We are our own worst enemies, since we know what our limitations are. There are some female visionaries of the past, including, besides for all mothers, Liz Claiborne, Catherine the Great, Sacajawea, the biblical Jezebel (875 B.C.E. to 843 B.C.E.), Madonna, Cleopatra, Jane Goodall, Annie Oakley, Mary Kay Ash, "the unsinkable Molly Brown", Elizabeth Dole, Mary Queen of Scots, Ayn Rand, Queen Elizabeth, Nefertitti, Betsy Ross, Amelia Earhart, Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, Pocahontas, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Queen Mary, Bev Doolittle, and any others in our hearts or the history books. These are, or were, women capable of ignoring their own internal self-talk and functioned on a higher plane of optimistic tenacity. It just seemed that they did not know their limitations and, therefore, displayed none, as they achieved goals that no other could have done before. Other examples:

 Joan of Arc (1412-1431), in French, Jeanne d'Arc, also called the Maid of Orleans, a patron saint of France, and a national heroine. She led the resistance to the English invasion of France in the Hundred Years War.
When Joan was about twelve years old, she began hearing the "voices" of St. Michael, St. Catherine, and St. Margaret, believing them to have been sent by God. These voices told her that it was her divine mission to free her country from the English and help the Dauphin gain the French throne. They told her to cut her hair, dress in man's uniform, and to pick up arms.
Joan convinced the captain of the Dauphin's forces, and then the Dauphin himself, of her calling. After passing an examination by a board of theologians, she was given troops to command and the rank of captain. At the battle of Orleans in May 1429, Joan led the troops to a miraculous victory over the English. Fear of troops under her leadership was so formidable that when she approached Lord Talbot's army at Patay, most of the English troops and Commander Sir John Fastolfe fled the battlefield.
Charles VII was crowned king of France on July 17, 1429 in Reims Cathedral. At the coronation, Joan was given a place of honor next to the king. Later, she was ennobled for her services to the country.
In 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians, while defending Compiegne near Paris, and was sold to the English. The English, in turn, handed her over to the ecclesiastical court at Rouen led by Pierre Cauchon, a pro-English Bishop of Beauvais, to be tried for witchcraft and heresy. Joan was convicted after a fourteen-month interrogation. On May 30, 1431, she was burned at the stake in the Rouen marketplace. She was nineteen years old. Charles VII made no attempt to come to her rescue.

 Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) taught school in New Rochelle and Canajoharie, New York, and discovered that male teachers were paid several times her salary. She devoted her first reform efforts to anti-slavery and to temperance, the campaign to curb alcohol. But when she rose to speak in a temperance convention, she was told, "The sisters were not invited here to speak!" Anthony promptly enlisted in the cause of women's rights. The ballot, she became increasingly to believe, was the necessary foundation for all other advances
When she and Stanton published a newspaper, they called it The Revolution. Its motto was "Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less." To press a test case of her belief that women, as citizens, could not be denied the ballot, Anthony voted. She was tried, convicted, and fined for voting illegally
For over thirty years she traveled the country almost ceaselessly, working for women's rights. In 1906, her health failing, Anthony addressed her last women's suffrage convention. Although she sensed that the cause would not be won in her lifetime, she looked out across the assembled women and told them, "Failure is impossible."

 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), British nurse, hospital reformer, and humanitarian. Born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820, Nightingale was raised mostly in Derbyshire, England, and received a thorough classical education from her father.
After the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Nightingale, stirred by reports of the primitive sanitation methods and grossly inadequate nursing facilities at the large British barracks-hospital at üsküdar, now part of Istanbul, Turkey, dispatched a letter to the British secretary of war, volunteering her services in the Crimea. At the same time, unaware of her action, the minister of war proposed that she assume direction of all nursing operations at the war front. She set out for üsküdar, accompanied by thirty-eight nurses. Under Nightingale's supervision, efficient nursing departments were established at üsküdar and later at Balaklava in the Crimea. Through her tireless efforts the mortality rate among the sick and the wounded was greatly reduced.
At the close of the war in 1860, with a fund raised in tribute to her services, Nightingale founded the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses at Saint Thomas's Hospital in London. The opening of this school marked the beginning of professional education in nursing. Florence Nightingale's contributions to the evolution of nursing as a profession were invaluable. Before she undertook her reforms, nurses were largely untrained personnel, who considered their job a menial chore. Through her efforts the stature of nursing was raised to a medical profession, with high standards of education and important responsibilities.
She received many honors from foreign governments, and in 1907 became the first woman to receive the British Order of Merit. She died in London on August 13, 1910. In 1915 the Crimean Monument in Waterloo Place, London, was erected in her honor.
Her writings include Notes on Nursing (1860), the first textbook for nurses, which was translated into many languages. Among her other writings are Notes on Hospitals (1859) and Notes on Nursing for the Labouring Classes (1861).

 Maria (Marie Fr.) Sklodowska-Curie, born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867, and died in 1934. Curie was one of the first woman scientists to win worldwide fame, and indeed, one of the great scientists of this century. She had degrees in both mathematics and physics. Perhaps the most famous of women scientists, Curie is notable for her many firsts:

 She was the first to use the term "radioactivity" for this phenomenon.

 She was the first woman in Europe to receive her doctorate of science.

 In 1903 she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for Physics. The award, jointly awarded to her husband Pierre Curie, and Henri Becquerel, was for the discovery of radioactivity.

 She was also the first female lecturer, professor, and head of the laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1906).

 In 1911 she won an unprecedented second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her discovery and isolation of pure radium and radium components. She was the first person ever to receive two Nobel Prizes.

 She was the first mother-Nobel Prize Laureate of a daughter-Nobel Prize Laureate. Her oldest daughter Irene Joliot-Curie also won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1935).

 She is the first woman who has been laid to rest under the famous dome of the Pantheon in Paris for her own merits.

 As winner of two Nobel Prizes, she performed pioneering studies with radium and polonium, and contributed profoundly to the understanding of radioactivity.

 Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a shy young woman, who loved books and nature equally well, and had been trained as a zoologist. She joined the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington to work on their publications.
In 1951 she came to national prominence when her book, The Sea Around Us, topped the bestseller list for eighty-six weeks. Her graceful prose opened up scientific knowledge about the oceans to the layperson. An earlier work, Under the Sea Wind, was reissued. When she studied marine life in Maine for her next book, The Edge of the Sea, she stayed for hours, wading in icy tidal pools, until she was so numb with cold she had to be carried out.
She was not by nature a crusader, but when aerial spraying of DDT killed the birds in a friend's bird sanctuary, she began to investigate the effects of pesticides on the chain of life. "The environment" and "ecology" have since become household words for Americans, but it all began with her book Silent Spring, published in 1962. Driven by the knowledge that the book was desperately needed, she pored over and combined the work of many individual researchers. She wrote of the heedless pesticide poisoning of our rivers and soils, warning that we might soon face a spring when no bird songs could be heard. Rachel Carson had to weather a storm of controversy and abuse, and she did not live to see the eventual banning of DDT. But the environmentalist movement carries on the work she began, preserving our natural heritage for the future.

 Golda Meir (1898-1978), Israeli premier (1969-1974), and a founder of the state of Israel. Meir was born on May 3, 1898, in Kyyiv, Russia (now Ukraine), and originally named Goldie Mabovitz or Mabovich.
Her father immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1905, and was joined by his family in 1906. She graduated from Milwaukee Teachers College, and in 1917 married Morris Myerson or Meyerson, whom she had met while attending high school in Denver, Colorado, in 1913.
While still in her teens she became a Zionist, dedicated to building a homeland for Jews. In 1921 she and her husband immigrated to Palestine (now Israel). She was a signer of the proclamation of the independence of the state of Israel in 1948 and served as her country's first minister to the USSR in 1948 and 1949. She was elected to the first Knesset, or parliament, of Israel and named minister of labor and social insurance in 1949.
Having separated from her husband in 1945, she Hebraized her surname to Meir in 1956. That same year she became minister of foreign affairs and held that post until 1966, when she resigned from the cabinet. She served, successively, as secretary-general of the Mapai party and of the united Israel Labor party from 1966 to 1968. She was prime minister from 1969 to 1974, when she resigned amid controversy over Israel's lack of preparedness in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Meir died in Jerusalem on December 8, 1978.

 Margaret Mead (1901-1978), was an American anthropologist, widely known for her studies of primitive societies and her contributions to social anthropology. She did not seem to know that a twenty-five-year-old unaccompanied female should not be wandering alone around the jungles of New Guinea, Bali, and Samoa.
Mead was born in Philadelphia on December 16, 1901, and was educated at Barnard College and at Columbia University. She became the director of research in contemporary cultures at Columbia University from 1948 to 1950 and thereafter, in 1954, was appointed adjunct professor of anthropology. In September 1969 she was appointed full professor and head of the social science department in the Liberal Arts College of Fordham University at Lincoln Center in New York.
Participating in several field expeditions, as mentioned above, Mead conducted notable research in New Guinea, Samoa, and Bali. Much of her work was devoted to a study of patterns of child rearing in various cultures. She also analyzed many problems in contemporary American society, particularly those affecting young people. Her interests were varied, including child care, adolescence, sexual behavior, and American character and culture.
Mead died in New York City on November 15, 1978. Her writings include Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), Growing Up in New Guinea (1930), Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), Male and Female (1949), Soviet Attitudes Toward Authority (1951), New Lives for Old (1956), Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap (1970), and her memoirs, Blackberry Winter (1972).

 Dian Fossey (1932-1985), American zoologist, whose field studies of wild gorillas in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda and Zaire served to dispel many myths about the violent and aggressive nature of gorillas.
Inspired by the writings of American zoologist George B. Schaller, Fossey traveled to Africa in 1963, not knowing that "a woman could not do that!". There she observed mountain gorillas in the wild. Fossey was an astute and patient observer of gorilla behavior; she knew each individual in her study area, and she came to regard the gorillas as gentle, social animals.
Due largely to Fossey's research and conservation work, mountain gorillas are now protected by the government of Rwanda and by the international conservation and scientific communities.

 Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a true international citizen, Dr. Kubler-Ross holds joint citizenship in the U.S. and Switzerland. After earning her medical degree at the University of Switzerland in 1957, she continued her studies in New York, completing her degree in psychiatry at the University of Colorado in 1963.After years of study and research, the publication of her first book. On Death and Dying in 1969 immediately raised the awareness of the world
Dr. Kubler-Ross has published nine books, dealing with the natural phenomenon of dying. Dr. Kubler-Ross founded and presently directs Shanti Nilaya in Escondido, California. In her wisdom she is teaching us about dealing with the next passage of life. Her life and thoughts are controversial. Her impact is and always will be felt.

 Margaret Hilda Thatcher (1925- ) did not bother to ask whether a female prime minister of Great Britain was acceptable to her constituency.
In 1953, having studied for the bar, she became a tax lawyer. Joining the Conservative party, Thatcher was elected to the House of Commons in 1959.As minister of education and science from 1970 to 1974, under Edward Heath, she provoked a storm of protest by abolishing free milk in the schools. After the Conservative defeat in 1974, she challenged Heath for the leadership of the party and won the post in 1975. Four years later she led the party to victory, vowing to reverse Britain's economic decline and to reduce the role of government.
In 1982 Argentine forces occupied the nearby Falkland Islands, which were claimed by both Argentina and Great Britain. Thatcher's government sent a task force to the Falklands that defeated the Argentines. Bolstered by the success of her Falkland Islands policy, Thatcher led the Conservatives to a sweeping victory in the parliamentary elections of June 1983. Victorious in the June 1987 elections, she became the first British prime minister in the twentieth century to serve three consecutive terms.
Thatcher opposed the socialist programs of the Labour party and worked to decrease the role of the government in the economy. She privatized some nationalized industries and socia programs, including education, housing, and healthcare. In 1990, controversy over Thatcher's tax policy and over her reluctance to commit Great Britain to full economic integration with Europe inspired a strong challenge to her leadership.

 Oprah Winfrey was born January 29, 1954, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Winfrey was not deterred by the "fact" that Phil Donahue "owned" the daytime talk show market.
A precocious child, Winfrey performed often in public from an early age. Her unruly behavior led her mother to send her from their Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home to live in Nashville, Tennessee, with her father, who proved to be a guiding influence on her life.
She majored in speech and drama at Tennessee State University, and as a freshman, she was selected Miss Tennessee. At age 19, Winfrey became a news anchor for the local CBS television station. Following her graduation in 1976, she was made reporter and co-anchor for the ABC news affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland.
Winfrey found herself constrained by the objectivity required of news reporting. In 1977 she became co-host of the Baltimore morning show People Are Talking. Winfrey excelled in the casual and emotive talk-show format and remained in Baltimore for seven years. Moving to Chicago, she turned the faltering A.M. Chicago into a success, outperforming the leading talk-show host, Phil Donahue, in his own market. In 1985 A.M Chicago was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show, which entered national syndication in 1986.
The fact that whether she be thick or thin, she would persevere. This American television personality, whose syndicated daily talk show was among the most popular of the genre, has made her a household name, something never achieved before by an African-American woman, a politically correct term she seldom uses herself.

 Dr. Linda Merry, from Idaho, was the first female president of the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), and as such, AAHA was the first national association to set the stage for women rising to the top in national veterinary association politics. Also, a long-standing paradigm was shattered, and the profession did not die.

 Dr. Mary Beth Leininger did not bother to ask our profession if a female AVMA president was acceptable to her constituency. Coming from a companion animal practice in the Midwest, she rose through the "good ol' boy" ranks of the national political scene. Then, after her term as AVMA president, she proceeded to enter the male-dominated world of corporate healthcare.
She has kept Hills on a course, set originally by Dr. Jack Mara, to be the innovators and supporters of modern veterinary medicine, from contemporary practice management concepts to veterinary university support, from increasing healthcare team awareness to supporting quality scientific medical progress, as well as Hills being a leader in high quality nutrition.

 Dr.Judi Leake received her DVM from Mississippi in 1982. Leake is a tenacity story of our own time. She became "flat-on-her-back" sick soon after building a new pet resort attached to her Tupelo practice. The "experts" tried to confirm a "sick building syndrome" without luck, then searched the zoonotic diseases she could have come in touch with during practice.
After two years of medical searching, and Judi still "flat-on-her-back" ill, she was diagnosed with Lyme encephalitis. Concurrently, she endured a divorce from a "not-worthy" mate. Once diagnosed, Judi sold her successful Mississippi companion animal practice and boarding complex, on the doctor's recommendation, to attempt a better recovery. She started the therapy to recover, unable to stress herself, due to the relapse consequences, but was tenacious in her quest to be a great single mom to Bonner.
She moved to Colorado, and followed a new husband into the mountain community of Carbondale, north of Glenwood Springs. She had not practiced for over three years, but now wanted to start a companion animal veterinary practice again.
Demographic studies showed the valley to be overpopulated with veterinarians, by practice count, pet density, and population factors. From the "facts", we told her she would need to expect at least three-plus years in the red, and it would be a tough haul all the way. She persevered, believed the communities needed a top quality veterinary practice, and proceeded to build an eighty-four-hundred-square-foot, state-of-the-art, companion animal facility, with a subterranean guest lodge for pamper pets.
Never having practiced a day in Colorado, in the first ninety days of operation, she gained "only" a thousand clients, called me in a panic, and asked what she should do. I stated she should celebrate!
She continued to become triple AAHA certified, and had the only laser surgery unit on the western slope. She shared those factors and her compassionate, critter caring with the public at every opportunity. By the twenty-third month of operation, she was in the black and making money market deposits.
When asked if her soft, female, southern Mississippi accent had anything to do with her success, she looked at me and said, "It is not a gender issue, it is giving clients what they want for their furred and feathered family members."