22. Women's History Month - Part 2

We're back with more amazing for Women's History Month!
Part two features more incredible women form across Britain and the Commonwealth, including Jane Goodall, Wangari Maathai, Jacinda Ardern, Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Malala Yousefzai, and more!

If you have any questions or comments about this episode, you can email us at podcast@dbenational.org.

If you'd like more information about the Jane Austen tea in Toledo, OH, follow this link:
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The Daughters of the British Empire is a 501(c)3 nonprofit American society of women of British or Commonwealth birth or ancestry. We share and promote our heritage while supporting local charities and our senior facilities across the United States. 

We are a diverse group of women standing together in friendship and charity, joined by a common bond - the Commonwealth of Nations, learning and growing together. 

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Theme music: https://megamusicmonkey.com/free-music-royal-tea-party-song-30-second-creative-commons/

Transcript

Good afternoon and welcome to episode 22 of A Cuppa Tea with the DBE. 

I do have one announcement today, the Sir James M. Barrie chapter in Toledo, Ohio is holding Jane Austen tea next Saturday, April 2nd, from 1 to 3. Tickets are $35 through EventBrite and I’ll put a link in the show notes. 

As promised in the last episode, there are few more women I wanted to touch on before Women’s History Month comes to end. Women of the 20th and 21st centuries, women from my lifetime and yours. Women who continue to pave the way forward to true equality and justice. 

In 1950, the woman who would become Saint Teresa of Calcutta founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of over five thousand nuns running homes for those suffering from HIV/AIDS, leprosy (now known as Hansen’s disease), and tuberculosis. They also ran soup kitchens, dispensaries, mobile clinics, family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools. And I can say that for the entirety of my lifetime, Mother Teresa has been the epitome of selflessness and charity. 

In 1962, she received the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award offered by the Republic of India. 

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her “work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace.” She refused the traditional ceremonial banquet and instead asked that its one hundred and ninety two thousand dollar cost be given to India’s poor. 

In her Nobel lecture, she said, “...I found the poverty of the West so much more difficult to remove. When I pick up a person from the street, hungry, I give him a plate of rice, a piece of bread. I have satisfied. I have removed that hunger. But a person that is shut out, that feels unwanted, unloved, terrified, the person that has been thrown out from society, that poverty is so hurtful and so much, and I find that very difficult.”

The following year in 1980, her civilian award was raised to the Bharat Ratna, the Republic of India’s highest.

Mother Teresa died in 1997. Upon her passing, former UN Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar said “She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.”

Wellington nurse and journalist, Nancy Wake, was living in France when World War II broke out. She started out working as an ambulance driver until France fell to the Germans and she joined the Pat O’Leary escape network, which helped Allied soldiers and airmen evade capture and escape after they had been stranded or shot down in occupied territories. 

The Germans eventually caught onto the escape network so Nancy fled to England. It wasn’t until after the war was over she found out that her husband had been captured and executed. 

In England, Nancy joined the Special Operations Executive. In 1945, she received the George Medal awarded by the United Kingdom. She was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by the United States, the National Order of the Legion of Honor by France, which is the highest order of merit for both militia and civilians, the Order of Australia and the Badge in Gold from New Zealand. All her medals are on display at the Australian War Memorial. 

After the war she continued working in intelligence and politics, she remarried, and later in life was well known for her love of a “bloody good” gin and tonic. 

Indira Gandhi, born five years after Nancy Wake to India’s first prime minister, would go on to become the third prime minister, as well as India’s first and only female prime minister. She is the second longest serving prime minister after her father. 

Indira Gandhi strongly supported the secession of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from Pakistan and was the first government leader to recognize Bangladesh as a new country. 

After a turbulent career with accusations of misconduct and electoral misconduct, as well as a poor response to an extremist takeover, she was tragically assassinated in 1984 by two of her own bodyguards. 

Despite the controversy, Indira did not shy away from doing what she thought was best for her country in male-dominated arena. She was posthumously given Bangladesh’s highest award for her support of the secession from Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Faith Thomas was training hard, becoming South Australia’s first indigenous nurse to be employed as a public servant as well as making waves in the cricket world. From 1956 to 1958, she played for the South Australia women’s team until she was selected for the 1958 Australian women’s team, making her the first aboriginal woman selected to represent Australia in any sport. 

Now, one of my personal heroines: Dame Jane Goodall, English anthropologist and primatologist who has spent the last 60 years studying chimpanzees. 

In 1977 she created the Jane Goodall Institute, and in 1992 went on to establish a rehab center in the Republic of Congo for chimps who have been orphaned by illegal bush-meat trade. Two years later she founded the Take Care project to protect chimpanzee habitats from deforestation whilst educating communities on sustainability and agriculture, as well as providing reproductive health education and scholarships to young women. 

She was named a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2004. She has also been given the honorific title of United Nations Messenger of Peace, which is bestowed upon those distinguished individuals, carefully selected from the fields of art, music, literature, and sports, who have agreed to help focus worldwide attention on the work of the UN.

Other awards include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, the Kyoto Prize, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the Gandhi-King Award for Nonviolence, and the Templeton Prize, amongst others. 

Another remarkable woman is Wangari Maathai, Kenyan social, political, and environmental activist. Her early work at various volunteer associations led her to realize that most of Kenya’s problems were caused by environmental degradation. In 1977 she founded the Green Belt Movement, which focuses on environmental conservation, community development, and women’s rights. 

In 2004, she became the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace. Since 1901, 109 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded - only 18 of them to women, including Wangari Maathai and Mother Teresa. 

Like Jane Goodall, Wangari received a great many awards for her work, including the Goldman Environmental Prize, the Edinburgh Medal for outstanding contribution to humanity through science, the Jane Addams leadership award, the Livingstone Medal from the Royal Geographical Society, the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize, and many others. 

And now for something completely different - Joy Spence, the first female master blender. Joy’s first creation was a special rum to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Appleton Estate rum distillery. Soon after, she was creating custom rum blends for high profile clients like Ronald Regan and Princes William and Harry. 

In 2016, she was able to achieve geographical indication for Jamaican rum. Geographical indication certifies a product is specific to a geographical location or region and possesses unique qualities or is made by traditional methods. Geographical indication is what separates French champagne from other sparkling white wines, or Kentucky bourbon from other American whiskeys. 

The following year, Appleton Estates released the Joy Anniversary Blend to mark her twenty years as master blender and she was named the most influential woman in the cocktail and spirit world. For her service to the rum industry, Jamaica awarded her the Order of Distinction, Officer class. 

Back in Pakistan, 1977, Benazir Bhutto was returning after studying international law and diplomacy in Oxford. Her father had recently been elected Prime Minister, only to be imprisoned after a military coup a few days later. He was executed in 1979 and Benazir inherited his leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party. She was arrested, detained, and exiled over the years but in 1988, Pakistan’s dictator was killed in a plane crash and Benazir was elected as Prime Minister. She was the first female prime minister of a Muslim nation and, at only 35, she was one of the youngest chief executives in the world. 

She brought electricity to the countryside, built schools, and prioritized hunger, housing, and healthcare, despite facing constant opposition from the Islamic Fundamentalist movement. She was once again exiled for 9 years and was able to return to Pakistan in 2007. Her homecoming rally was the target of a sucide attack that killed 136 people. She survived the attack ducking behind an armored vehicle, only to be assassinated the following month at a campaign rally. 

Benazir Bhutto never stopped advocating for democracy and she was posthumously awarded the United Nations prize for her work in human rights. 

More recently in Zealand, Georgina Beyer became the world’s first openly transgender mayor and member of parliament. She was the keynote speaker at the first and second Conference on LGBT Human Rights, as well as the keynote speaker for the Eagle Canada Human Rights Trust’s Annual Gala. During the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honors, she was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to LGBTQ rights. 

Also in New Zealand, currently the 40th prime minister, Jacinda Ardern is among the youngest of world leaders. Last year, she was ranked 34th on Forbes’ list of 100 most powerful women in the world, and Fortune magazine put her at the top of their list of the world’s greatest leaders for her leadership at the onset of the pandemic, her handling of the Christchurch mosque shooting, and of the Whakaari (fakari)/White Island volcanic eruption. She is only the second woman to give birth in office, the first being Benazir Bhutto. Ardern focuses on the New Zealand housing crisis, child poverty, and social inequality. 

Next on my list is someone you likely won’t know for philanthropic or humanitarian efforts, but rather for portraying none other than Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise. In 2014, Emma Watson was appointed a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and delivered an address at the UN headquarters to launch the campaign, HeForShe, urging men to advocate for gender equality. 

In the same year was named Feminist Celebrity of the year by the Ms. Foundation for Women, and in 2020 she was ranked sixth amongst the most inspired women in the world. Last year she hosted a panel on climate change at the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. 

But it was that 2014 UN address that inspired the last woman on this list to call herself a feminsit. Malala Yousefzai, born in Pakistan, 1997. 

Her father was an educational activist and humanitarian, and Malala followed in his footsteps from an early age. In 2009, she was writing for BBC Urdu under a pseudonym, describing life during the Tehrik-i-Taliban occupation, and appearing in documentaries and interviews. She was even nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by Desmond Tutu.

In response to the attention she was garnering, Taliban leaders met and unanimously agreed to assassinate Malala. So, in 2012, as she was riding the bus home, she was shot in the head. 

While undergoing surgeries, Angelina Jolie made the first donation to what became the Malala Fund, an international non-profit organization advocating for girls’ education. 

The following year, on her 16th birthday, she spoke in front of the United Nations calling for worldwide access to education. The UN called the event “Malala Day,” and she wore one of Benazir Bhutto’s shawls and named her as a source of inspiration. 

It was her first public speech since the assassination attempt and the first ever UN Youth Take Over with over 500 youth education advocates in attendance. She said, “Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.”

In 2014, she became the youngest recipient and second-ever Pakistani recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people, and for the right of all children to an education. She is another on the list of only 18 women to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Wangari Maathai and Mother Teresa. 

She has received the Sitara-e-Shujaat, the second-highest civilian bravery award, given by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, as well as the Mother Teresa Award for social justice, and the Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International. She was the youngest ever UN Messenger of Peace and named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world, amongst many other awards and recognitions. 

And that wraps up Women’s History Month for 2022. 

I hope these women will inspire your actions and may we, as Daughters of the British Empire, live up to their legacies, and proudly walk the paths they are forging ahead of us. 

We have added many books to our Goodreads account so if you’re looking for something to read, or are interested in learning more about any of these women, please go check that out. Don’t forget you can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Guidestar, and you can email me - podcast@dbenational…. With questions, comments, or topic suggestions! 

But until next time, not ourselves but the cause…