Stories from Romania

SOFIA IONESCU-OGREZEANU

(25th April 1920 – 21st March 2008)

Achievements:

The first female neurosurgeon in the world.
Innovator of brain surgery techniques that become breakthrough knowledge in the field of neurosurgery

Image Source:

https://www.eans.org/page/SofiaIonescu-Ogrezeanu-Bio

Sofia OGREZEANU he was born in Fălticeni, Suceava (Eastern part of Romania), to the Ogrezeanu family. Her father, Constantin Ogrezeanu, worked as a bank clerk and had been married before. After the death of his young daughter from his first marriage, he divorced and moved from Bucharest to Fălticeni to get away from the sadness of losing his child. Her mother, Maria Șincai, a housewife 25 years younger than her father, was originally from Bucovina, the northern part of the country. She was named Sofia, which means “wisdom” in Greek, and Gherghina—a synonym for the Dahlia flower. Both her names described personality characteristics manifested all her life. She had a sister with four years younger than her.

She attended the primary school and then the “High-school for Girls” in her hometown. When she was 13 years old, she went with her sister to spend a holiday with their maternal grandparents. Because of a very early morning train they needed to catch, their father caringly woke them up with a song and offered them each a rose from the small garden in front of the home. It was going to be the last memory of him, because he dies while the sisters are away. From that moment on, she gets closer to the family of her schoolmate and friend, Aurelia Dumitriu, whose father, Vasile Dumitriu, was a physician and “a kind person and caring doctor”, as she describes him. He becomes a role model for her, somehow replacing the void left by the death of her own father and, thus her interest for medicine school is ignited.

Later on, she feels mistreated at school, so she asks her mother to send her to “the best school there is”, so she goes to Bucharest for the last two years of high school, attending the Central School for Girls “Marica Brâncoveanu”. Encouraged by her deep mercy for people’s suffering and by her conviction that she can help them, she wishes to apply to the Human Medicine Faculty in Bucharest, but she is opposed by her Tutelary Commission (composed of a lawyer, her mother and other relatives). According to the law at that time, widows did not have complete decision-making rights over the children. Her mother fights for Sofia’s wish and finally prevails, so she starts studying medicine in 1939.

During the summer break in 1942, she takes care of the wounded soldiers in a war hospital organized in her hometown Fălticeni. In February 1943, while still in school, she competes for an ophthalmology externship at “Professor Doctor Cantacuzino” Hospital in Bucharest, which she gets. During the summer break in 1943, she works as a physician in a rural clinic in Baia, Suceava County.

In November 1943, she starts an internship at the Neurosurgery Service of the Hospital No. 9 in Bucharest, joining the first team of Romanian neurosurgeons, coordinated by Professor Dr Dimitrie Bagdasar – considered to be the founder of Romanian neurosurgery. The other members of the team were Constantin Arseni and Ionel Ionescu, her future husband.

In 1944, during World War II, a child with head wounds from a bombing incident is brought to the hospital. Professor Bagdasar has a hand injury and cannot perform the surgery. The other team members also face impediments to enter into surgery. The child is at risk of dying, so Sofia, even though she is still a 5th year student, offers to perform the surgery—one that would change her life. The surgery is a success and offers Professor Bagdasar a good proof of her skills, so he invites her to stay on the team and specialize in Neurosurgery.

She receives her degree in medicine in January 1945.

She gets married in 1945 to Ionel Ionescu, her neurosurgery colleague, becoming Sofia Ionescu-Ogrezeanu. The years to follow are full of concern and joy, working relentlessly (from 5 o’clock in the morning) to succeed in a profession dominated by men (until 1989, in Romania there were only 8 female neurosurgeons). She takes all the exams to reach the highest distinction in the medical filed and becomes one of the best minds in her field.

The great neurosurgical adventure began in 1944 and lasts 47 years as a successful career. She even develops her own surgical techniques that are to be recognized later as breakthrough knowledge in her field. She has authored over 120 scientific articles, published and republished in scientific journals all over the world: Acta Chirurgica Belgica, Journal of Surgery, Neurology, Psychiatry, Neurosurgery, Revue Roumaine d’Endocrinologie.

The wide recognition of her merits only comes years after her retirement. For her valuable contribution to clinical and scientific development of Neurosurgery in Romania and also for the professional support offered for the training Neurosurgery interns, Dr Sofia Ionescu was named as honorary member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences in 1997. In 2005, at the International Congress of Female Neurosurgeons, she received credits for being the first female neurosurgeon in the world and for the innovative surgery procedures that helped develop the field of Neurosurgery.

She died in 2008. She is now seen as opening the gates for the other female neurosurgeons that followed in her footsteps throughout the world.

Literature and References

https://www.eans.org/page/SofiaIonescu-Ogrezeanu-Bio

https://www.worldrecordacademy.org/medical/first-female-neurosurgeon-world-record-set-by-dr-sofia-ionescu-ogrezeanu-219471

SARMIZA BILCESCU

(27th April 1867 – 26th August 1935)

Achievements:

The first European woman ever to obtain a license in law;
The first woman in the world with a Ph.D. in law (from the University of Paris);
The first European woman ever admitted to a Bar Association (former Ilfov Bar Association, now Bucharest Bar Association in Romania);
Founder of “The Society of Romanian Young Ladies”, one of the first feminist associations in Romania;
Member in several feminist associations throughout the world.

Image Source: link

Sarmiza BILCESCU was born in Bucharest, in a well-positioned family. Her father, Dumitru Bilcescu, was Chief of Finance Control, co-founder of the Romanian National Bank and a close friend to several prominent Romanian politicians of that time. Her mother, Maria Georgian, was very passionate about art and literature and encouraged her daughter in pursuing high education. Both her parents were motivated to preserve and promote Romanian values and identity, which is why Sarmiza was named after a famous Dacian fortress, Sarmisegetuza.

Miza, as her family and close friends called her, was a tomboy during her childhood and liked to spend time outside. Until the age of seven, she was educated by her mother and by a stern private tutor, Vasile Păun. Afterwards she attended different schools and was taught by significant scholars of the time, including Spiru Haret and Frédéric Damé. Having also a passion for art and especially for music, she took piano lessons from the notorious teacher and composer Eduard Wachmann.

In 1884, at the age of 17, she enlists with no difficulty at the Faculty of Letters of University of Paris – which began to accept female students in 1871 (after the first female student ever accepted at Sorbonne University, by the Faculty of Sciences, had already been enlisted in 1867) –, but she returns home just 6 weeks after, due to a cholera epidemic which had started in Paris around that time. Meanwhile, her father, driven by the desire of having his daughter better manage her significant estate, convinces her to prepare for a career in law, so she returns to Paris – accompanied by her mother who will stay with her throughout her years of studying – and applies to the Faculty of Law. Despite the fact that in the United States of America (Iowa), women started to practice Law in 1869, France and a great part of Europe was still reluctant to accept women as intellectuals equal to men.

In December 1884, she takes her acceptance exam at the Faculty of Law at the Sorbonne University and the deliberations take two weeks. Edmond Louis Armand Colmet De Santerre, the professor of Civil Law, admits: “We hesitated to award Miss Bilcescu the authorization she demanded, fearing that we would have to police the amphitheatres.” After days spent pacing the faculty hallways in anticipation, Sarmiza’s mother meets A. E. Pichard, the secretary of the Faculty of Law, and says to him: “I come from a distant foreign country, but they don’t argue there the women’s right to get an education. How is it possible, sir, that in a country in which even above the prison gates lays written «Liberty, Equality and Fraternity», you are preventing a woman to get educated?” The secretary finds the argument compelling and repeats her words to the Faculty Council. Finally, Sarmiza gets admitted, but the struggle is not over: after acceptance she is invited to leave the classroom by professor Paul Sonday, who yells: “No women! Science is made among men!” and she is prevented from entering the university building by the doorman several months later.

Things change when she has her first exam. She will recall later: “The professors are reluctant to look at me. One of them asks a difficult question. I answer. The professor insists. (…) I start then to detail everything, I analyse exceptions, and I speak for about a quarter of an hour. The faces of the professors light up: «Well done, miss, very well done. » The exam continues for almost three quarters of an hour and then it is over. I get out of the room. After two minutes, the doorman invites me back into the exam room. (…) From that moment on the professors held for me that consideration that is reserved only for the elite!”

After completing her first year of studies, Colmet De Santerre addressed the student body, mentioning Bilcescu’s “relentlessness beyond all praise and exemplary conduct” and thanking male students for having “welcomed her as a sister”; the audience received the speech with applause. She gets her degree in Juridical Sciences in 1887.

While in Paris, she continues to take music lessons from the notorious professor Antoine François Marmontel.

On 12 June 1890, at the age of 23, Sarmiza Bilcescu makes history, becoming the world’s first woman with a doctorate in law. Newspapers from all around the world (Europe, Australia, United States of America) covered her story. The subject of her 506-paged Ph.D. thesis is “About the Legal Condition of the Mother in Romanian and French Law”, in which she promotes the equality of women and men within the institution of marriage and in sharing the rights over their children.

Once returned in Romania, in the autumn of 1890, Sarmiza Bilcescu applies for the license to practice Law at the Bar Association in Ilfov County (which, at the time, also included Bucharest) and the Council of Lawyers grants her the license by arguing that “There is nothing standing against the petitioner’s request to be enlisted as a lawyer.”

No woman has managed to obtain a license to practice Law in Europe before her. Nevertheless, she never pleaded in court, because mentalities were difficult to change and the potential clients did not really trust a woman lawyer, but she paid all the fees regularly throughout the years and she offered judicial council to whomever requested it, sometimes even pro bono.

On 18 March 1894 she establishes “The Society of Romanian Young Ladies”, focused on promoting the cultural unity of the Romanian people (Romania had not unified all its territories at that time) and on supporting women to reach higher education levels.

In 1897, she marries Constantin Alimănișteanu, considered to be “the most distinguished engineer of the mines”, which supports her in her community work until his death, in 1911. In 1898, Sarmiza Bilcescu-Alimănișteanu becomes the mother of a boy whom she adored, named Dumitru, after her father.

Around this period, she becomes a jury member of the Cooperative Exhibition, sponsored by the royal family in Romania and she befriends Queen Mary of Romania, to whom she gives lessons of Romanian and with whom she later on gives piano concerts.

She was an activist for the preservation of Romanian heritage and cultural traditions and an important promoter of Romania’s image abroad. She was involved in establishing dorms and school canteens for law students, but she also offered her support to other projects involving children’s education.

In 1909, she establishes a school in the rural area of one of her estates, which still bears the name of her father, Dumitru Bilcescu. She offers private scholarships with her own money to poor students that want to study abroad.

She was president of the Federation of University Women. She presided over several charity balls. She was invited to take part in many feminist societies all over the world: The Advisory Board of Women’s Branch of the World’s Congress Auxiliary on Government Reform, Queen Isabella Association, Société des Amis de l’Université de Paris, International Congress of Women.

She dies in 1935 of septicaemia, caused by a liver infection. Even though her career as a lawyer never flourished, she managed to make a career out of being socially involved in community development, and she became a role model and a trailblazer for women aspiring to a higher level of education.

Literature and References

https://www.radioromaniacultural.ro/portret-sarmiza-bilcescu-prima-femeie-avocat-din-europa-si-prima-din-lume-cu-un-doctorat-in-drept/

https://www.forbes.ro/sarmiza-bilcescu-alimanisteanu-prima-femeie-doctor-drept-din-lume-si-o-feminista-desavarsita-84723

https://leviathan.ro/sarmiza-bilcescu-prima-romanca-avocat/

https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmiza_Bilcescu-Alim%C4%83ni%C8%99teanu

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Elvira Kralj was a Slovenian actress born in Trieste (then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire). She was born into a family that was politically engaged in defending the Slovenian national cause. The whole family was related to Sokol, a left-wing association addressing physical culture. Elvira was a member of several associations embracing different social causes though not the women’s cause specifically.

She started acting at the age of five when she played Cinderella on a stage in Trieste. After completing her studies in the local German Elementary School and two years of studies at the German Higher Trade School for Girls – boys and girls attended different schools, she started working in a law firm in Trieste. Later she graduated from a Drama school. She embodied more than 200 roles in the Maribor Theatre, and began working in the Ljubljana’s Drama, the national theatre. She convincingly portrayed a multitude of different female characters, from a kind grandmother, a nice aunt, a suffering mother, a tough woman, to evil, ironic characters on the theatre stage, TV and film screen. Her most visible role was that of the kind, loving and caring aunt (typically accepted female characteristics) in the iconic film Do Not Wait for May. Why was Elvira belittled? Despite her many roles for which she was casted...

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Elvira Kralj
1900 – 1978

Too nice to be remembered?

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

KARLA BULOVEC MRAK was a Slovenian sculptor, painter and writer who lived in three successive States that existed on the same territory. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Karla was a stubborn and rebellious person which caused her many problems and regardless of the State, she was always marginalized. She was well educated but decided to be, not a teacher, but a (female) sculptor which was not in conformity with social expectations. In 1917 she left the cage of the small provincial city of Ljubljana, and went to Munich, Vienna, Prague and Paris, where she felt relatively freed of social chains. She participated in joint exhibitions with famous Slovenian and European artists in different European countries. Her independent exhibitions, however, were sharply criticized.

She was looked down on because she was poor most of her life and did not conform with social norms. Still, present-day texts about her and her work start with “Karla Bulovec was married to Ivan Mrak”. Likewise in France the socially disturbing Simone de Beauvoir was often referred to as Jean Paul Sartre’s companion, Karla was not referred to by name. Her husband accepted her otherness and understood her, but he himself was...

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

Karla Bulovec Mrak
1895 – 1957

She was trying hard to get out of the cage

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

ILKA BURGER VAŠTE was one of the most prolific Slovenian female writers, a novelist who wrote ten historical novels. She attended a secondary teachers’ college and served as a teacher at the Cyril Method School in Trieste and the Girls’ school in Ljubljana. She embraced the career of a teacher, which was the only convenient profession for women in those days. Women could be either housewives, if they were married, or teachers, if they were single. She was interested in literature and painting, which she learned from Ivana Kobilica, a famous Slovenian female painter. In her novel Mejaši (Neigbours at the border) she revived the national struggle of the Slovenians against the Lombards. She was known for her deep anti-clerical and liberal beliefs. Except for a street in her native Novo mesto named after her, nothing much is known about her and she definitely belongs on the lists of belittled Slovenian female artists.

She wrote: Because I was a shy and obedient little girl, I bitterly mocked courageous women who were fighting for women’s equal rights, but became aware rather soon that I was treated unfairly just because I was a woman. I was in the shadow, because I knew very well that my parents expected me to do so, but at the same time I decided that by my own force I would gain my place in the sunshine”

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

Ilka Burger Vašte
1891 – 1967

Rebellious throughout her life

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity, there are several epithets attributed to her and that we revisit today

At the age of 20 she married Carlos Aboim Inglez, whose father had been a minister in the First Republic. Both democrats, their house became a meeting point for political figures. When her husband fell ill with cancer, she decided, with 5 children, to take a degree in Literature. She became a widow at almost 40 years old and had to work hard, because she was persecuted for not being catholic and being anti-fascist. She started her political activity with the Democratic Unity Movement being the first woman to belong to the central commission (1946-1948) and later on, in 1949 in the National Democratic Movement, having an active participation in the presidential elections. Salazar used two forms of repression against her: not only imprisonment, she was arrested 3 times between 1946-1948, preventing her by all means from earning a living. In 1948, she was forbidden to run the women’s college that she had set up with her husband and where she was a teacher, which promoted a secular, progressive and social education, where students from different social strata crossed paths in the same classes. On February 11, 1949, the school was definitively closed, in retaliation for the outstanding role she had been assuming in the opposition to the regime. In the same year she was forbidden from teaching by the government...

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity, there are several epithets attributed to her and that we revisit today

Maria Isabel Aboim Inglez
1902 – 1963

The indomitable, the woman without fear, a woman of unshakable tenacity

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Born in Loulé, Maria José entered the School of Fine Arts to study painting. For family reasons she interrupted her studies and moved to Brazil for 2 years, where she witnessed the birth of the city of Marília, working with the Belgian engineer who directed the work. Influenced by this experience, when she returned to Lisbon she began studying Architecture, where, in 1942, she received the award for “best student in Architecture”.

Thus emerged the first Portuguese woman architect. However, despite being considered the best student, she couldn’t enter the working world because the mentalities of the time couldn’t believe that a woman was capable of making a feasible project. Even in newspapers there were caricatures of her making fun of her professional choice. It was all so difficult that she began to dedicate herself to interior decorating and furniture making. Free of charge, she created a section on these areas in the magazine M&B and taught Drawing and Painting classes at the Linhó Prison. She applied to teach and was a teacher at two High Schools. And at the Odivelas Institute.

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Maria José Estanco
1905 – 1999

They ironized that the construction would not stand... but the door was left open for future female architects

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Born in Vila Viçosa on December 8, 1894, from an early age her life was marked by several instabilities, which deeply influenced her literary work. Her life, of only 36 years, victim of suicide, after the diagnosis of a pulmonary edema, was tumultuous, restless and full of intimate sufferings, which the author knew how to transform into poetry of the highest quality, loaded with eroticization and femininity.

In 1919, and among more than 300 students, Florbela was one of 14 women to be accepted at the University of Lisbon Law School. However, the first attempts to promote her poetry failed when she was unsuccessful at attracting the attention of literary critics. Florbela Espanca spent a short stay in Guimarães – in November 1923 – while recovering from a relapse, during which she came into contact with some people from the small community.

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Florbela Espanca
1894 – 1930

Rebellious affirmation of a destiny in the feminine

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Gerda Taro, maiden name Pohorylle, was born in Stuttgart and educated in Leipzig, Germany. As she was from a Jewish family, she fleed from the Nazis to Paris in 1933. There she lived a bohemian lifestyle with her friend Ruth Cerf and eventually met Endre Ernő Friedmann, better known today as Robert Capa. Together, they started documenting the Spanish Civil War in 1935, after Gerda had invented their alter egos in order to better sell Endre’s and her own pictures. Inspired by their own political convictions, they only took pictures of the fight of the republican soldiers against the rebellious francoist soldiers. Both of them tried to be as close to the action as possible – a goal which eventually led to Gerda’s death. Despite the fact that her pictures only cover 1 year of the war, her pictures are those that went around the world. Together with Robert Capa and with David Seymour, during this short period of time she developed modern war photography as we know it today. Since she officially was Capa’s agent and he sold many of her pictures as his own, it took until the 2000s until people began to recognize her as an artist in her own right rather than just his partner: In 2007, the so-called Mexican Suitcase was found in Mexico City, a suitcase containing thousands of negatives believed to be lost by Capa, Taro and Seymour. Since then, many photographs originally attributed to Capa are known to have been taken by Gerda. However, during her short life, Taro was well known and when she was killed in 1937 by a tank, – she was only 26 – thousands of people attended her funeral in Paris. The funeral procession...

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Gerda Taro
1910 – 1937

Pioneer of war photography

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Magarethe Schütte-Lihotzky was one of the first female architects in Austria. Having grown up in the bourgeois Vienna society, she came into contact with the life realities of the poor working class during her studies. This sparked her interest to improve living conditions through the newly emerging social housing. Her most famous contribution was the “Frankfurt kitchen” (1926) which revolutionized the way kitchens were built. Schütte-Lihotzky designed her modular kitchen with the idea in mind that workflows can be optimized like in a factory in order to make life easier for the women who use it and who would (ideally) have more time for themselves. Politically, she sympathized with communist ideals after being disappointed with the European social democratic parties. In 1930 she is invited to work in Moscow to work in social housing projects. In 1939 she joined the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ). After leaving Russia, she moved to Paris and then to Istanbul, where she became a member of an Austrian resistance group. In 1941 she was arrested shortly after returning to Austria and sent to serve a fifteen-year prison sentence in the women’s penitentiary in Aichach, Bavaria, from which she was liberated by allied troops in April 1945. She worked as a self-employed architect until 1969.

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky
1897 – 2000

Architecture and communism: The inventor of the Frankfurt Kitchen

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas, then cross the bridge together and continue on the other side."

Marion Countess Dönhoff was one of the most influential journalists of post-war Germany and editor of the prestigious weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT for 30 years. The highly educated noble woman fled east Prussia during the Russian invasion in 1945 – on horseback. Previously she had been managing the family estate for several years after returning from extensive travels through Europe, Africa, and America. Even though she had lost her beloved East Prussian homeland, she promoted the thought of “loving without possessing” rather than advocating the reclaiming of those territories. In her lifetime, she actively worked for reconciliation between the states of the Eastern Bloc and the West, supported West Germany’s active policy toward East Germany, rejected apartheid in South Africa, and continuously called for liberal thinking, tolerance, and justice in her writing. Marion Dönhoff had the ear of leading politicians during her day, among them Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Richard von Weizsäcker. She not only overcame the challenges of being a refugee, losing many of her inherited privileges and her home, she also defied the restrictive female gender roles of her time, when most women were expected to be well-behaved wives and mothers and leave decision making to men. Not only did she have a voice as a leading intellectual with political influence, she also never married and was famous...

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas, then cross the bridge together and continue on the other side."

Marion Dönhoff
1909 – 2002

"I always wished I could see a day when we could come together on one side of the dividing river to exchange ideas"

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Ondina Peteani is now considered the “first” partisan relay girl but it took years of constant work after her death, to bring her story to light.

Her son Giovanni tells of how she managed to escape from the Ravensbrück concentration camp, during a prisoner march. It was not the first time she had escaped: she had gotten away with it twice before arriving in Germany. Her story would be very adventurous as it is at this point. But Ondina never let nightmare No. 81627 (her code in Auschwitz), get in the way of her plans, her brilliant idea of life. After the war she chose to be a midwife. Together with her partner Gian Luigi Brusadin, a journalist for the “Unità,” she organized the first agency of Editori Riuniti, a lively place where people could meet and talk about politics. Then Ondina created summer camps for children and organized a tent city in Maiano after the Friuli earthquake (1976). And finally as a “gray panther” with her commitment in the CGIL trade union for retired people, she invoked without mincing words that “only a pact between generations can avoid isolation and injustice”. Her son continues bringing her experience to schools highlighting how fundamental the contribution and support of the Women’s Contingent was to the National Liberation Struggle. Their presenc...

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Ondina Peteani
1925 – 2003

It's nice to live free

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Anna Kuliscioff, protagonist of Italian socialism and feminism, born in 1854 in Moskaja into a wealthy family of Jewish merchants, was encouraged to cultivate her studies with private teachers and became interested in politics at a very early age. In 1871 she moved to Zurich as women were forbidden to enter the University in Russia. In 1873 Russian students were ordered to leave the University of Zurich otherwise they wouldn’t have been admitted to the final examination in Russia. This was a provocation to women as they were accused of going abroad not for study reasons but for sexual leisure. In 1888, in Italy, Anna continued her studies specializing in gynecology, first in Turin, then in Padua. She first found out about the bacterial origin of puerperal fever saving millions of women from death after childbirth. She then began to practice medicine in Milan, travelling to the city’s poorest neighborhoods. She was called the “doctor of the poor.” She was never recognized as a doctor and this was mainly caused by her social and political position. In Milan she came in contact with exponents of feminism who in 1882 had formed the League for Women’s Interests. From here on, Anna’s commitment to the women’s question became increasingly clear and pressing, culminating in her speech at the Milan Philological Circle in April 1890: The Monopoly of Man. The innovative aspect of Anna Kuliscioff’s intervention, however, lies in the way she conceived gender equality:”It is not a condemnation at any cost of the other sex that women demand; on the contrary, they aspire to obtain the conscious and active cooperation of the best men, of those who, having emancipated themselves, at least in part, from sentiments based on customs, prejudices...

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Anna Kuliscioff
1855 – 1925

I hope, for the triumph of the cause of my sex, just a little more solidarity among women

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Franca was from Villastanza, Milan, born in a family with ancient theatrical traditions, mostly related to puppet and marionette theater, dating back to the 1600s: her father was an actor and her mother was first a teacher, then an actress. On June 24, 1954, she married actor Dario Fo. From their union on March 31, 1955, their son Jacopo was born in Rome. The Fo-Rame artistic partnership lasted for more than fifty years, with hundreds of shows in different genres: farce and commedia dell’arte (including “Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe”, from 1963, in which for the first time the protagonist was a “giullaressa” a typical male figure (giullare, in english jester) played by a woman and feminized in its name); political theater (including “Bandiere rosse a Mirafiori – basta con i fascisti!” by Fo, Rame and Lanfranco Binni, 1973); civil and social theater, including “Lo stupro” (the rape), which is the most dramatic demonstration of how theater was for her the way to transform experience. The monologue evokes in a dry style the violence the artist suffered in 1973 by five neo-fascists in Milan, who would be convicted many years later. The Fo-Rame pair had become a political target, but her especially as a woman. Over the years, the shows have brought the news of the moment more and more directly to the stage, addressing social, historical and political issues including the status of women, the status of working mothers, divorce, abortion, sexual violence, drug abuse, the condition of prisoners in jail, fascism and the Resistance. In 1969, Soccorso Rosso, a movement...

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Franca Rame
1929 – 2013

Actress, writer and activist for the rights of women to be seen and respected

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

In 1971, Marie-Claire Chevalier was 16 years old when she became pregnant after being raped by a boy two years older than her in high school. The young woman asked her mother to help her have an abortion. The mother turned to an underground doctor, but her daughter suffered a hemorrhage that forced her to go the hospital. Her rapist, arrested for stealing a car, decided to turn her in against his own freedom. She was directly accused, as were four other women, including her mother, because in 1971 the voluntary termination of a pregnancy was illegal in France and punishable by six months to two years in prison. She was then convicted at the Bobigny trial and all were defended by lawyer Gisèle Halimi.

Gisèle Halimi made this trial and Marie-Claire Chevalier a political symbol for the right to abortion. The case will forever mark French history and symbolize real progress for women’s rights. Extremely mediatized, the trial closely followed by many personalities ended with a brilliant victory. Three years later with this judgement, things started to move. This event contributed to the adoption of the Veil law and the legalization of abortion in France in 1975.

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

Marie-Claire Chevalier
1955 – 2022

The one whose trial for illegal abortion changed the law against abortion in France

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Thérèse Clerc, was a French feminist activist, born on December 9, 1927 in Paris and died on February 16, 2016 in Montreuil, who worked to defend the rights of women, and more specifically those of older women.

At the age of 20, she learned the fashion design profession and married a small entrepreneur who owned an industrial cleaning business. At the turn of May 1968, she advocated for free abortion and contraception within the MLAC movement (Movement for Free Abortion and Contraception). A year later, in 1969, she divorced her husband and bought an apartment in Montreuil, where she performed abortions for free.

Always with the aim of helping women, in 2000, she founded in Montreuil the “House of Women” open to women of all ages, victims of violence, in insertion or reinsertion. Then, in the same year, still in Montreuil, she wanted to found the “House of Babayagas”, an “anti-retirement house” self-managed by the residents, elderly and low-income, around the values of citizenship, secularism, solidarity, ecology and feminism. But she faced some discrimination because...

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Thérèse Clerc
1927-2016

Activist for the rights of elderly women, the third wave of feminism

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Dimitrana Ivanova, maiden name Petrova, was the daughter of a craftsman and trader and of a priest’s daughter. She was born in Rousse, a big city in Bulgaria at the time, and she graduated the high school for girls there. She married Doncho Ivanov in 1914, thus becoming Dimitrana Ivanova.

Because at the time the high school for girls had one grade less than the boys, this would serve as a pretext to deny women access to higher education at the Bulgarian University in Sofia, so Dimitrana had no other choice but to enroll in a foreign university, Zurich University in Switzerland, where she took pedagogy and philosophy classes. Due to several family tragedies and her family’s bankruptcy, she had to return home before her final exam and could not get back to take it, so she did not graduate. She was forced to seek employment and she became a teacher, passing all the legally required exams to become one. As a teacher, Dimitrana’s career was often affected by several discriminatory laws (married women were not allowed to work; later they were permitted to work after getting married, but they had to accept a reduced salary; female teachers had to retire by the age of 40 and the number of female teachers in a certain district could not exceed the number of male teachers).

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Dimitrana Ivanova
1881 – 1960

If you want to know what perseverance looks like, read her story.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Florica Bagdasar, maiden name Ciumetti, was born in Monastir, now Macedonian territory, in a Macedo-Romanian family – Romanians originating from the South of Danube. Because of World War I, the family was forced to move a lot and after attending different secondary schools, she finally graduated in 1925 from the Medicine Faculty in Bucharest.

In 1927 she married a fellow doctor, Dumitru Bagdasar, with whom she soon left to study in the United States, at Harvard University. While there she received a Rockefeller scholarship and specialized in neurosurgery. After their return to Romania, they opened a neurosurgery clinic in Bucharest, which they managed as a team. Further down her professional road, she chose to specialize in infantile neuropsychiatry – a specialty that she would also promote during her teaching position – and elaborated several educational materials for children.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Florica Bagdasar
1901 – 1978

A doctor, a politician, the first female minister in Romania, a person who led to change everywhere she had been.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

Elisabeta was born into a family of peasants (Șuța) in a village in Southern Romania – Domnești, Argeș county. She got married at 19 years old and took the last name of her husband, Gheorghe Rizea.

She was set on track for an ordinary country life, but little did she know that the end of World War II would mean the beginning of her own war with the communist authorities, imposed by the Soviet army during that time. Her uncle, a local leader of the National Peasants’ Party, was killed by the secret police, which led her husband to join an anti-communist guerilla group, led by Colonel Gheorghe Arsenescu. Thus, Elisabeta became an informant and supplies provider for the group.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

Elisabeta Rizea
1912 – 2003

Despite suffering severe torture, she kept defending her beliefs and supported a group of anti-communist partisans.

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

Researcher, philologist, educator, writer and active advocate of women’s rights. She is the first woman to graduate from a Spanish university with a degree in philosophy and writing. Her studies on Spanish ballads, carried out with her husband Ramón Menéndez Pidal, laid the foundations for research in the field, although only her husband’s name became known. She was also one of the first women to go to a gym to fight the arthritis she suffered from at a young age, a very unusual activity for a girl at that time.

Maria Goyri was born in Madrid and raised by her mother who made sure that her daughter received a very well planned and organised education at home. She continued her formal education and received the titles of Governess and Professor of Commerce as well as the title of a teacher. First, she attended the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters without enrolling, and a year later applied for permission to open a women’s study programme. The authorization was granted, but on the condition that she wouldn’t communicate with male students, enter the classroom next to the professor, and sit in a separate chair next to him during class. She was the first official female student...

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

María Goyri
1873 – 1954

The fact that she was a woman put her in the shadow of the famous man - her husband.

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

María de la Salud Bernaldo de Quirós y Bustillo was the first Spanish woman to obtain a pilot's license and to take advantage of the Divorce Law of the Republic.

She came from an aristocratic family and received a good education, but was attracted to aviation at a young age. She was married twice, the first marriage being a real tragedy (she lost her husband and 2 children). During her second marriage, thanks to her friendships in aviation circles, she decided to follow her vocation and started training.

When María enrolled in the Spanish Royal Air Club, she was the only woman out of eighteen students. Her instructor claimed that women lacked the spirit of sacrifice necessary for flying, but he considered María an exceptional student. By the time she received her license, she had already separated from her husband. She was also one of the first women to take advantage of the Divorce Law of the second Republic. Once she had the license...

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

María Bernaldo de Quirós
1898 – 1983

As public opinion evolves, people will realize that women can do more than just embroidery.

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!

Writer, feminist, deputy, polyglot and socialist who opposed to the death penalty and legal prostitution. She advocated for education, work and equal rights for women in Spain. A very open-minded and visionary woman who had to pay a high price imposed by her gender.

María Lejárraga comes from the region of La Rioja from an economically stable middle class family. She was able to receive good education and became a teacher. During her teaching career she discovered her passion for writing. She was very talented and ready to share her ideas and stories with the world. But, that´s where she bumped into a big obstacle. At the beginning of the XX century being a female writer was seen as immoral work, especially for an educator. If she had risked meeting her goals, she could have lost her teaching job. She found a solution to this problem in her marriage by publishing her works under her husband's name. So, she was writing and waiting at home and he was the one receiving praise and applause at the premiers of the plays. Before dying, her husband confirmed the rumours circulating in theatre circles that she was the true author of his works.

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!

Maria Lejárraga
1874 – 1974

She was writing and her husband harvesting the glory, fame and money!