It is hard to believe that this series is coming to a close. I admittedly have been racking my brain for weeks to find the most perfect, show-stopping woman who would feel appropriate as the finale to this act. 

We have explored so many amazing women over the last several months, starting with an iconic silent film actress; Mary Pickford, then journeying across the seas and time to visit the pirate queen Ching Shih, learning of more iconic women, such as Rosa Parks and Lucille Ball, and discovering those whose greatness may have been kept in the dark, like Anita Garibaldi and Ada Lovelace. More recently, we ventured to foreign countries in a two-part exposé on “Lady Death,” which I know was a favorite amongst both the readers and myself. It was honestly a challenge to think of one woman who could encompass everything that each of these women represent. We have mathematicians, politicians, actresses, and pirates. How can one person possibly be above all of that as the “great exit” to this blog? 

I will tell you the answer: one woman cannot. In all of my research, while I did discover so many amazing females who could easily be featured on this stream, there was not one that stood above the rest as the “best woman”. Each one has done something equally incredible and badass in her own culture and time that I would feel that I am cheating every other woman by choosing one over the other. 

But then I realized, there is a woman who is a result of each of those before her. Someone who has been blessed by those before her and will continue to push the boundaries of femininity everyday until her time has passed as well. Someone who takes the lessons she has learned from those before her and changes the rules of the game instead of playing into the hand of opposition. A woman who, thanks to the voices that have come before her, is not afraid to raise her own: me. I, along with every other woman today and forever will continue the legacy that these women have built for us to stand on and take advantage of. Sure, keeping a blog on their lives is one way to honor their sacrifices, but the only way we can truly uphold their honor is by becoming the next generation of women that first-year RCL students will write about. 

No, I alone am not the greatest woman to ever walk the earth, and I will in no way shape or form be writing about myself for my final passion blog entry, but it is because of the woman who have come before me that I have the opportunity to sit in a college class and openly express my opinion. And in order to honor and respect those who honestly risked their lives to give us the equalities we have today, we must shout our thoughts from the rooftops. Because no matter the time, place, or audience, you can always be sure of one thing:

  I AM WOMAN: HEAR ME ROAR

Due to the popularity of last week’s post, I decided to continue the exploration of incredible women from foreign countries, as most of the women I have researched have been from America. This week we journey to the Maroons of Jamaica to visit Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons, a largely ignored yet highly important figure in the Maroon’s history.

Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons has a rather elusive and vague history as she has only been mentioned 4 times in written history, yet she serves as one of the most important historical figures in the Maroons. For those of you who don’t know, a Maroon is a settlement of African-descended people that formed away from slavery. Due to their unique mixes of people (African, indigenous, and various others) new cultures combining the traditions and history of each group of people were formed, along with new government systems. Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons served as both the spiritual and military leader of her people, famously leading them into battle against the British in 1725.

Thought to be born around 1680 off the coast of Ghana, Queen Nanny was said to ​​belong to either the Ashanti or Akan tribe and came to Jamaica as a free woman. Some recording show that, as a possible descendant of royal African bloodlines, she brought slaves of her over with her, which was common practice for royals at the time. Along with slaves, she also brought her husband, Adou, with her to the Maroons of Jamaica. 

The legend of Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons is far above the legend of even some of the greatest American and European generals. She was said to be a master of guerilla warfare and specially trained her military in the art of camouflage, dressing her soldiers and herself in branches and leaves to stand perfectly still for hours at a time. When British troops came marching into the Maroons in 1725, they were swiftly picked off by the “trees” they passed unsuspectingly. Queen Nanny was rumored to not only be a great leader, but also a version of a bloodthirsty superhero. Several legends exist around her ability to catch bullets mid-air, one version saying this was due to her high training in the “art of combat”, another saying she would catch them in her rear-end and “fart” them back out again. While the first explanation is actually highly possible (many Africans were trained for this at the time), the second explanation is most likely from a British report, of whom were obviously not fans of the Queen. While many more legends exist of Queen Nanny (using herbs to kill British soldiers, etc.) one first-hand account said that queen nanny wore “bracelets and anklets made of teeth from the British soldiers” and “The old hag had a girdle around her waist with nine or ten different knives hanging in sheaths to it, many of which I have no doubt have been plunged in human flesh and blood”. Needless to say, Queen Nanny was one for the ages. 

She was officially made a national hero of Jamaica in 1976, by Edward Braithwaite, someone who was instrumental in the telling of her story and how her involvement was crucial to the Maroons in securing liberty from the British. Queen Nanny of the Windward Maroons is a symbol of rebellion and survival, serving not only her people while she was alive, but also serving all of those who came after her with inspiration and a reminder that greatness can come from anywhere, anytime, no matter if you wear a necklace of pearl or teeth. 

Reference 

Jamaica’s True Queen: Nanny of the Maroons

https://www.britannica.com/topic/maroon-community

Welcome Back! We pick up with Part Two in America, where Pavlichenko was sent off on a propaganda mission instead of returning to the front lines, becoming the first member of the Soviet Union to be welcomed to the White House. There, she met her lifetime friend Elenor Roosevelt. Fascinated with her life story, Mrs. Roosevelt asked Pavlichenko to join her on a tour of America to share her story of being a woman in combat.

As a young, decorated and injured war hero to her people, Pavlichenko set off on a national tour with the First Lady, but soon encountered a different type of battle than she was used to. Rather than asking her about her extensive list of accomplishments, the American press decided to ask her about her beauty routine, and why her skirt was “so long”. The media belittled her accomplishments, calling her “the Girl Sniper” in their stories and saying she “lacked a sense of fashion” due to her wardrobe which consisted of her decorated military uniform. If this wasn’t enough, one reporter even said that her long green skirt “made her look fat” and that American girls wore short skirts for that exact reason. They asked her about her makeup routine and if such things were allowed on the battlefield. Pavlichenko responded with “while there are no rules against it, who has time to think of her shiny nose when there is a battle going on”. But just as with a rifle, Pavlichenko quickly learned how to speak to such misogyny and sexism, saying in an interview in Chicago “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist occupants by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”, which caused a roar of support from the women in the audience.

As her tour continued, she began to speak of the lack of racial segregation in the Soviet Union’s frontlines, and became an inspiration to many young Americans. While she never returned to the front lines, she continued her tour into Canada and Great Britain, eventually returning to the Soviet Union to train new snipers and receiving the highest honor a military personnel can receive: Hero of the Soviet Union. She also was awarded the Order of Lenin twice, the highest civilian honor within the Union. 

After the war ended in 1945, Pavlichenko went back to Kiev University and completed her studies, becoming a historian following graduation. While the tensions of post-war didn’t allow Pavlichenko to visit First Lady Roosevelt, the two still managed to keep in touch and reconnected later when the First Lady visited Moscow. 

On October 10, 1974, Pavlichenko suffered a stroke and passed away. Following her death, two commemorative postage stamps were printed in her honor, both honoring her career in the military and as a civilian following the war. Regardless of the Horrors of WWII, Pavlichenko showed great strength through her life, both as a sniper and during her borderline abusive tour to the U.S. She taught us to rise above the hateful comments and to know your worth, no matter how much those around you dismiss it. Pavlichenko should serve as an idol to all women, but especially American women who sometimes struggle to see past their surface value. No Matter which side she fought for, Pavlichenko was truly fighting for women everywhere to be seen for more than just their looks. She was fighting for us to be able to prove to anyone that we are just as strong as the boys. 

This week I decided to dedicate my passion blog to the people of Ukraine as they struggle with the hardships of a war they did not declare. Inspired by their resilience, I began researching some of the incredible women of this country, and stumbled upon Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in the world with a total of 309 kills.

Born in 1916 in a Belaya Tserkov, a large city south of Kiev, Pavlichenko grew up as a tomboy, enjoying the competitive nature of sports and games, largely motivated to prove to the boys in her neighborhood that she was just as good, if not better, than they were at any activity they could think of. When she was 14, her family moved to the capital city of Kiev, where soon after she enrolled into a sharpshooter class, eventually earning a Voroshilov Sharpshooter Badge, both a certificate and a decoration of skilled civil marksman. In 1937 Pavlichenko enrolled at Kiev University with the dream of becoming a history teacher, continuing to improve her sniper skills on the School’s trap team and by taking classes at sniper school. 

During her final year at university, Hitler began his invasion into the Soviet Union. Upon learning this, Pavlichenko immediately went to the enlistment office in Odessa, where the enlistment officers pushed her to become a nurse. But Pavlichenko knew her strengths and quickly proved her marksman skills by snuffing out two Romanian Collaborators, officially joining the Red Army’s 25th Rifle division as a sniper, becoming 1 of 2,000 female snipers to join WWII and only 1 of 500 to survive it. 

Pavlichenko was stationed on the front lines of Odessa, recording 187 kills in the two months she spent there while receiving a promotion to sergeant. While her unit was in fighting Sevastopol starting in October 1941, Pavlichenko raised her kill count even higher, reaching 257 confirmed kills by May 1942 and receiving a second promotion to lieutenant. As she became more deadly, she was sent on more deadly missions, moving from simple sniper jobs to engaging in “sniper duels” with other snipers, one of which lasted 3 days. Pavlichenko famously said that these other snipers always made “one move to many”, and one by one, 36 enemy snipers were added to her confirmed kills list. 

In June 1942 Pavlichenko took shrapnel to the face and was pulled out of battle because the military felt she was too valuable of an asset to be left in and risk further injury or death. At this time, she had a list of bodies 309 names long, earning her the nickname “Lady Death” and several offers from the German Army to join them. At first these were just bribes, with German officers shouting over a loudspeaker, “Lyudmila Pavlichenko, come over to us. We will give you plenty of chocolate and make you a German officer.”. However, these bribes soon became threats, with those same officers saying “If we catch you, we will tear you into 309 pieces and scatter them to the winds!”. Pavlichenko  laughed upon hearing this, and said she was glad that the enemy knew her record with such accuracy. 

For now, this is where we end this blog post. Next week we will look further into her U.S. tour and the misogyny and sexism she faced upon her arrival into this country, something she had never needed to in Ukraine. Until then, remember that for every great shot a man has ever declared, every time they have said that women are incapable of such skill and violence, the person with the most recorded kills in history is a woman. 

Resource

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/lady-death-red-army-lyudmila-pavlichenko

As a five time Emmy award winning actress, producer and comedian, Lucille Ball is known today as an icon in American sitcoms and television. Born on August 6th, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Her father was a telephone lineman for Bell telephone, often which moved their family around the country, eventually ending up in Wyandotte, Michigan, where Mr. Ball died of typhoid fever. Lucille Ball has credited this day as the reason behind her ornithophobia (Fear of birds) because a bird was supposedly trapped in the house at the time of his passing. 

Her career started in 1929 when she landed her first modeling gig as a cigarette girl for Carnegie hall, back then going by Dianne rather than Lucille. For the next two decades or so, Ball was cast as a chorus girl and background dancer for broadway shows and television specials, with the occasional B-pictures leading actress part or a support role in A-pictures.

 In the 1940’s she met her husband, Desi Arnez, Cuban bandleader (band member/ frontman). When the 50’s came around, she and her husband created the famous sitcom I Love Lucy, premiering on October 15th, 1951. Originally an extremely successful  radio show entitled “My Favorite Husband” in which Ball was cast as the wacky wife Liz Copper, she and her husband were asked by CBS to develop the show for television, thus becoming the icon in American television that I Love Lucy is today. 

However, the show wasn’t originally given a good outlook by producers, who were unconvinced that a Cuban man and a wacky redhead could make a believable couple for an audience. But Lucille pushed for the show, eventually convincing the executives at CBS to send the show on tour, where it gained the support it needed to take off on the network. I Love Lucy became one of the most watched television shows in it’s time period, having the highest ratings for four out of its six seasons. 

Even though She preferred Los Angeles, the timing logistics made it difficult, as Prime Time television in L. A. was too late for the east coast. Essentially, if a show premiered that late in L.A., it would re-run the next day on the east coast, which required a lot of extra money on the producer’s side. Instead of moving the show to New York, Ball and her husband agreed to take a pay cut in substitution for having the show continue to be based in L.A., along with their production company, Desilu, owning the rights to the show once it aired. CBS eventually bought back the rights to I Love Lucy for $1,000,000 (about $9 million in today’s money) which funded the down payment for the purchasing of RKO Picture studios, which would later become Desilu studios. 

The show and Ball had great success over the next few decades, setting and breaking records left and right both in television and from the perspective of a producer. But in 1989, Ball was admitted to the hospital with chest pains, dying of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 77. Even though she was known best for her acting and comedy. Lucille Ball fought hard for the entertainment she believed in, creating a better and more inclusive place in Hollywood. 

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucille_Ball

Bad Girls throughout history: Lucille Ball

Never underestimate a woman, much less a woman in entertainment. That is what all of the high officers of the axis powers did when they laughed and clapped along to Josephine Baker’s while she was listening to each word they exchanged, waiting to relay it back to the Allies at  the next possible opportunity. 

Josephine Baker, born Freda Josephine McDonald, was born into poverty in St. Louis Missouri to an absent father and a mother working as a dancer for small performance groups. At 8 years old, she dropped out of school so she could begin working to support her family. While her parents had been unsuccessful in launching their careers into the entertainment industry, Baker found success at the early age of 15 when she was recruited into an African American theater group. After a few years, she moved to New York to participate in the Harlem Renaissance, a celebration of black art and culture. 

Her fame eventually took her to Paris, where she became one of the most famous dancers in the country, her most famous act involved a G-string decorated with bananas. Even though she performed for a mostly white audience, her shows were a celebration of black culture, including traditional African dancing and singing styles.

Never one to back down from a bully, Baker joined the fight against the Nazis and Adolf Hitler as WWII made its way to France. As she danced, wined, and dined high officials of both powers, Baker would listen to the conversations of the Axis leader and pass along what she had learned to the Allies in secret notes written on sheet music in invisible ink. 

When she returned to the States for a performance in a New York club, she was faced with an even greater enemy: segregation. She joined marches, became an activist for civil rights and even marched along Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington. As one of the only female speakers that day, her address is both haunting and memorable. Baker speaks of the differences of how she was treated as a performer in Europe verses how she was treated as  Black women in the United States: “You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.”After the sudden death of Mr. King Jr. his wife actually asked Baker to take over the movement, to which she replied “my children are too young to lose their mother”. 

As a way to fulfill her dream of showing the world that people of all ethnicities could live in harmony, Baker adopted 12 children from all different ethnicities, calling them her “rainbow tribe”. She raised her family in her French castle, Château des Milandes, where she also lived until her death in 1975. Baker not only did a great service to her country and people while she was alive, but also still serves as a reminder that no women should ever be dismissed or underestimated, you never really can know who may be your greatest threat. 

References

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/josephine-baker

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Josephine-Baker

Bad Girls Throughout History – Ann Shen (book)

Last time we left off with one of the most famous women in the Music industry and now we pick back up with a woman who was far from a musician, but still possibly an artist: Ada Lovelace, the first computer programer. 

Needless to say, mathematics was not a subject that women learned in Lovelace’s time, but Ada’s father and mother had both been trained in the subject and insisted that she too received an education. Born into a wealthy family as the daughter of famed poet Lord Byron and Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, Lovelace was privately tutored by William Frend, William King (the man who would one day become the Earl of Lovelace and Ada’s husband)  and Mary Sommorville, a notable female astrologer and mathematician. Lovelace was also partially self taught after she took interest in math and science, later learning more advanced studies from the first professor of mathematics of the University of London, Augustus De Morgan. In 1833, Lovelace attended a party in which Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first machine to be considered a “computer”, was giving a demonstration of his analytical machine. Fascinated by its function, she studied its inner-workings for years as she followed a more typical path for women of her time, marrying the Earl of Lovelace and having 3 children.

 In 1843, a decade after meeting Babbage, Lovelace released an English translation of a French article by Luigi Menebrea an Italian engineer, who was reviewing the uses and usability of Babbage’s analytical machine. In this transition, Lovelace made several of her own contributions, adding almost triple the content on to the original article. She expressed her belief that not only was this machine capable of doing mathematical equations (in which she also provided the formulas and algorithm necessary to complete such actions) but also that it would play a major role in developing future technologies as it could be adapted to process symbols and letters as well. Also within these notes, she described a process in which the computer would process a set of programming over and over again, better known as “looping” which is still used today. Unfortunately, Lovelace’s breakthrough ideas were largely ignored during the time period in which she was alive, and only rediscovered and appreciated in the 1950s.

Due to her actual passion and talent’s lack of recognition and development. Lovelace put her mathematical genius to work in other aspects of her life, particularly gambling. Ada developed an algorithm to predict the outcome of several different types of money-winning schemes. However, her formulas eventually lost enough bets for her to fall into extreme financial debt, owing several thousands pounds. Less than 10 years after her publication of the french article, Lovelace died from uterine cancer at the age of 37. Even though her work was never appreciated in the time she was alive, she contributed significantly to the way our current technologies have been shaped. Ada Lovelace, like most women in the world, was simply ahead of her time, stuck in a world that wasn’t ready for her genius.

References

https://www.biography.com/scholar/ada-lovelace

https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace

I feel that it’s appropriate to finish (for now) with one of the most influential women of our generation, who also just recently made history (again) with the release of her re-recorded album: Red (Taylor’s Version). Personally, I have always looked up to Taylor Swift as a woman who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, someone who wasn’t afraid to embrace her creativity- despite over a decade of backlash- and as someone who showed the world who she truly was repeatedly, dorky dancing and all. Swift has been a glittering example for young girls and women who aspire to be more than people are willing to let them be.

Taylor rose to fame with the explosive release of her hit singles “Love Story” and “You Belong with Me” in 2009, eventually winning her several awards including a Grammy for Album of the year and a VMA for Best Female Video. However, when everyone should have been celebrating the 18 year old’s incredible success at the 2009 VMA’s, they were focused instead on a certain male rapper interrupting Swift’s acceptance speech, saying that Beyonce should have won the award instead. Taylor, at the time, said that she forgave Kanye, and even wrote her song “Innocent” about that night singing “32 is still growing up now, who you are is not what you did”. People applauded Swift for her maturity in the situation and her ability to forgive him, even presenting him with an award at the 2015 VMAs and saying how glad she was that their past was behind them. 

2016 brought hard times on Swift when this “friendship” stabbed her in the back, and even buried her for almost a year. The “snake day incident” was a widespread twitter hating on Swift, started by Kim Kardashian West, after a recorded phone call was released where she was heard agreeing to Kanye referencing her in his song “famous”. Swift claimed that while she was consulted about being referenced, she was never given the accurate lyrics being used to describe her, which included some profane language and derogatory terms, the Wests said that she was lying, and proceeded to release the recording of the phone call. Needless to say, cancel culture took over, and Swift made the decision to go underground for over a year. 

Flash forward to November 2017, when Taylor’s social media, now entirely blank, posted three short video clips forming a snake. Swift made her comeback in the most Taylor Swift way possible, with the release of an album and a sold out studio tour. Not only did her album go number 1 and sold over 1.3 million copies in its first week without promotion, but her predicted “flop” of a stadium tour also earned over 345.7 million dollars, the highest grossing tour of all time. Since then, Swift has become more sure of herself, beginning to make music for her and her fans rather than the radio and critics, hence the release of “folklore” and “evermore” in 2020. She also became a bigger advocate for what she believed was right, officially breaking her decade long silence on politics for the 2020 election. She took a strong stance on women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights with her music video for “You Need to Calm Down”, even starting a petition for the senate to support the equality act, with well over the 500,000 votes needed for a response.

Recently, Taylor has been breaking her own records, setting the new record for biggest debut of “Red (Taylor’s Version) with 90.8 million streams on the first day. The record holder before this? Taylor Swift’s “folklore”. In terms of awards, here is a small list of her wins:

• ACMAs – 8 
• American Country Awards- 4
• AMA’s – 32 (most of all time) 
• Billboard Music Awards- 23 
• BMI Pop Awards – 29 
• CMAs – 12
• CMT Artist of the Year – 2
• Grammy Awards- 11
• Guinness World records – 28 (and counting) 
• MTV Awards – 11
• Teen Choice Awards- 26 

With a total of 416 wins over her 15 year-long career. For a complete list of her awards and nominations, click here. 

To say Taylor Swift is an accomplished musician is an understatement of her long and impressive career. And while all of these awards and shattered records are certainly incredible, the most incredible part of this woman is her character. Taylor Swift has received so much backlash, slut-shaming and hate for her career and personal life. Yet she has always prevailed, coming back stronger and better each time, proving over and over again that she is here to stay, no matter what may come her way. Everyone, not just women, can take inspiration from her strength and reliance in the public light. As Taylor says, you gotta “shake it off”. 

If you find yourself resistant to listening to her music because you feel it may be too “cheesy” or “cookie cutter”, here are my personal song suggestions that tell a better story of who Taylor Swift is as a musician than her hit singles. 

• All Too Well
• Nothing New 
• Champagne Problems
• I Did Something Bad 
• tolerate it 
• exile 
• False God 
• Tied Together with a Smile 
• Sad Beautiful Tragic

Oftentimes when we talk about influential women, they have one defining moment, whether that be a speech, an act, or a work of art. These women are known for one moment in their history, which, while still incredible, often puts them above women who didn’t have one large impact point, but rather a constant stream of small influences. This is the case with Georgia O’Keeffe. 

Georgia O’Keeffe was one of the most influential artists in the United States to ever live. Her work not only inspired women, but also artists who felt stuck in the formalities of art at the time. O’Keeffe was educated as an artist with very strict rules and ideas, she had learned that “art” was just painting what you saw, making copies of the real world on a canvas. Needless to say, this did not sit well with O’Keeffe. She decided to take a break from art after graduating from the Art Students League in 1908.

Five years later, O’Keeffe began lessons with well-renowned expressionist painter Arthur Wesley Dow, who showed her that she could, in fact, paint what she was feeling and not just what she saw. With this new outlook on art, O’Keeffe began working with charcoal abstract, eventually moving to whimsical abstract paintings. She decided to send these works of art to a friend in New York (O’Keeffe was living in Texas), who ended up giving them to a famous photographer and art gallery owner, Alfred Stieglitz. O’Keeffe’s was officially premiered in 1916 in one of Stieglitz’s galleries in New York. She worked closely with him for the next few years, and they eventually became lovers, marrying when his divorce was finalized from his first wife in 1924.

Georgia O’Keeffe is most famously known for her close-up abstract work with nature, which is more famously interpreted as her paintings of female genitalia. Not only was this revolutionary for reasons that do not need to be said, but also because it was the first art series that could be open to interpretation. Most abstract work up until that point had been so abstract that there was no room for interpretation, where O’Keeffe’s work was an abstract interpretation on something real, that could then be seen as something else. She never confirmed or denied if her works were paintings of flowers or females.

In the 1930s, O’Keefe had a breakdown and moved to New Mexico to focus more on desert landscape work rather than close-ups. A few years later, she had 2 retrospectives premiered in New York, One focusing on her flower paintings, another on her desert landscape pieces. Georgia O’Keeffe was the first woman to have a retrospective done for her in the Whitney Museum of American Art.

In 1977, she was awarded the highest honor of any American Civilian, the Presidential medal of Freedom, which was presented to her by President Ford. She changed the game in interpretive abstract art.  Georgia O’Keeffe was a leader and a revolutionist in the world of art, particularly in the world of feminist art.

When most people hear the name “Godiva”, they think of the delicious chocolate produced out of Reading,Pennsylvania. However, Godiva chocolate is inspired by a real person who undoubtedly makes our ever-growing list of feminists.

Lady Godiva was an 11th century noblewoman who was married to the Earl of Mercia and Lord Coventry, Leofric. Leofric famously imposed a crippling tax onto the people of Coventry, which upset Lady Godiva as she watched the people grow hungry and poor. After weeks of begging her husband to lower the tax, he quipped back with a “yes, but only if you ride naked on horseback through the center of town”. Never one to back down from a challenge or disappoint her people, Lady Godiva stripped down to nothing, only having her famous long, golden, hair to cover her. After her legendary ride, She returned home and demanded for the final time that the tax on the people be lowered, in which her husband kept his promise. 

Not only is Lady Godiva responsible for creating her own legend, but she also is one of the characters for the origin of the “peeping Tom” legend. Before her clothing-free ride, she ordered all of the townspeople to stay inside their homes and not look at her completing her task. All but one of the townspeople obeyed, with the only looker to be a man named Tom, thus giving birth to the the term “peeping Tom”. No need to worry though, after it was discovered that he disobeyed the order to stay inside in order to get a look at the beautiful Lady Godiva in her natural state, he was beaten blind, so he could never sneak a look again. 

While Lady Godiva’s ride is widely regarded as a myth, Lady Godiva was a real person who did significant things for both women and her people. Lady “Godgifu” was known for her generosity to the church, creating a Benedictine (nunnery serving St. Benedict) and was one of the only female landowners in the 1000’s. In fact, the story of her naked horseback ride didn’t begin to spread until about 100 years after her death, with the legend of Peeping Tom not coming into the light until the 16th century. Regardless of whether or not her good deed is true or not, she still did a lot for her people and women both then and now. 

Due to the legend of her bravery and kindness, Godiva chocolate, originally known as “Chocolaterie Draps” was rebranded after feeling inspired by her. Today, Lady Godiva serves as both an inspiration and a legend to all, regardless of the truth behind her fame. While I am not encouraging you to ride naked on horseback through a crowded town, I think we can all take inspiration away from her bravery and determination to do something good for all people, even if it meant she may have felt uncomfortable (or not) for a few minutes. Lady Godiva is a great example of how women have put others above themselves for centuries, always being the light in the darkness.

Resources

https://www.history.com/news/who-was-lady-godiva