1000 Awesome Women

#10) Taryn Davis

Founder and Executive Director of the American Widow Project, Taryn Davis lost her husband to multiple roadside bombs in Iraq in 2007.

When her Google search for “widow” turned up the result: “Do you mean window?” she knew she had to take action. Taryn created the American Widow Project to provide resources to the 3,000+ other women around the country whose husbands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. This national movement has served and united over 700 widows so far, via the web, counseling and peer-to-peer retreats.

This Veteran’s Day we send prayers of peace and strength to the wives and families of soldiers who have given their lives to military service.

9) Randy Taran - Project Happiness

Many mothers — upon hearing their teenage daughter say “Mom, I’m stressed out. I want to be happy, but I don’t know how” — would freak out and put the kid on meds straightaway. Not Ms Taran. No, instead she mobilized a posse and made a film called Project Happiness to explore the nature of lasting happiness.

This powerful documentary explores these ideas the eyes of three groups of teenagers around the world. Their quest brings these awesome articulate kids to meetings with neuroscientist Richard Davidson, mythmaker George Lucas, the Dalai Lama, and, ultimately, each other.

The message of the movie is that happiness is not something that happens to us. It’s a verb — an action that we take, like driving, eating or playing the tuba. Ms Taran notes that there are specific practices, like practicing gratitude, connecting with others and intentionally giving to others — that build happiness and expand our sense of long-term well-being.

If the film isn’t awesome enough (and it is), Ms Taran and team have also created a series of books for the classroom and beyond, with practices and tips for cultivating happiness in our daily lives.

#8) Gloria Cain

Herman Cain’s wife may be married to a creepy Koch brothers puppet, but she’s also a Democrat.

#7) The Murmuration Women

Assuming this isn’t CG, it’s one of the most stunning videos we’ve seen in a long time. Makes you want to get out in a canoe and paddle to a distant island, no? Love the Pat Methenyesque soundtrack too.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

#6) Diane Ravitch

Public schools, like everything else in the public domain, are a mess these days.

Today’s Awesome Woman is an author, educational historian, and was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education under President George Bush I. Later, under Bush II, she was a vocal supporter of a piece legislation called No Child Left Behind, which required “proficiency” in Math and English for all schools by 2014, but didn’t define how to get there.

With no pedagogical compass, NCLB ended up being an unmitigated disaster, and is responsible for a) misallocation of millions of hours of classroom time to “teach to the test” b) the explosion of the standardized testing industry and c) a panic among educators that has resulted in school closures and the “blame the teacher” rhetoric of the so-called reformers.

So why, then, is Diane Ravitch #6 on this esteemed list?

She Admitted She Was Wrong

After seeing NCLB’s impact, she very publicly changed her mind. She wrote The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Undermine Education (2010) which detailed the myriad ways that our schools are being drained by NCLB and, furthermore, how the public school system today is under siege by private corporate interests.

Public Schooling as a Means to a Functioning Democracy

We are at a fascinating time in the history of our democracy. On the one hand, there is a perfect storm brewing that will transform education: Cheap classroom technologies, collaborative opportunities for teachers, and deeper understanding of the way the human brain learns. On the other hand, the private sector is chomping at the bit to get its paws on education.

So what does this mean for an antiquated public school system that was established around the agrarian farm calendar? It’s still unclear. But if anyone has a vision for saving public schools, it’s today’s Awesome Woman.

#5) Kyrax2 (The San Diego Batgirl)

This Awesome Woman created quite a stir at Comic-Con last July when she appeared as Batgirl and asked, during a DC Comics panel, why there aren’t more women in their ranks.

At first, the audience was receptive to these questions, but eventually became dismissive. Were they dismissing her ideas, or was it the delivery? It’s hard to say having not been there.

Nonetheless, Kyrax2 got a rocking huge outpouring of support from around the world. And more importantly? DC may be changing its practices. We’ll be keeping our eyes out for that.

DC (owned by Time Warner) and Marvel (owned by Disney) together make up over 80% of the U.S. comics market.

#4 The Brave Little Seamstress

Stories have an incredibly powerful effect on children’s ideas of who they are and what they can become. They use characters as models and guides to help them define who they are. There are SO MANY awesome book and stories, yet for some reason very few of them have a girl as the heroines.

Which brings us to The Brave Little Seamstress. This retelling of The Brave Little Tailor by Mary Pope Osborne is a must-read, particularly for girls between, say, 2-80. It follows the same story as the boy version: The heroine tricks giants and tames a wild unicorn, captures a wild boar and tricks a king into giving her his kingdom. After all these acts curiosity, smarts and bravery, she asks her favorite knight to marry her, and they live happily ever after.

Author Mary Pope Osborne

It is positively exhilarating to read to a little girl and watch her identify with how smart and strong little girls can be! One of our missions is to collect a series of books that showcase awesome 2-x types. So if you know of others, please share them!!

#3) Elizabeth Warren

This whip smart Massachusetts Senatorial candidate first became famous about a month or so for bringing it with this video:

But she is so much more awesome on so many levels.

A. After she graduated from college, she wanted to teach children with brain injuries. Nobody wants to teach brain-injured children unless they have an awesome heart.

B. Way later, after going to law school and teaching at Harvard, she became head of the oversight panel for the TARP bailout. In 2009, she looked at the numbers and discovered a $78 billion discrepancy between what the taxpayers paid, and what we got back

C. She’s running for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, she’s got plenty of cash, yet she’s totally aligning herself with #occupywallstreet. In fact, in yesterday’s news, she told The Daily Beast that she “created much of the intellectual foundation” for the ideas that are foundational to the Occupy movement.

Surely we’ll hear some backlash on that - such hubris! The horror!

Well, we can’t wait to see where she she goes next.

Know any other political figures who are taking on the big banks?

#2) Portia Nelson

Who is Portia Nelson, you ask? She’s a poet who wrote this little gem of a metaphor about life and choices. It’s a great one to remember, especially when you’re feeling like your life is a giant Habitrail.

I

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

II

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

IV

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

V

I walk down another street.

Who are some other awesome poets who write about transcending our mental habits and moving on?