“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”- William Shakespeare, "A Midsummer Night’s Dream"
After my article earlier this week (A President In Pearls: Should We Elect A Female Commander-In-Chief?) I felt compelled to clear the air, or perhaps my own conscience in reference to what I have previously written. I stand by the fact that I do indeed believe that the sexes are wired differently, and women differ emotionally from their male counterparts. However, I believe in women as a gender! Women are strong, mighty, intelligent, resourceful, and passionate creatures! I thought it best to take time in this article to focus on a few of the strong and influential women of our generation and generations past, some who have been leaders in their own right, whether in the political arena or not, they have shaped our world and our gender into what it is today and that should be recognized.
Pat Summitt. Words like “iconic” and “legendary” are used when people speak of Pat Summitt, who recently passed away at the age of 64, after a five year battle with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Summitt coached the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team for an astounding, and extremely successful 38 seasons. Summit led the Lady Vols to a monumental six national collegiate championships, only being topped by one other coach, and 1,098 victories in her 38 years of coaching. If that isn’t enough to speak to just who Pat Summitt was, there are many other factors which speak to the strength and fortitude of Summitt.
She was raised as the fourth of five children in rural Tennessee, being born to a hard-nosed farmer father. Pat joined her older brothers in long, hot days of chopping tobacco and baling hay, and in the down time of the evenings she played basketball with her brothers, cultivating her future love for the sport. Some years later, when Summit went into labor with her son, Tyler, her only child, on a recruiting trip to Pennsylvania, she demanded the pilot fly her home so that Tyler would be born in her home state, and just one month prior to celebrating the victory of what would be her final national title, Summit dislocated her shoulder at home while trying to remove a raccoon from her deck. Summit tried to remedy the dislocation herself for hours prior to seeking medical attention. Not only was Summit a legend in women’s basketball, and a friend to many — she was a badass.
With all of those stats being given, what speaks even more of Summitt’s character is not how she was viewed professionally in the world of college basketball, or even how her colleagues revered her, but it was the impact that she had on her players. In the final hours of Summitt’s life players flew cross country, drove all night and slept on the floors of the retirement home where Summitt lived so they might have the opportunity “just to see her and whisper a few words in her ear."
Although a bit lengthy, I want to include a letter shared in a recent edition of The Washington Post following Summitt’s passing. This was a letter written by Summit to an incoming freshman player. The letter is dated November 22, 1982. The article that this letter was shared in was written by Sally Jenkins, a columnist with The Washington Post and a dear friend of Summit’s.
“Shelia, This is your first game. I hope you win for your sake, not mine. Because winning’s nice. It’s a good feeling. Like the whole world is yours. But it passes, this feeling. And what lasts is what you’ve learned. And what you’ve learned about is — life. That’s what sport is all about — life!
The whole thing is played out in an afternoon. The happiness of life, the miseries, the joys, the heartbreaks. There’s no telling what will turn up. There’s no telling how you’ll do. You might be a hero. Or you might be absolutely nothing.
There’s just no telling. Too much depends on chance, on how the ball bounces.
I’m not talking about the game. I’m talking about life. But it’s life that the game is all about. Just as I said, every game is life, and life is a game. A serious one. Dead serious. But here’s what you do with serious things. You do your best. You take what comes.
You take what comes and you run with it.
Winning is fun . . . Sure.
But winning is not the point.
Wanting to win is the point.
Not giving up is the point.
Never letting up is the point.
Never being satisfied with what you’ve done is the point.
The game is never over. No matter what the scoreboard reads, or what the referee says, it doesn’t end when you come off the court.
The secret of the game is in doing your best. To persist and endure, “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
I’m proud to be your Coach,
Pat Head Summitt”
One can only hope to have such a positive impact on people that at the end of their days, those they led and inspired would travel thousands of miles just to say a final heartfelt good-bye such as these individuals did. Pat Head Summitt was indeed a legend. She was a female who taught, who led and changed countless lives. Perhaps it was the very emotion that sets her apart from her male counterparts that allowed her to develop relationships that would influence not only this generation, but certainly generations to come. May she rest in peace.
When speaking of iconic women in history, it is impossible not to mention Margaret Thatcher, who was reverently referred to as the “Iron Lady” by the country that she led. Thatcher not only led Great Britain for many years, she was also educated as a barrister and a chemist, and became the mother of two children. Thatcher paved the way in becoming the first female Prime Minister in European history, as well as being Britain’s only Prime Minister to serve three consecutive terms.
When one researches the accomplishments of Thatcher, in comparison to Summitt, her record seems to lack personal inspiration and emotion, which is what the feel good stuff in life is made of, right? However, Thatcher was indeed a woman of iron-like strength — she earned that title. Thatcher fought the trade unions. Amid considerable resistance, she also worked to create a more entrepreneurial, free-market economy in Great Britain, and if those accomplishments weren’t enough to brand her name and work ethic into the annals of history, Thatcher also worked alongside then U.S. President Ronald Reagan toward the dissolution of the Soviet Union. She was a leader, a trailblazer and a legendary historical figure.
I must also include Eleanor Roosevelt. She was First Lady to her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who served as the 32nd President of the United States. Her accomplishments during his tenure and beyond were vital to the progress of not only our nation, and our world, but also to the advancement of women and for the provision of those much less fortunate.
Roosevelt, almost immediately following the inauguration of her husband proved that she wasn’t going to fit into the mold of what was expected of a First Lady, and that was to be somewhat seen and not heard. She began participating in radio broadcasts, wrote a daily syndicated column, and held women’s-only press conferences, where she discussed not only her activities as First Lady, but also cultivated conversations regarding current events and most importantly, she discussed women’s issues and what could be done to remedy them. Roosevelt was the first First Lady to bring attention to such matters and create a forum in which women could be heard.
Not only did she focus on the plight of women, but she also lobbied for civil rights to assist the poor, minorities and women. Roosevelt used her position as an unofficial adviser to her husband to better the lives of others. She accomplished this in assisting in the formation of the New Deal social- welfare reform policies, as well as the United Nations. These accomplishments were during her husband’s presidency. Beyond that, Roosevelt continued to campaign for those less fortunate as she served as a member of the first delegation of the UN, and she also played a crucial role in the development of UNICEF, an agency to meet the emergency needs of children in war-torn areas of the world. At the end of her accomplishments she was dubbed as “The First Lady of the World” by President Harry Truman.
There are more women that I could include in this article and rightfully so. Women who were educated, women who fought for the right of all women to have a political say and have the right to vote or the women who, despite what their circumstances might have dictated, found success. Women such as Charlotte Bronte who overcame the expectations of her gender in that dark era in our society when women were all but confined to their homes, and expected to care for their husbands and children, to have no career or aspirations of their own. She eventually penned "Jane Eyre," the literary classic. Or women like Sandra Day O’Connor who paved the path to the U.S. Supreme Court for other women such as Sonia Sotomayor when she was appointed to the bench in 1981. The list goes on…
So while this was in no way a retraction of my previous statements about the hard-wiring of men and women which has valid scientific support, it is an affirmation that I have only the deepest admiration for the strong, iconic and legendary women who have graced us with their knowledge and inspiration throughout the history of our world. No offense was intended.
So thank you to those women before me, before us, who refused to give up their seats on the bus, who taught elementary age girls to dream big and to aim to wear the black robe behind the bench. And most of all to the women, the badasses, who have blazed the trails, shattered the glass ceilings, and taught us what life really is all about and that we can do anything on or off the court of life!
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/sports/ncaabasketball/pat-summitt-obituary.html?_r=0
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2029774,00.html
http://www.livescience.com/4085-emotional-wiring-men-women.html
