March is Women’s History Month and usually, around this time of year, you’ll hear “Seneca Falls Convention” and “Susan B. Anthony” echoed in conversations about historical feminism.
However, I think we should also take the time to recognize underrepresented and unappreciated feminist and female innovators who broke ground in their respective fields. From lesbian poets to rock-and-roll revolutionaries, I would like to recognize three tremendous trailblazers and their significant contributions to 20th-century culture.
Pat Parker
Lesbian feminist poet Pat Parker contributed so much in her lifetime, not only as a poet but as a social activist. From being a part of the Black Panther Party to carving a space for Black feminist lesbians to inhabit and conquer, Parker’s poetic visionary radicalized other feminists to embrace intersectional feminism and emphasize differences between women. In literary spheres, she highlighted how her identities manifest and coalesce in her work and unleashed a socio-economic cavalcade of change along with her contemporaries such as Audre Lorde. When co-founder Betty Friedan excluded lesbians from the National Organization for Women (NOW), Parker challenged Friedan’s lesbophobia and the misconceptions of lesbians through poems like “My Lover Is A Woman.” She wrote about five poetry collections in her lifetime including the revolutionary Movement In Black, a reflection of Blackness, lesbianism, and motherhood coinciding with her social work.
Hedy Lamarr
While most know Hedy Lamarr as a Golden-Age Hollywood actress, not too many people know of her inventive contributions during World War II. Coming from a Jewish household and fleeing from an unhappy marriage with a Nazi-associated arms dealer, Lamarr launched her acting career in the late 30s and became a prominent star among the American masses. During the war, Lamarr, along with George Antheil, helped develop a frequency concept for radio-controlled torpedoes that helped the Allied powers. Her “frequency-hopping” system prevented radio waves from being interrupted and helped the war efforts tremendously even though she wouldn’t get credited until towards the end of her life. Additionally, this invention would later contribute to the development of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS!
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
We often associate “rock-n-roll” with the likes of Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry, but what if I told you that there was a Godmother of Rock-n-Roll? Meet Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel-blues singer who transformed and transcended musical genres into a rock fusion. She was also a trailblazer guitarist whose work and musical spirit expanded into the 1940s, especially during the war. Presley often covered her songs too! Moreover, she was a queer artist who was open about her relationships with men and women which she expressed poetically in songs like Rock Me! After decades of being overshadowed by male rockers, she was finally posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
