Marlene Wagman-Geller - Still I Rise: The Persistence of Phenomenal Women

Still I Rise

The Persistence of
Phenomenal Women

Marlene Wagman-Geller

Copyright 2017 Marlene Wagman-Geller.

Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Marija Lijeskic and Elina Diaz

Layout Design: Elina Diaz

Mango is an active supporter of authors rights to free speech and artistic expression in their books. The purpose of copyright is to encourage authors to produce exceptional works that enrich our culture and our open society.

Uploading or distributing photos, scans or any content from this book without prior permission is theft of the authors intellectual property. Please honor the authors work as you would your own. Thank you in advance for respecting our authors rights.

For permission requests, please contact the publisher at:

Mango Publishing Group

2850 Douglas Road, 3rd Floor

Coral Gables, FL 33134 USA

For special orders, quantity sales, course adoptions and corporate sales, please email the publisher at or +1.800.509.4887.

Still I Rise : The Persistence of Phenomenal Women

Library of Congress Cataloging

ISBN: (paperback) 978-1-63353-596-1, (ebook) 978-1-63353-595-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017908614

BISAC category code : BIO022000 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women

Printed in the United States of America

PREVIOUS BOOKS

Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten Women Behind the Worlds Famous and Infamous

And the Rest is History: The Famous (and Infamous) First Meetings of the Worlds Most Passionate Couples

Eureka! The Surprising Stories Behind the Ideas
That Shaped the World

Once Again to Zelda: The Stories Behind Literatures Most Intriguing Dedications

Dedication

To the women who helped me rise:

My Mother, Gilda Wagman

My daughter, Jordanna Shyloh Geller

Authors Note: The title of this book, STILL I RISE is a tribute to Maya Angelous 1978 poem, STILL I RISE, where in the first stanza reads:

You may write me down in history,

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, Ill rise.

Still I Rise can be found in AND STILL I RISE: A BOOK OF POEMS by Maya Angelou, a Random House book.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

S ome things stagger the mindthe size of the universe, or the trillions of atoms in a single grain of sand or cells in a newborns little fingernail. As much beyond our grasp is the estimated one hundred billion human beings who have ever lived. This means that fifty billion women have watched the sun rise and set and the seasons pass since our species came into being.

Millions of women, we can therefore safely say, have lived what Western culture has defined as the appropriate female experiencethe helpmate, the subordinate, the one who stirred the pot and darned the socks at home. Though women in our culture have far greater opportunities than in the past, a significant degree of gender stereotyping still clings to our society and rattles around unbidden and unwanted in our brains. Women have put up with mansplaining and gender bias far longer than there have been words for either, and have sold themselves short for centuries, as so many still do today. Here, in these stories of twenty-five women who overcame incredible personal and societal adversity, Marlene Wagman speaks not just for these womens heroism, but for all the rest whose stories we will never know, and for the next generation of female heroes whose voices are better heard in classrooms, on playing fields, and in workplaces today because of the women who have come before.

Many of the stories recounted in Still I Rise are bigger than gender, though gender limitations are woven inextricably throughout. Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan struggled to overcome the ravages of a disease that couldnt have cared less if Helen was a girl or boy. Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone with the Wind , sat in the same separate waiting rooms and drank from the same colored water fountains as African American men. Having an addicted spouse, as Lois Burnham Wilson, the wife of the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous did, is devastating whether the spouse is a husband or wife. Nevertheless, there is no question that being female compounds immeasurably the other burdens and struggles of life, as Wagman shows here.

The twenty-five essays are replete with details that show evidence of Wagmans deep research. Did you know, for example, that Kellers eyes were replaced with glass ones for cosmetic and medical reasons? Or that McDaniel successfully pleaded with Clark Gable not to make a scene by boycotting the gala opening night, which she could not attend because of her race? Or that Lois Wilson endured her husbands many other addictions, while they struggled to make the Twelve Step AA program, which had freed him from dependence on alcohol, the household word it is today? All the details are here in these thoughtful, touching, and well written essays, sprinkled throughout with signature doses of Wagmans wry humor.

Still I Rise serves as a shout-out to all of us and our stories. I am proud to share my gender not just with the women about whom Wagman writes, but with Wagman herself, and all my sister authors who put their hearts, intelligence, creativity, and hard work into telling the stories of women who can no longer speak for themselves.

Laurel Corona

Author of Finding Emilie and The Mapmakers Daughter

San Diego, 2017

A woman is like a teabag; you never know strong it is until its in hot water.

Eleanor Roosevelt

A nyone who has managed to survive to mid-mark of the biblically allotted three score years and ten has had occasion to cast ones eyes heavenward and mutter, Ya know, God, there are other people. Amidst these litany of woes can be discerned cries of betrayal, illness, lost illusions. After all, part and parcel of living means treading the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, navigating the Canal of a Shattered Romance . What eases the thorny path is the belief we do not have a monopoly on grief, that loss is a universal condition. Another weapon in the arsenal of endurance is the hope we can rise from our knees. In the words of Oprah, Turn your wounds into wisdom .

In a nod to the sweet is sprinkled with the bitter; while celebrating the launch of my fourth book, Behind Every Great Man, was the pain I experienced from watching a lady I love grappling with a tsunami of tsoris that through solidarity became my own. For solace I turned to women who had conquered their own emotional Everestwho not only refused to crumble, but prevailed. The first of these possessors of indomitable spirit I investigated was Hattie McDaniel. She was the thirteenth child born to former slaves and her life was a struggle against grinding poverty, racism, four failed marriages, and a hysterical pregnancy. Rather than bow to defeat, she arm-wrestled Jim Crow and broke the color barrier in film to become the first African American to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Mammy in Gone with the Wind. In her emotional acceptance speech, she stated she hoped she was a credit to her race. She wasand not just to her race, but the human race.

Aung San Suu Kyi went from two decades of house arrest in Burma to Swedens Nobel Peace Laureate. Rather than vow vengeance on the regime who had stolen her life, she sought to negotiate with the junta; however, so far it has chosen to ignore her. She stated with her indefatigable humor sweetened with temperance, I wish I could have tea with them every Saturday, a friendly tea. And, if not, we could always try coffee.