Question of the Day

Oprah Winfrey, Brenda Starr, Hillary Clinton and Britney Spears

It’s a presidential memorial, so it would take a minimum of 32 years to make four women eligible, some of whom would now scarcely be grown-ups. And as of the moment, we don’t even seem to be getting started.

Helen Keller – victory and celebrity over total adversity. Eleanor Roosevelt – the eyes, ears and legs of F.D.R. and a great humanitarian. Rosa Parks, who refused to move to the back of the bus. Shirley Temple, the child who saved America during The Depression.

Margaret Mead: The legendary anthropologist with her beautiful broad, pug-like face could be minimalistically rendered since the sculptor wouldn’t have to do any more to her bobbed hair than she did herself. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” she wrote.

Lillian Hellman: I feel sure her likeness already pre-exists somewhere there amidst some craggy corner and will need only to be pointed out. It would be a savings of money and an honor this author deserves. When called to testify before the House on Un-American Activities Committee, Hellman refused to name colleagues who might be Communists. In a letter, her famous words to the Committee were, “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions . . . ."

Lorraine Hansberry: The first African American woman to be produced on Broadway and for her classic drama, “A Raisin in the Sun.” Her words resonate: “… man is unique in the universe, the only creature who has in fact the power to transform the universe. Therefore, it did not seem unthinkable to me that man might just do what the apes never will—impose the reason for life on life… I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and—I wish to live." Lorraine Hansberry died at age 34.

Lena Horne: Not only is she stunningly beautiful and brilliantly talented, she has fought against racial inequality all of her life and, in spite of it, has had one of the most successful and long lived careers ever as an artist. And even if she weren’t all these glorious things, she deserves to be up there just for saying stuff like this, “It’s ill-becoming for an old broad to sing about how bad she wants it. But occasionally we do.”

The fact that these last three women all have the same initials is just
a coincidence.

Olive Oyl, Blondie (the cartoon character married to Dagwood), Wonder Woman and Marge Simpson

Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Sanger, Rosa Parks and Betty Friedan

Annie Oakley, Aimee Semple McPherson, Marilyn Monroe and Estee Lauder

Dolly Madison, Ella Fitzgerald, Marilyn Monroe and Julia Child

Coming up with four women was really hard. I finally decided that U.S. history is a story about equality for everyone, and that women have played a big part. So here are my Mt. Rushmores:

Abigail ("Remember the women, John") Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rosa Parks and Gloria Steinem.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony,
Gloria Steinem,
Rosa Parks — and Georgia O’Keeffe to design it.