By Rana Ballout
Born of a Woman
James Brown said it best way back in 1966. The smooth-gliding Godfather of Soul dared summon those immortal words in a time when women, almost worldwide, were burning their bras in protest and demanding their rights to, well, be men. “This is a man’s world,” he defiantly belted out to the flower power generation. He was a brave soul that Mr. Brown.
History or ‘her-story’ if you prefer has spawned astonishingly talented females. Women who have helped shape our modern times, and without whom we may have foregone much. Back in the darker days of 1843 – around the time when electricity was invented – Ada Augusta Lovelace, was putting together the preliminary technical groundwork for the computer. An early start to what would become the twenty-first century’s most indispensable tool, adding depth to the pockets of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Also, while Alexander Graham Bell may have been credited with inventing the telephone in 1875, Randice-Lisa Altschal patented the first disposable mobile phone over one century later in 1999. And as men waged their Cold War conflicts, a woman by the name of Stephanie Kwolek created Kevlar in 1965, a carbon fibre material used in body armour and, pound for pound, five times stronger than steel.
Why stop there? At the dawn of last century, a tireless Marie Curie was well on her way to being the first female recipient of a Nobel Prize in 1903 for her discovery of radioactive elements – the cornerstone of cancer treatment used by centres on a global scale. Inspired by this heroine of the scientific world, in 1978, Barbara Atkins developed and patented a method of enhancing pictures using radioactive materials. It would later be referred to as the good old X-ray. In 2008, the UAE’s genetics pioneer Professor Lihadh Al Gazali became one of UNESCO-L’Oréal’s laureates for her pioneering contributions to the characterisation of inherited diseases.
And the story goes on. Henry Ford may have lined-up workers on an assembly line to increase production in the early 1900s; but sales would mostly certainly have not lived up to the legend were it not for the vision, quite literarily, of Mary Anderson who was awarded the windshield wiper patent in 1903. Speaking of doing away with unwarranted excess, in 1946, Marion Donovan sold her disposable nappy invention for one million USD.
And while men are on an endless look-out for a proverbial ‘living doll,’ two women actually made good with theirs. Ruth Handler moulded the iconic Barbie in 1959 just as Dianne Croteau helped to invent, in 1989, ACTAR 911 – better known as the CPR Mannequin – indelibly saving a whole host of lives. “This is a man’s world, But it wouldn’t be nothing, Nothing without a woman or a girl,” Mr. Brown continues to tunefully croon over the airwaves. Now, ain’t that the truth!
