by Janet Wallach
Here is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence's brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements – a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.
The Secret History of Home Economics: How Trailblazing Women Harnessed the Power of Home and Changed the Way We Live
by Danielle Dreilinger
In the surprising, often fiercely feminist and always fascinating The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger traces the field's history from Black colleges to Eleanor Roosevelt to Okinawa, from a Betty Crocker brigade to DIY techies. These women – and they were mostly women – became chemists and marketers, studied nutrition, health, and exercise, tested parachutes, created astronaut food, and took bold steps in childhood development and education. Dreilinger brings forward the racism within the movement along with the strides taken by women of color who were influential leaders and innovators. She also looks at the personal lives of home economics' women, as they chose to be single, share lives with other women, or try for egalitarian marriages. This groundbreaking and engaging history restores a denigrated subject to its rightful importance, as it reminds us that everyone should learn how to cook a meal, balance their account, and fight for a better world.
Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark
by Jane Fletcher Geniesse
Passionate Nomad captures the momentous life and times of Freya Stark with precision, compassion, and marvelous detail. Hailed by The Times of London as "the last of the Romantic Travellers" upon her death in 1993, Freya Stark combined unflappable bravery, formidable charm, fearsome intellect, and ferocious ambition to become the twentieth century's best-known woman traveler. Digging beneath the mythology, Geniesse uncovers a complex, controversial, and quixotic woman whose indomitable spirit was forged by contradictions: a child of privilege, Stark grew up in near poverty; yearning for formal education, she was largely self-taught; longing for love, she consistently focused on the wrong men. Despite these hardships, Stark's astonishing career spanned more than sixty years, during which she produced twenty-two books that sealed her reputation as a consummate woman of letters. This edition includes a new Epilogue by the author that, citing newly discovered evidence, calls into question the circumstances of Stark's birth and adds new insight into this adventurous and lively personality.
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision
by Barbara Ransby
One of the most important African American leaders of the twentieth century and perhaps the most influential woman in the civil rights movement, Ella Baker was an activist whose remarkable career spanned fifty years and touched thousands of lives. A gifted grassroots organizer, Baker shunned the spotlight in favor of vital behind-the-scenes work that helped power the Black freedom struggle. Making her way in predominantly male circles while maintaining relationships with a vibrant group of women, students, and activists, Baker was a national officer and key figure in the NAACP, a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a prime mover in the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In this definitive biography, Barbara Ransby chronicles Baker's long and rich career, revealing her complexity, radical democratic worldview, and enduring influence on group-centered, grassroots activism. Beyond documenting an extraordinary life, Ransby paints a vivid picture of the African American fight for justice and its intersections with other progressive struggles worldwide throughout the twentieth century.
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
by Malala Yousafzai
When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I Am Malala is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry
by Soyica Diggs Colbert
In this acclaimed biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Soyica Diggs Colbert narrates a life at the intersection of art and politics, arguing that for Hansberry the theater operated as a rehearsal room for her political and intellectual work. Celebrated for her play A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry was also the author of innovative journalism and of plays touching on slavery, interracial communities, and Black freedom movements. Hansberry was deeply involved in the Black freedom struggle during the Cold War and in the early civil rights movement, and here Colbert shows us an artist's life with the background of the Greenwich Village art scene in the 1960s, the homophile movement, Black diasporic freedom movements, and third-wave feminism. Drawing from Hansberry's papers, speeches, and interviews, this book provides a new point of entry in the history of Black radicalism, and a new perspective on Black women in mid-twentieth-century political movements.
999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz
by Heather Dune MacAdam
On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women, many of them teenagers, boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service and left their parents' homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Instead, the young women were sent to Auschwitz. Only a few would survive. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women's history.