Women's Day

Last year, I was startled by Kartheik, "Will you write something for Women's Day?" I had absolutely no clue what he was going to do with it, but I agreed, and found it doubly hard to think of what to write when I didn't know what it was for. I googled* for women who left a mark upon the world (and not the usual list); women whose story meant something to me, would mean something to the audience (whatever it was--I love creating brick walls out of nothing, because, had I thought clearly, it would have to be the students of my campus). I found Nellie Bly after some searching, but I wondered if my audience (again, whoever they were--yes, now they became real people) would relate to her. So I kept searching, and returned again, and again to Nellie Bly. As I ran out of time, I decided to stick to her and be done with it.

I do not have to look very hard this year; my ma is an unknown to all except a very small world, she is not (like Bly**) a whirlwind of a personality. No, she is a tender plant, one that looks lovely and fragile, but withstands harsher winds when compared to those tall, strong trees. From her, I'm learning that it is possible, to go on despite everything. I was given very good advice last summer: 'courage is not about being fearless,it's about doing what you must inspite of being afraid'; my ma, she has plenty of that courage.  

All women, they say, turn into their mothers. I'll be proud of myself if I become half the woman she is. 

And this is what I put together  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*aside: ah, my blogger text editor still doesn't recognize google as a verb. Nor google as a word, for that matter.


**Okay, now that's too many parentheses.

She dared

This is the story of Nellie Bly, one woman who found her voice in a male-dominated world, one woman who single-handedly revolutionized investigative journalism.

She was born Elizabeth Jane Cochran on May 5, 1864 in western Pennsylvania. Her father died when she was six years old, leaving her family without a will and thus destitute. She was eighteen, struggling to find full-time work, when she read an article in the Pittsburg Dispatch that she considered offensive to women. She wrote a fiery letter in response and signed it "Lonely Orphan Girl". The paper, impressed with the spirit of the girl, hired her and gave her the pen name "Nellie Bly."

Not interested in writing pleasant social pieces, Nellie immediately tackled social issues in her columns on working women, reform of divorce laws and factory conditions. Later, working with The New York World, she had herself committed to a mental institution so she could study first-hand how the mentally ill were treated. She spent several months in the facility and came back with stories of cruel beatings, ice cold baths and forced meals that included rancid butter. Her report of the cruelty stirred the public and politicians and brought money and needed reforms to the institution.

Perhaps the peak of Bly's fame came when she took a whirlwind trip around the world in 1889 to beat Phileas Fogg, the fictional hero of Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days." Travelling by ship, train and burro, she observed the world around her, sending back reports with her feminist and progressive perspective. She returned to New York in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes as a celebrity, cheered by crowds of men as well as women.

When a reporter that her mad dash around the world was something quite remarkable, she responded: "Oh, I don't know. It's not so very much for a woman to do who has the pluck, energy and independence which characterize many women in this day of push and get-there."

Nellie Bly was able to accomplish all of this as a teenager and woman in her 20s, at a time when women were discouraged from doing anything except marrying men and having their children. She made a difference in a world that was against her from the beginning because of her gender. Imagine what we can do today, with all of our freedom and privilege. Perhaps the importance of Bly’s story is that we are not as powerless as we think we are.