Tapping the Great Wisdom - Your awesome women and PoC, no major political controversy prefered

[silveradept]

So, um, for my professional work (no, really), I was sent a list, [ETA] constructed by a vendor [/ETA] of people who are the possible targets for a series of middle-grade (6-8) biographies, according to the following criteria:

We are trying to stay away from anyone too political and want to make sure that each biography features someone who can inspire our readers to appreciate the importance of social responsibility.

The list of people currently, eleven strong are:

• All men,
• and about only half PoC or from outside the United States.

We were also asked for suggestions.

So, oh great Sophia, on whom we increasingly depend for our Awesome, what are your suggestions to add to this list? Where possible, I'd like to also submit back a short bio or list of accomplishments that makes it easy to say "Yes, they should be on this list."

I find it a bit cringe-inducing that they're trying to stay away from major political controversy, like middle-grade readers aren't brilliant enough to understand it, or like they're trying to sell to, say, Texas, and thus avoid "uppity" anybody that might not make people buy their books, but those are the parameters.

I have two strategies for this: The fire hose and the targeted strike. The second should flow from the first - if I can deluge the vendor with enough names, they should be able to pick out some that they think they can do, and good strong characters with some politics will slip through. Although it will probably be heavily sanitized. that's the targeted strike part - throw enough at them, and the ones you want should end up floating to the top to be picked up.

Comments

[hebinekohime]

Um. Decoupling social responsibility from political statements is itself a political statement -- a very strong conservative one.

If it's just meant to mean "people who are awesome outside of politics", then I can get behind that. But the way that prompt is worded is a bit scary, like the writers are trying to engineer out the people who made waves and rocked the boat from their image of what responsibility is.

[silveradept]

I'm not sure which they're asking for, because I got that weird feeling out of the prompt, too.

So I'll take anything you can throw at me, send it along, and then see what happens, because frankly, if it is the awful prompt, then they need a boat-rocking.

[hebinekohime]

Well. I think of models of responsibility as being people who said "If I don't do this, who will?". That's probably why my mind leaps to names of social reformers.

That and I'm contrarian. :P

I don't want to get you in trouble with your work, though. Hmm. Maybe Cesar Chavez?

[silveradept]

That would be a good one to add, yes.

And I don't give a rip about contrarian or not - I want to flood them with suggestions, political or no, and hope that maybe out of that lot, they'll be willing to take a few. I wonder what kind of sanitizing they'll do to them, though.

[alphaviolet]

+1

[nebris.livejournal.com]

Dumbed down, dumbed down, keep the lil shits dumbed down.

~M~

[silveradept]

There's a reason That State was mentioned by name, Nebs.

[sorcycat.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_hopper

[sorcycat.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing

[trinker.livejournal.com]

How do we reconcile "social responsibility" and "stay away from too political" ?!

[silveradept]

No f---ing clue, to be honest. That part about the prompt bothered me, as well, which made me wonder if they'd reject someone like Helen Keller or Mother Teresa, because one was an ardent socialist and the other a devout Catholic.

[sdaisyk.livejournal.com]

Would Harriet Tubman be "too political" for them?

[silveradept]

Got me. But they have at least one other prominent activist for black rights in their original list, so Tubman should be able to make it.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

What about Authors?

LM Montgomery
Louisa May Alcot
Jane Austen
The Bronte Sisters
Laura Ingalls (Wilder)

Or..

Susan B Anthony (might be too political?)
Betsy Ross (okay, political, but from the American War of Independence!)

[silveradept]

All good suggestions - can you see them tying into the prompt that I was given?

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

I don't think Susan B. Anthony should be too political - we still let women vote, and she's on a US coin, fer crying out loud.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

Are they looking for way past history, or could you bring up someone recent, like Oprah, or the president of Peru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilma_Vana_Rousseff)?

You can find a lot of Bios of women who have done significant things in their lifetimes at the National Women's History Museum (http://nwhm.org/) online exhibits or education & resources web pages. Lillian Wald (http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/lillian-wald/) comes to mind as a good example, but there are plenty of other biographies (http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies-home).

[silveradept]

I think recent will do as nicely as way past, at least from the lineup I got.