Jessica Valenti, Writer (b. November 1, 1978)

 

Valenti is an American blogger and feminist writer, founder of the Feministing blog in 2004. She is the author or co-author of six books on women's issues: Full Frontal Feminism, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape with Jaclyn Friedman, He's a Stud, She's a Slut, The Purity Myth, Why Have Kids?, and Sex Object: A Memoir.

 

In "What Does a Lifetime of Leers Do to Us", published in the New York Times, Valenti talks about rape threats, being called a whore, and other par for the course experiences of women, particularly those who speak up.    Her commute to school in junior high and high school became a time when it was not unusual for a man to grope or flash her.  "Today one of the more unpleasant parts of my job writing and talking about feminism is dealing with online harassment -- a now-common side effect of writing online while female. . . . For me, it's not one particular message or adolescent incident that bothers me; it's the weight of years of multiple messages and multiple incidents.  It's the knowledge that this will never be just one day, just one message, just on hateful person.  It's a chipping away of my sense of safety and my sense of self.  I have a 5-year old daughter now.  I want to prepare her for the inevitable leers and slights without making her fearful.  I want to help her become the person she is meant to be, the person she'd form into with out the influence of misogyny.   . . . We still have no good way to explain to young women and girls that they need to brace themselves for years of feeling like an object.  . . . It's a problem that should have a name."

 

Shweta Katti,  birth date unknown

Katti grew up in an Indian brothel in the Kamathipura, the red light district in Mumbai, India.  Her mother worked in a factory all day, and she was raised by the women in the brothel.  They played with her, brought her sweets and corrected her when she misbehaved.  She recalls that many of the sex workers were sold into the industry and spent their lives struggling to pay their debt to the brothel owner so they could leave.  One woman who saved up enough money to escape left the brothel weeping, dressed in her best clothes and carrying all her bags.  Everybody was waiting to say goodbye as she walked through the streets.  The community felt like a big family.   It is not the sex workers that are the danger but the men who come into the area.  Katti was also abused by the clients.  She ultimately moved to a shelter for women from the red-light district, run by Kranti, a support organization.   An alumnus of Bard College in the United States heard Katti speak at a conference and assisted her to get a place in the school and full tuition.  Her plan is to return to Kamathipura to open a free counseling center for sex workers.  But if it was up to her, prostitution would be legal.  Then these women could get proper healthcare and go to the police when they're abused. 

Jill Filipovic,   "The Bad News on Good Girls" b. 1983
Opinion Piece New York Times November 26, 2107

Jill Nicole Filipovic is an attorney and feminist, progressive author. Originally from the Seattle area, Filipovic earned a BA degree with dual majors in Journalism and Politics from New York University and a JD degree from the NYU School of Law in 2008.

The author of "The H Spot:  The Feminist  Pursuit of Happiness," notes the new model for women: well-behaved, college-bound A students who played sports, had a full roster of extracurricular activities and expected by themselves and their parents to be moving toward successful careers.  "What girls . . . didn't realize - what too often our own parents didn't realize - is that the entrenched and often invisible gender biases of the adults around us would indelibly shape our paths and often set us on a different (harder, less fruitful) course than the boys in our orbit.  Pervasive "girl power" rhetoric" declares that girls can be anything they want.  But in practice, the more subtle rewards for compliant behavior show girls that it pays to be sweet and passive.   The sexual harassment revelations that have come to light over the past few months show just how dangerous this model can be." 

Frances Glessner Lee (March 25, 1878 - January 27, 1962)

Les was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 20 true crime scene dioramas recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale, used for training homicide investigators. Eighteen of he Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are still in use for teaching purposes by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the dioramas are also now considered works of art. Lee also helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard, and endowed the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine there. She became the first female police captain in the United States, and is known as the "mother of forensic science."