A Little Women's History During March Madness

If we don't know...

that the first person to go over Niagra Falls was a woman who couldn’t swim, one Annie Taylor, an elementary schoolteacher in a wooden barrel

or that Mozart’s fame depended on his wife Constanze’s inventiveness and good business sense

or Mehitable Ellis “Auntie” Woods stole a commissary wagon in order to make regular supply runs to Union soldiers on the front lines

If we are unaware...

that Aivia Lubetkin was a commander of the Jewish resistance movement in the Warsaw ghetto who made her escape through the sewer systems of that city

that African American dancer Janet Collins turned down the opportunity of a lifetime with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo because they would have required her to wear white make-up
but
she eventually became the prima ballerina for the NY Metropolitan Opera anyway

If we’ve forgotten...

That it was Mary Leakey and not Louis who discovered the “missing link” in Tanzania, demonstrating that humans originated in Africa, not Asia

or that cartoonist Dalia Messick had to change her name to the more androgynous “Dale” in order to get her comic strip “Brenda Starr” published in 1940

If we don’t know...

that Mary Read and Anne Bonny were pirates in the 1700’s
and
that Mary (alias Mark) Read was a cross-dresser
and
that the two women were lovers aboard a pirate ship

If we’ve somehow failed to remind our schoolchildren...

that Queen Liluokalani fought against the annexation of Hawaii by the US in favor of a government by her people and that she spent 9 months in jail for her efforts

that the world’s first self-made female millionaire was Madame C.J. Walker (born Sarah Breedlove), an unschooled black orphan who earned her fortune through the development of a hair preparation process for African American women

or that Rear Admiral Grace Hopper helped design the first large-scale digital computer, the Mark One

If the facts have been misplaced...

that Conchita Clintron mastered over 1200 bulls in her career as a bullfighter and was arrested at her farewell appearance int 1949 for refusing to kill the bull

and that Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman space traveler, orbiting the globe 48 times in 1963

If we haven’t been reminded...

that Mary Lyon, founder of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, the first school of higher education for women in this country, had to weave two blankets to exchange for her admission into boarding school

that Julia Ward Howe wrote the text to the Battle Hymn of the Republic for a mere $4

If we haven’t thanked...

Gertrude Muller for the child car seat
Margaret Knight for the square-bottomed paper bag
Hannah Slater for cotton thread
Mary Engle Pennington for refrigerated railroad cars
sisters Patty, Mildred, and Jessica Hill for composing “Happy Birthday to You” in
1893

If we forgot or never knew...

that legal secretary Iris Rivera was fired in 1977 for refusing to make coffee for her boss

that Alice Stebbins Wells was the first female cop in the US, sworn into the LAPD in 1910 and was forced to wear a badge that read “Police Woman’s Badge #1” because she was constantly being accused of wearing her husband’s badge, thereby imper-sonating a police officer

that Assistant Attorney General from 1921-1929, Mabel Willebrandt, brought 49,000 bootleggers to justice and achieved 39,000 convictions

If a single schoolgirl hasn’t heard...

that on the night of April 26, 1777, 16-year-old Sybil Luddington rode from town to town in New York and Connecticutt to warn the colonists that the Redcoats were raiding Danbury, covering double the distance of Paul Revere and saving the day for the Patriots

then they don’t know enough
and we don’t know enough
and nobody knows enough
to make basketball more important than women each March,
to tell his-tory but not hers,
to omit a women’s study program from a college curriculum.
We can’t allow ourselves to continue to forget
how far we’ve come, how much we’ve gained
how hard the struggle’s been
or that even in 2010
we haven’t reached equality yet.