The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resilience

HILLARY: Growing up, I knew hardly any women who worked outside the home. So I looked to my mother, my teachers, and the pages of Life magazine for inspiration. Like Amelia Earhart I started a scrapbook with newspaper articles about successful women in male-dominated jobs. Long after I stopped clipping articles, I continued to seek out stories of women who seemed to be redefining what was possible. CHELSEA: This book is the continuation of a conversation the two of us have been having since I was little. For me, too, my mom was a hero; so were my grandmothers. My early teachers were also women. But I grew up in a world very different from theirs. My pediatrician was a woman, and so was the first mayor of Little Rock who I remember from my childhood. Most of my close friends' moms worked outside the home as nurses, doctors, teachers, professors, and in business. And women were going into space and breaking records here on Earth. Ensuring the rights and opportunities of women and girls remains a big piece of the unfinished business of the twenty-first century. Each of the women in this book have overcome the toughest resistance imaginable to win victories that have made progress possible for all of us. So how did they do it? Civil rights activist Dorothy Height, LGBTQ trailblazer Edie Windsor, and swimmer Diana Nyad kept pushing forward. Writers like Rachel Carson and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie named something no one had dared talk about before. Historian Mary Beard used wit to open doors that were once closed, and Wangari Maathai, who sparked a movement to plant trees, understood the power of role modeling. Harriet Tubman and Malala Yousafzai looked fear in the face and persevered. Nearly every single one of these women was fiercely optimistic - they had faith that their actions could make a difference. And they were right. To us, they are all gutsy women-leaders with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.