Women's History Month Open Thread: Family Ties
Many of us look to women in our family as our sheroes in women’s history. Who are the women in your family who have inspired or helped shape you? How did they do it?

GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.
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Womens History Month Open Thread Family Ties…
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Ma McDonough, my great grandmother. She is my feminist inspiration and I’ll be writing about her right here on 9 Ways later this month.
Can’t wait to read what you write, Liz!
My mom and my grandmother – by teaching me to follow my heart and my passion no matter what others said. They were/are always there to cheer my successes and offer comfort and love during the rough spots. My grandmother is close to the end of her life now, and my world will not be the same when she’s gone.
Sorry to hear about your grandmother, Tammy. But you will carry on her spirit.
I just have to share these great comments people wrote on Facebook!
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Elizabeth Kaplan There aren’t any. I’m my own woman.
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Debra Boehlke My grandmother on my mom’s side- she was such a sweet woman and loved me unconditionally. ( I was and still am the black sheep of my family)
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Krista Lyons My grandmother Theodora. She could do anything and wasn’t afraid of trying whether that meant fixing the tv, baking the best lemon meringue pie, traveling to Guatemala and Egypt, or playing the piano. And she was very kind to others.
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Ilene Gould Isenberg That’s easy. My mom Evelyn. Took care of the home and kids and worked with my dad and still had time and passion for her community and her beliefs. Super volunteer! A true fighter till the end!
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Rita Harkins Dickinson After my last female relative passed away I made a quilt with a square for each of the nine who held me as a child. Figured it would be pink, but bought red fabric. They weren’t pink women – they were RED!
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Gloria Feldt Oh these are all such wonderful pieces of history and of ourselves today. My maternal grandmother Rose was by far my most significant role model. Her love of literature and interest in politics, the fact she had a college education and though she had given it up when she married, her career as a teacher and schoolmistress in Russia (as a Bolshevik, she was fond of reminding me), her community volunteerism, and her sense of humor–for starters.
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Joy Whitley Lowry My junior and senior high school English teacher, Mrs. Huffaker, inspired me to become an English teacher. She was hard, but oh so smart.
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Rachelle Pachtman
If it were not for Mrs. Weinstock, my 2nd and 7th grade teacher who always called me (an insecure little girl, and one of four siblings) up to read my compositions in the front of the room and told me what a good writer I was, I never would… have had the confidence to become the wordsmith that I am today. She was perhaps the only adult who encouraged me and recognized my ability as something that made me feel special at least in that one area. I had dreams about her about ten years ago, when she was in her 90s, and tracked her down. We spoke a few times and I told her how important she was in my life and how she had given me my life’s work. A few weeks later, I dreamt about her again and called and her daughter said she had just passed away.
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Karin Lippert If there are women in your life…who shaped who you are…share their stories on Wikipedia. Only a fraction of the posts on Wikipedia – used students to study and write papers for classes – are about women. Lets change that.