NWP

To celebrate the release of SHATTERING GLASS, the first landmark anthology from Nasty Woman Press, July 2020 is officially “Nasty Women Month”!

Look for contributors and NWP members and readers and writers to share stories about some of the influential women—historical, fictional, contemporary—who have shaped and influenced them.

We’re going to try to maintain this throughout the month! If you’d like to join us, please use one or more of these hashtags: 

#NastyWomanPress
#ShatteringGlass
#NWP
#CreativeResistance

For July 1st, my choice is a woman whom I watched on television as a very young child and whom I’ve greatly admired (and practically worshiped) ever since: JANE GOODALL.

Jane is now 86,  a Dame of the British Empire, author of many, many books, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute which conducts supremely important conservation, preservation and research, and is truly a living legend—she’s considered the world’s foremost authority on chimpanzees. However, in 1960, as a 26 year old, when she set off for Gombe Stream National Park, she was a youthful English primatologist and anthropologist who had no idea she would upend conventional science’s approach to studying primates.  Her story is one of perseverance, trust in her own instincts and, yes, resistance—as a woman, she faced much criticism for supposedly injecting emotion (always a sexist trope) into scientific study.

She’s done more good for primates, primate recovery, and the environment and Earth in general than anyone else alive, and continues her work daily. 

As a five or six-year old, I remember watching her on television with my parents—noting her calmness, her ability to be centered and observant without having to control her immediate environment. She made a deep, deep impression on me and helped foster my life-long love of nature and wild things. I’ll always treasure meeting her briefly in the late 1980s at a lecture.

So there you have it. Who’s your favorite Nasty Woman for July 1st, 2020?