Our Favorite Nasty Women: A guest post by Kelli Stanley

RHYS BOWEN: Today I'm happy to welcome one of my favorite people on the planet, Kelli Stanley.I've known Kelli for years, really enjoy her company and her passion for justice, equality and women's rights. So when I as asked to contribute to her anthology called SHATTERING GLASS of course I was delighted to do so, along with a few other nobodies like Barbara Boxer, Heather Graham, Jacqueline Winspear etc etc.

It's an interestingly eclectic mix of stories, memoirs, biographies all with one theme. Nasty women make a difference. So today Kelli has asked some of the contributors to talk about their own candidate for Nasty Woman.

Our Favorite “Nasty” Women

Kelli: First, Rhys, thank you so much for inviting us to Jungle Red, one of my favorite blogs, and for being a major contributor to SHATTERING GLASS!! When I founded Nasty Woman Press in 2016, one of the major ideas behind it was to offer a series of anthologies that encompassed a very wide variety of works—both fiction and non-fiction—but which were also thematically united as individual works. Those themes then directly relate to the non-profit for which each book is raising money.

For example, SHATTERING GLASS, the first of our publications out on June 16^th, takes female empowerment as its overall theme and all profits are donated to Planned Parenthood.

Because SHATTERING GLASS offers fascinating and thought-provoking non-fiction pieces next to riveting short stories, we had an opportunity to ask contributing authors and political figures who their favorite “nasty women” were … and we’ve far from exhausted the subject! From history, the contemporary world or fiction, “nasty women” have influenced us all, so I thought we’d share three more of them with Jungle Red.

Joining me in this discussion are LIBBY FISHER HELLMANN and JAMES L’ETOILE, two of our contributors who have not had a chance to discuss their favorite “nasties” until now. 😊

Jim, please tell us about JOYCE ZINK—I was thrilled to learn about her and I know everyone else will be, too!

JIM: Thanks, Kelli and Rhys! “Birthright”, my story in SHATTERING GLASS, examines the potential for corruption and abuse within private-for-profit prisons where the most vulnerable populations in the criminal justice system are trapped. While my story focuses on a fictional women’s private prison and a single woman who breaks down barriers and exposes self-sustaining greed, there are real-life examples of women standing up against the system.

One such example is Joyce Zink. Joyce isn’t a household name, yet she faced incredible odds as one of the first women to serve as a Correctional Officer. Hired in 1972, Joyce Zink was one of the first Correctional Officers assigned to San Quentin State Prison, a historically all-male maximum security facility. She wasn’t allowed to perform in any role that brought her in regular contact with the inmates, because it was still believed, at that time, that women were the “weaker sex” and would prove to be a security threat. She was assigned to the visiting room and gun towers far removed from the housing units.

In 1973, she transferred to Folsom State prison with the hope that she would be able to pursue the full range of Correctional Officer duties but found her assignment in the visiting room once again.

On June 21, 1973, a resolution offered by Senator Hubert L. Richardson actually sought a moratorium on the hiring of female correctional officers in state correctional institutions. Fortunately, Richardson’s resolution died in committee.

In the midst of this incredible pressure, Joyce withstood the discrimination, harassment, and misplaced hostility she suffered because of her gender and focused on the job—and excelled at it.  Eventually, she became the first woman to work inside Folsom’s historic cellblocks.

Joyce went on to become one of the most respected Correctional Captains within the department and Correctional Officers lined up to serve under her. It was my pleasure to work with Joyce briefly at Folsom and her quiet confidence belied that inner strength and determination that paved a path for other women to follow.

KELLI: Wow, what a story—and what a story “Birthright” is, too, Jim—it certainly opened my eyes to the gross inequities of the incarceration-for-profit system. Next up is Libby Fischer Hellmann, who is offering another example of a woman who history will most certainly enshrine as a great jurist and human being: RUTH BADER GINSBERG.

By the way, Libby’s piece in SHATTERING GLASS, entitled “Daddy’s Girls”, is based on a horrifically true situation involving a politician, but is ultimately a story of survival, perseverance and above all, love. Take it away, Libby!

LIBBY: Thanks, everyone, and glad to be here! I’ve just gotta say that any woman who can do a one-minute plank at age 86 is my kind of nasty woman. I’m talking, of course, about the notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, to my way of thinking, is the epitome of nasty women. Not just because she is highly intelligent and has blazed a trail as an accomplished attorney and jurist. Not because she has the discipline of a lion but the disposition of a lamb. Not just because she’s been a crusader for women’s rights since the start of her career. And not because she has beaten colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer.

Following are just a few of her accomplishments that guarantee her acceptance into the Nasty Woman Club:

• 1^st female member of Harvard Law Review
• Graduated 1^st in her law school class at Columbia in 1959
• Became Columbia’s first female tenured professor.
• Served as the director of the Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, for which she argued six landmark cases on gender equality before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Appointed to SCOTUS in 1993 by Bill Clinton; confirmed 96-3.
• Wrote the Supreme Court's landmark decision in United States v. Virginia, which held that the state-supported Virginia Military Institute could not refuse to admit women.
• In 1999 she won the American Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award for her contributions to gender equality and civil rights.
• Appeared at the Sundance Film Festival to accompany the premiere of the documentary RBG in 2018

Finally, one of her best Nasty Women attributes is discretion. Subtle when she needs to be, RBG wears unique collars on her judicial robes. Her most famous is the Dissent Collar. She wears it when she dissents from a decision being handed down by the Supreme Court. She also has a collar she wears when she's reading majority opinions.

RBG is my choice for favorite Nasty Woman.

KELLI: I so agree, Libby—RBG is most definitely in the pantheon of Nasty Women! 😊 And a true superhero to many of us. Like you guys, the favorite nasty woman I’m choosing to write about was real, but not contemporary—she died in 1883. “Hysterical”, my story in SHATTERING GLASS, is unrelated—it was inspired by contemporary events and a classic episode of “The Twilight Zone”.  

My choice for favorite Nasty Woman is the amazing Sojourner Truth. Born enslaved in 1797 in Ulster County, New York, Sojourner was bought and sold four times before escaping in 1827 with her baby daughter to an abolitionist family who purchased her freedom. The following year, she became the first African-American woman to successfully sue a white man, and won possession of her son.

She became a well-known and charismatic itinerant preacher, speaking on, from and with the Spirit, and on the necessity of abolition, despite never learning to read or write. In the 1850s she dictated her autobiography, which was published to great success, and became as much involved with women’s rights activism as she was with the abolitionist movement.

Her work before and during the Civil War brought an invitation to meet President Lincoln in 1864. She later worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau, helping the formerly enslaved find jobs and reunite with families.

In the 1860s, she fought against segregation, and in Washington, D.C., successfully petitioned for the arrest of a streetcar conductor who tried to keep her off the vehicle.  Her statue is in the Capitol Building; it is the first statue of an African-American to be placed there.

Sojourner may be most famous for one of her eloquent speeches, circulated widely during the Civil War, but first given at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851. Entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?”, it eloquently resonates as a plea for recognition of human rights. As Hillary Clinton has said, “Women’s rights are human rights”, and Sojourner Truth, one of the great leaders of Resistance when Resistance meant fighting against the enslavement, torture and murder of human beings, was one of the most inspiring examples of true heroism in any era, in any country. She’s my choice for favorite “nasty woman.”

Thanks, everyone, for participating today! I hope you’ve all enjoyed reading—and hope that you’ll enjoy reading SHATTERING GLASS, where you’ll learn about other examples of women who’ve inspired us. Thanks again, Rhys, for your wonderful conversation with Jackie Winspear in SHATTERING GLASS and for inviting us to Jungle Red!

RHYS: Wonderful stuff, Kelli. So let's hear from you? Who is your Nasty Woman hero? I have several Maya Angelou, Nancy Pelosi, Mother Theresa, Michelle Obama.. all women who behaved with grace and dignity when they were insulted, belittled and threatened.