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UNSUNG FEMALE HEROES
|10:40 UK time, Tuesday, 8 March 2011
Today is International Women's Day but rather than ask for your favourite female musicians, singers, songwriters, we wanted to celebrate some of the unsung women that inspire you.
We got so inundated with suggestions, most of them totally new to us, we thought we'd celebrate them right here.
Irregular Shed on Twitter nominated Jeri Ellsworth, a "Rally Driving, Roller Derbying, Electronics genius."
Apparently she is best known for creating a Commodore 64 emulator within a joystick, in 2004. Oisin Lunny suggested Hedy Lamarr "30s film diva, mobile phone tech pioneer, anti-Nazi gadget inventor". Lamarr and (George) Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones. Ida Lupino has been cropping up loads too. She was a pioneer amongst women film makers, apparently In the mid-1940s, while on suspension for turning down a role, Lupino became interested in directing. She described herself as being bored on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work."
Her directorial credits include 'Never Fear' which she also wrote the screenplay for. Her best known film, however, is The Hitch-HIker which you can watch in full here Staying in film TheJimSmith tipped us off to Leigh Bracket who wrote scripts for The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, Long Goodbye & Empire Strikes Back! Ada Lovelace is close to my heart for a) being related to Lord Byron. b) being from Nottingham. And c) playing a major role in the creation of computers. She was suggested by a whole bunch of you, including Leah Moore who says "she wrote the code for the first ever computer so without her no Call of Duty Black Ops!" Our session guest on Thursday is Caitlin Rose, who tweeted us with Phoolan Devi. Phoolan popularly known as "The Bandit Queen", was an Indian dacoit and later a politician. She was notorious across India during her time as a bandit. One of our favourite people, Andy Votel got in touch with the show to tell us about a whole load of inspirational women. Amongst them was Charlotte (Lotte) Reiniger who was a German (and later a British) silhouette animator and film director. Female pilots featured heavily in your tweets and emails. One of them that you told us about was Lettice Curtis. Lettice flew continually during WW2 from various Ferry Pool locations delivering all types through all weather to various destinations.
Staying with pilots, Jane Addis emailed to tell us about Bessie Coleman. Jane writes of Bessie, "the world's first black female pilot and the first woman to receive an International Pilot's License in 1921, an extraordinary achievement which was later honoured by the depiction of her photograph from that license on a US stamp in 1995. A true pioneer and an inspiration to all women, who overcame poverty and both gender and racial prejudice to realise her dream. There were way too many suggestions to post them all here, but I'll leave you with Lauren's own, Leonor Fini. Leonor was an Argentine surrealist painter, cat lady, and all round bohemian. To quote her "Marriage never appealed to me, I have never lived with one person. Since I was 18, I've always preferred to live in a sort of community - A big house with my atelier and cats and friends, one with a man who was rather a lover and another who was rather a friend. And it has always worked." Thanks everyone.
Apparently she is best known for creating a Commodore 64 emulator within a joystick, in 2004. Oisin Lunny suggested Hedy Lamarr "30s film diva, mobile phone tech pioneer, anti-Nazi gadget inventor". Lamarr and (George) Antheil's frequency-hopping idea serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones. Ida Lupino has been cropping up loads too. She was a pioneer amongst women film makers, apparently In the mid-1940s, while on suspension for turning down a role, Lupino became interested in directing. She described herself as being bored on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work."
Her directorial credits include 'Never Fear' which she also wrote the screenplay for. Her best known film, however, is The Hitch-HIker which you can watch in full here Staying in film TheJimSmith tipped us off to Leigh Bracket who wrote scripts for The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, Long Goodbye & Empire Strikes Back! Ada Lovelace is close to my heart for a) being related to Lord Byron. b) being from Nottingham. And c) playing a major role in the creation of computers. She was suggested by a whole bunch of you, including Leah Moore who says "she wrote the code for the first ever computer so without her no Call of Duty Black Ops!" Our session guest on Thursday is Caitlin Rose, who tweeted us with Phoolan Devi. Phoolan popularly known as "The Bandit Queen", was an Indian dacoit and later a politician. She was notorious across India during her time as a bandit. One of our favourite people, Andy Votel got in touch with the show to tell us about a whole load of inspirational women. Amongst them was Charlotte (Lotte) Reiniger who was a German (and later a British) silhouette animator and film director. Female pilots featured heavily in your tweets and emails. One of them that you told us about was Lettice Curtis. Lettice flew continually during WW2 from various Ferry Pool locations delivering all types through all weather to various destinations.
Staying with pilots, Jane Addis emailed to tell us about Bessie Coleman. Jane writes of Bessie, "the world's first black female pilot and the first woman to receive an International Pilot's License in 1921, an extraordinary achievement which was later honoured by the depiction of her photograph from that license on a US stamp in 1995. A true pioneer and an inspiration to all women, who overcame poverty and both gender and racial prejudice to realise her dream. There were way too many suggestions to post them all here, but I'll leave you with Lauren's own, Leonor Fini. Leonor was an Argentine surrealist painter, cat lady, and all round bohemian. To quote her "Marriage never appealed to me, I have never lived with one person. Since I was 18, I've always preferred to live in a sort of community - A big house with my atelier and cats and friends, one with a man who was rather a lover and another who was rather a friend. And it has always worked." Thanks everyone.
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