Mary Wollstonecraft

Born in England in the mid-1700's to a middle class family the head of which was a drunkard, Mary Wollstonecraft used to lay in front of her mother's bedroom door to prevent her father from beating his wife. Then, in her late teens, sick of it all and without funds, she took a position as a lady's companion, but the arrangement didn't work out well (thanks, more than likely, to her already being an in-your-face woman) and she proceeded to move into her unconventional future the best way she knew how.

She tried being a teacher of children in a community of people with progressive ideas, spent some time in France hanging around revolutionaries, and finally found her permanent niche in writing, first A Vindication of the Rights of Man (about why the French were right to revolt against their king) and then A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (about why women should be adequately educated so they can fulfill an appropriately equal role in society). In response to the idea that women are incapable of reasoning on the level of a man, Wollstonecraft wrote: "Taught from their infancy that beauty is woman's scepter, the mind shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to adorn its prison."

Unfortunately, when she died at thirty-eight from complications after childbirth, her husband published the story of her life -- complete with its unrequited love affairs, a child out of wedlock, suicide attempts, and so on -- causing her to be dismissed as an intellectual for a century. But when the women suffrage movement began in earnest in the late 1800's, Wollstonecraft was re-discovered in a different light and by the 1960's, she was being taken for the serious writer and agitator she was. In-your-face women including Lucretia Mott, Emma Goldman and Virginia Woolf were all inspired by and sent up salutes to Wollstonecraft's life and work. Woolf wrote of her: "She is alive and active, she argues and experiments, we hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living." Obviously, to be an in-your-face woman is to live forever -- even if it takes a while for folks to realize it.

Pearl Witherington

World War II was raging and France was occupied when twenty-nine-year-old Pearl Witherington parachuted into France as a British Special Operations Executive member, said to be the best shot they'd ever seen. During the winter of 1943 and 1944, she served as a courier for the leader of the Stationer Network of underground resisters. But when he was taken captive, Witherington took over the leadership of the newly formed Wrestler Network of 1500 guerrilla fighters, who were so effective at causing the Germans grief, they put a bounty of one million francs on her head.

On June 11, 1944, 2000 German soldiers attacked 140 of Witherington's badly armed trainees, who held off their enemies for 14 hours, killing 86 while only losing 24. Eventually, Witherington's forces were responsible for the deaths of 1000 German soldiers, the surrender of 18,000 more, and compromising the railway system in their region more than 800 times.

Ineligible for a Military Cross because she was a woman, Witherington was awarded the French Legion of Honor and made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, though when they tried to make it a "civil" (non-military) award, she said, "There was nothing remotely 'civil' about what I did. I didn't sit behind a desk all day." So they changed it. It didn't read "in-your-face woman," but Witherington -- as well as the men and women with whom she fought so long and so hard -- knew that's what it meant.

Oprah Winfrey

Born in poverty to a teen-aged single mother in Mississippi, Oprah Winfrey has become one of the most widely recognized people in the world. Surviving a rough childhood, including molestation, gave her a hard edge to support her compassionate nature. And that edge manifested itself as a dogged work ethic and a focused determination that has put her at the top of the empire she built herself.

Starting out in radio while still in high school, she was co-anchoring a local television news program in Nashville, Tennessee, at nineteen. But it was a decade later, when Winfrey introduced herself to the world hosting a thirty-minute morning talk show in Chicago that it became apparent she would never again take a back seat to anybody. And an in-your-face woman was born.

Chatty, empathetic, confessional, and deeply, deeply personal, with a heavy dollop of down home humor, Winfrey's interviewing style encouraged guests to tell the viewing public all manner of things they would never have told anyone else and within two years, she had become America's talk show queen. In time, she began acting in and producing films, earning an Academy Award nomination for her performance in "The Color Purple." But eventually, she added her own film production company, her own radio network, her own magazine, and her own television channel, as well -- in-your-face in every form of media around the globe.

A billionaire, Winfrey has become as famous for her philanthropy as she has for her media work, though she draws her share of criticism, as well, since being in-your-face makes a person an easy -- and inviting -- target. Nevertheless, called "arguably the world's most powerful woman" (by CNN and Time.com), Winfrey can endorse a product, a book, or a political candidate and ensure its hyper-success. Columnist Maureen Dowd wrote: "She is the top alpha female in [America]. She has more credibility than the president. [Oprah] is a straight ahead success story." And a big-time in-your-face woman.

Venus Williams

Many people in the world know that Venus Williams -- with four Olympic gold medals and forty-four career singles titles -- is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. But that's not what put her on this list as an in-your-face woman.

As late as 2005, women tennis players at such famous competitions as the French Open and Wimbledon were not paid the same as men players. Williams met with the officials of both tournaments to plead the case for women, but to no avail.

Then, on the eve of Wimbledon in 2006, she published an essay in The Times, a widely-read British newspaper, accusing the event of being on "the wrong side of history." The essay presented an impassioned and well-substantiated argument on all the straight-forward reasons why the practice of underpaying women tennis players should change. And it closed by saying, "I intend to keep doing everything I can until Billie Jean's original dream of equality is made real."

The British Prime Minister and Parliament quickly endorsed Williams' statement and in February of 2007, both tournaments announced that, thenceforth, women tennis players would be paid equally to men. Williams was cited as the single factor in making this historic decision a reality. And she promptly responded by winning at Wimbledon and thus becoming the first one to benefit from her hardest fought battle ever. In-your-face women know there's more to life than competition and more to life than money. There's respect.

Erica Williams

Erica Williams wants to change the world. Based in the Washington, D.C., area (of course), she not only barges into the public sphere on a daily basis, she whirls around in it like a people-powered hurricane of ideas and energy. And she welcomes all comers.

Williams set out on her journey by earning a bachelor's degree in African-American studies and public policy and then graduated from the Women and Political Leadership Training Program at American University. By 2003, she had burst on the scene at the helm of Progress 2050, a project of the Center for American Progress and committed to the idea that a diverse young population belongs at the vortex (as well as the forefront) of an increasingly diverse nation.

Using digital media, popular culture, and creative innovation, Williams led tens of thousands of young people in an initiative called Campus Progress, then parlayed her tech-savvy in-your-facedness into an even larger arena at the Citizen Engagement Lab (responsible for creating ColorofChange.org) before finally founding Society By Design and introducing her latest project, Foolish Life Ventures, an unabashed incubator for social change. Featured in every manifestation of the national media and drawn into confabs at all levels both in and outside of Washington, Williams has been called a "Global Shaper" (by the World Economic Forum), "the future" (by Cornel West), one of the "40 Under 40" (by the NAACP), and a Women Rule Leadership Award winner (by O Magazine). Look out, world! Another in-your-face woman is not only on the horizon, she's right here in your face!

Cathay Williams

When the Union Army occupied Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1961, Cathay Williams was a seventeen-year-old slave working as a house servant on a plantation owned by a family named Johnson. At the time, the Army considered slaves "contraband," so it was official practice, when needed, to take a woman slave for service to the troops as a cook, a nurse or a laundress. And so it was for Williams for the next five years of her life.

Then, in 1866, Williams decided to flip the script. She'd been living with the Army all this time and certainly knew what there was to know about Army life. The war was over, so going into battle was unlikely. And she was probably tired of whatever low pay she was getting for working harder than the men. So she put on men's clothes and enlisted for a three-year tour of duty under the name "William Cathay."

Unfortunately, Williams came down with small pox and eventually was identified by a doctor as a woman and discharged. After going west to Colorado where she worked as a seamstress for a couple of decades, Williams' years in battlefield conditions began to take their toll. She had lost all her toes (probably due to frostbite or gangrene resulting from having her feet wet a lot), but unlike in-your-face woman Deborah Sampson, she had no influential friends to lobby on her behalf, so her application for military disability benefits was turned down. Ill and with nothing to live on, Williams quietly died in her late forties and was quietly buried somewhere no one can now identify. But she's memorialized here as a permanent reminder that an in-your-face woman lives and dies and doesn't get any more breaks than anybody else. They just get remembered by more people longer.

Elizabeth Wilkinson

When bare-knuckled boxing became popular in London in the early 1700's, women wanted in on the action, too, so they advertised their bouts in the newspapers and climbed into the ring just like the men did. One in particular who became quite well-known was a brawler named Elizabeth Wilkinson. First appearing in 1722, she squared off with an opponent by the name of Hannah Hyfield ("the Newgate Market basket woman) and the agreement was that the women would hold half a crown in each fist and the first one to drop one of her coins lost. This rule stopped scratches and gouges, which were common in boxing events at the time and particularly exciting to the crowds when women fought because they went bare to the waist just like the men.

Wilkinson -- called "The Invincible City Championess" -- continued to fight for the next six years or so in venues owned and operated by one of the most successful men boxers, Jim Figg. But eventually, somewhere along the line, she met and married another male boxer, James Stokes, and started boxing in his amphitheater instead. According to the ads, Wilkinson (now Stokes) wore a tight jacket, which might suggest that she rejected pandering to the crowds more prurient nature. But she gave them their money's worth in other ways, being also skilled with a cudgel and short sword and more than happy to demonstrate both before the main event. It wasn't until the Victorian era that women -- after thousands of years of fighting competitively in public -- were shut out of bare-knuckle boxing. Suddenly, women were too dainty...? They weren't before. How in the world did that happen? (In-your-face women want to know.)

Edna Gardner Whyte

Edna Gardner Whyte started out as a U.S. Navy nurse, but she quit in 1935 to open her own flight school. Then, when World War II started, though she was turned away as a pilot by the military because she was a woman, she trained no less than 5000 male pilots for her former boss. The builder of two airports -- one after she turned seventy -- over time, Whyte won 127 awards for cross-country air racing, aerobatic competitions, and other daredevil flying contests.

Amassing a lifetime record of more than 35,000 hours in the air, Whyte died at ninety-years-old while still living in a house attached to a five-plane hangar. Her book, entitled Rising Above It, discusses, among other things, the struggles she faced -- and overcame -- because she was a woman who loved to fly. "Just all of you watch me," she was quoted as saying while facing down her detractors early in her career  "I'll show you what a woman can do...I'll go across the country, I'll race to the Moon...I'll never look back." And she didn't. How in-your-face of her.

Betty White

At ninety-years-old, Betty White is still said to be the most popular and trusted celebrity in the United States. But it's not because she's grandmotherly. In fact, after winning twenty-six television awards between 1951 and 2011 (including seven Emmys, several Lifetime Achievement Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame), her latest television series, "Hot in Cleveland," is basically an unapologetically hilarious showcase for her feisty  -- and absolutely sexy -- in-your-face self to shine.

Not satisfied with just touting her sexuality at ninety, however, another of White's most recent projects was "Betty White's Off Their Rockers," twelve episodes of old people playing practical jokes on unsuspecting young folks on ordinary streets. By appearing initially to be blind, frail, confused or wheelchair bound, one after another, the jokesters leave their marks in the dust behind them shocked and then finally laughing.

In September of 2011, White's foray into spoken word, a reissue with British singer Luciana of the singer's earlier hit "I'm Still Hot," won White a Grammy for best spoken word recording. Asked by one reporter how she does it, White responded, "I'm blessed with good health and love what I do for a living. That's a good combination. I'm a very lucky old broad." But the rest of us know that in-your-face women make their own luck.

"Dr. Ruth" Westheimer

Having lost her orthodox Jewish parents to the Nazi regime during World War II while she was staying in a Swiss orphanage, Ruth Siegel could have spent the rest of her life feeling justifiably bitter and hurt. But she didn't. Actually, in many ways, this in-your-face woman did the opposite by brazenly celebrating the joys of sex and sexuality over the airwaves throughout the 1980's. But that isn't the way she started out.

When she learned that her parents were dead, she emigrated to Israel where she was badly wounded by a shell explosion in 1948. Living through this might have been an ordeal for anyone, but for one so young and at only 4'7", Siegel truly proved her mettle and then, in 1950, married and moved on to France where she studied and taught psychology in Paris.

Another move with another man -- to Washington Heights in Manhattan, New York -- brought a Master's degree in sociology and another divorce (while she worked as a housemaid to support herself and her daughter). Then, a decade working at Planned Parenthood in Harlem and a doctorate in Family and Sex Counseling from Columbia University vaulted "Dr. Ruth" into an arena she probably could never have imagined: publicly discussing other people's sex lives. And eventually, they climbed over each other to tell their most private secrets to the pint-sized therapist with the giant giggle -- over the air!

It didn't happen over night, of course. Initially, she taught at and then was fired from a university, leaving her discouraged and angry. But one night, she boldly spoke to a group of New York broadcasters about the need to counteract the silence around sexuality. The next thing she knew, she was being paid (albeit slightly) to deliver a fifteen-minute radio show -- "Sexually Speaking" -- after midnight on Sundays. Two months later, the show was an hour long with a live call-in format and a quarter of a million listeners. So much for America not being ready...! When an in-your-face woman is ready, the world will pay attention.

Rebecca West

Her real name was Cicely Isabel Fairfield, but she took the name Rebecca West from a rebellious young female character in a play by Henrik Ibsen when she was studying to be an actress in London and that's the name she's known by. Dropping out of school at fifteen to recuperate from tuberculosis and then unable to return because there was no money to do so, West began publishing as a writer early on while also hitting the streets as a supporter of women's suffrage and simultaneously becoming H.G. Wells' lover for a decade.

Her many essays and reviews in the best of the progressive and mainstream newspapers and magazines in both Great Britain and the United States made West famous, highly respected, and very, very rich before she was thirty. In fact, she was only twenty-four when George Bernard Shaw said of her, "Rebecca West could handle a pen as brilliantly as ever I could -- and much more savagely."

A complicated and thoughtful intellectual, West was anti-communist, but also anti-fascist. She owned a Rolls Royce and supported Margaret Thatcher's stance against the unions, but voted for the Labor Party. And she believed that women should be "feminine," but is quoted as saying, "I myself have never been able to find out what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." In-your-face women defy categories. Yay!