Female Role Models X

Forgive me for not writing this sooner - I was in Ireland doing very important things like learning how they make Guinness.

So some double-chinned right-wing political hack whined about more women earning more money and times were so much better when June fetched Ward's slippers and brandy each night and things are so much worse now because of women with hairy armpits or something.  I'm honestly not that worked up about it because I've seen this guy before and he's basically had nothing useful to say about anything ever.

But then the Internet exploded and this guy got all kinds of facetime on TV and was a focal point on all the very serious political magazines - and of course all that did was reinforce the idea that the more stupid you sound, the more attention you get.

So it's time once again to respond to this garbage in the way I think we all should - celebrate some female role models you may not know right now but hopefully will soon.  This is the tenth installment of this series, but to refresh your memory here's the very vague criteria I use:

Someone an online mom can show her daughter [or son, a great point my wife made] and say, "See her? See what she's doing? See how she's living in the same world you are, with the same challenges you have, and see how she succeeds? THAT is how you do this. THAT is what I stand for. I want you to be like HER."

If you want to see all the role models I've featured you can check out the blog page or my FMR pinboard.   This edition's role models include:

Emily Finke.  The first thing you may notice about Emily is she kinda looks like Bat Girl.  Or maybe someone out of a Steampunk novel. But even if you aren't awed by her mad cosplay skilz, talking with Emily you quickly realize this forensic anthropologist/science communicator/feminist is really smart and always doing something to improve the lives of others. She challenges people to think of new and different things in new and different ways.

Carrie Mess.  People need to know more about where their food comes from.  That's where Dairy Carrie comes in.  She's a dairy farmer and a prolific blogger.  Dairy farming today isn't just waking up to sit on a stool and milk the cows. There is a TON of science and logistics and business and even politics involved.  It's long, hard work.  I met Carrie at the Alltech Symposium and I was struck not only by her friendly demeanor but by how accessible she makes the complicated subject of dairy farming.  She's a great ambassador for her industry.  My science communication friends could learn a lot from her.

Heather Barmore. I must really admire Heather because I rarely say nice things about Yankees fans.  She's an education lobbyist who shuttles between Albany and New York.  She's built a sizeable following on political issues and she's quite partisan - but because she runs with the BlogHer crowd more than the Netroots crowd she has great pals across the political spectrum.  That's a hard thing to pull off these days.  Her blog isn't just political rants, either - her writing displays more thoughtfulness, productive introspection, and courage than you typically find in personal/political blogs.

Cecily Kellogg. The Uppercase Woman is smart, outspoken, and fearless.  When she's not giving you excellent tips on how to improve your writing online or demonstrating that she's already figured out the online marketing tools you'll read about in the tech press next week, Cecily is taking on really tough issues and sharing all of the facets of family life.  You know Cecily is influential and important because she has critics who don't like her outspoken nature, they let her know about it, and yet she keeps doing her thing. Oh, and she has pink hair.