To be inspired from her translates, through my perspective, to respecting her work, in its historical relevance and legacy value, and the life she has shaped for herself and as a political act. In fact, it is to take on the trans-feminist approach when embracing a collective struggle, which is now as ever stratified and complex. To be, then, deeply critical of the social and economic structure on which prejudices, patriarchal binarisms, discrimination still flourish. An aggressive structure, as Porpora -among many others- has found out, to which existing in public is already perceived as a menace, when one is perceived as representing a “deviant” identity.

It should not only be an exercise in poetics, then, to keep demanding Bread and roses - and violets too.

Her legacy serves as a poignant reminder of the enduring power of creativity and resilience in overcoming adversity. Rather than succumbing to despair, she transformed her personal struggles into a source of artistic inspiration, using her creativity as a means of catharsis and self-expression. She represents, to this day, an icon of empowerment and self-expression.

Born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, a small city near Nottingham, and of Irish origin. After graduating at Oxford, she started her political career at 25 and after nineteen years she served as prime minister of the UK and leader of the Conservative Party.

First woman to do so, she was also the longest serving British prime minister of the 20th century. The press named her the "Iron Lady" for her politics and leadership, she was referred as the most powerful woman in the world; so powerful that the time period of her office is called "Thatcherism", inspiring women all over the world.

We can say that she started the process of women being not only part in politics, but women as leaders and being in charge of organizations and countries. It is not bold to say that it is thanks to Margaret Thatcher if nowadays leaders like Von Der Leyen, Meloni and many others are at the top of the political world.

She was born in Florence in 1929, well within the fascist dictatorship. The Mussolini political regime did not fit in at all with the rebellious nature of the writer, she spent years fighting the regime.

These hardships gave rise to the need to have a voice, which led her to the world of writing and particularly journalism. Journalism allowed her to travel (something that women were very rarely allowed to do at the time) and to get to know the world. Since her first collaborations with the journal “Europeo” she established herself not only as a reporter but as a protagonist of the journalistic narrative. Aside from the star-style interviews which made her name, she was an accomplished war reporter in Vietnam, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Indian sub-continent. She began her career with celebrity interviews but progressed rapidly to international politicians such as Henry Kissinger and Indira Gandhi. The "La Fallaci" style of interview became something of a cult in North America - adversarial, emotional and extremely lengthy.

Throughout her work, she has remained a fierce figure, always in constant pursuit of revealing the truth in a society dominated by men. She was witty, well-prepared, and antagonistic; she got people to say things they ordinarily would n

Miuccia did a real Revolution in the fashion industry, completely overthrowing the schemes that had been imposed up to that moment and proposing a new perspective of women and of how women can self-determine themselves in society, also through the power of what they are wearing.

Teresa Menarbin, was born in 1924 in San Fidenzio, a small village in the middle of the countryside between Padova and Rovigo, in Northern Italy. Her father was a farmer and her mother the village’s obstetrician, her two brothers were taken away in the earlier stages of the Second World War from the army and deported to other regions, the family did not hear from them for years.
She helped in the hiding of her father and a family friend underneath a crop where they used to grow carrots and cauliflowers, by bringing them food and water from the house as she was still a kid, and did not risk (as much as adults) to be stopped, searched or questioned by Fascist-Nazi officers.
By the end of the war her brothers found their way back home, times were more calm and so she got the opportunity to study and become a teacher.

In 1946, at 22 years old, she participated and voted to the referendum held in Italy to decide to hold on to the Monarchy or rather, step up to a Republic, it was the first time women were allowed the right to vote in Italy, and she is always very proud to remark that.
Not too later on, she met her beloved husband Marco Antonio with whom she had four children. They moved from village to village, as he was starting his career as a doctor, they were kept close by a great love which she still cherish and honor nowadays. Marco Antonio unfortunately passed away suddenly in the late 1960s, and so, she decided to request an early retirement to take care of her four children (two of which were still under 10) and the elder relatives (some aunts and uncles both hers and her late husband’s).
As the children grew up, graduated, moved from the family-home to work and eventually got married, she started dedicating her time to voluntary work, which involved teaching analphabet adults to the gatherings of women in her village at first to pray the rosary, and then to read books and improve as they could their cultural levels.

Through the years among the family, she gained the nickname of “highlander”, as she really did go through many difficulties and never bent; in spite of some health issues, she held on strong to her independence up until 2021 (aged 97) when she broke her leg, and even though she completely recovered, she finally stopped driving and started needing some daily help, which she had never even thought about before. She now is in a nursing home, surrounded by the love of her family and will be turning 100 years old on February 28th.

Teresa Menarbin is my grandmother. I've always admired her strength, but what really struck me was her ability to quickly take up the pieces of the family and having the courage to give up everything and give priority to her family.
It is not much about how good she was in respecting the moral and social values of the family, as that is not up to anyone to evaluate. My admiration focuses on the strength of a human being to heal from the sudden death of such a loved one, be the only referenceable parent for four kids, and became the backbone for everyone in the family. And again, showing each and every one of us what does it mean dedicating a life to altruism, the determinance she has been holding for almost a century now, from when she carried food from the house to the hiding place or messages around the village to help people communicate, or when she dedicated her life to the help of others through her volunteering activities.

She was born in Poland in 1871, studied in Warsaw and then Zurich. For a while she led the Polish Social Democratic Party, before settling in Berlin, where she wrote her major works in political economy, which had a major impact in contemporary marxist economic studies. At the dawn of WWI, she strongly opposed the capitulation line of the Social Democratic Party, which led to the abandonment of a pacifist position in favor of nationalist ideals. Taking part in the foundation of the Communist Party of Germany, she was arrested during the uprisings and was massacred by the police.

Furthermore, she was European MP under the first Italian delegation, where she worked to reform the election to parliament itself, through the promulgation of the law on direct European suffrage.

Her most well-known battle is the reform of civil rights, with the introduction of divorce into the legal system and its preservation thanks to the victory in the 1974 abrogative referendum.

I find her inspiring because she pioneered breaking the glass ceiling of Italian politics, and once she acquired power and a platform she worked tirelessly to improve the condition of all other women and granted them more freedom and rights. I also deeply admire her militancy in the Resistance against Nazifascism.

In 2014, she won the Nobel prize for peace for her activism for the education of young girls.

When I was in middle school, some teachers were telling us her history and it inspires me in approaching feminism.

Moreover, she was among the pioneering women scientists of Turkey to conduct sociological field studies where she reflected deeply on research results by following a comparative scientific method. In this respect, Behice Boran was the scientist who applied the method of examining social layers for the first time in Turkey. She clarified the concept of social structure in her works, and developed insightful theories regarding Turkey's complex socio-economic structure. 

On the other hand, Behice Boran was among those who paid the heaviest price for the ideas she held in 70s-80s Turkey, a time when violent ideological struggles between left and right, government and students, intellectuals were gaining momentum. She was imprisoned three times as a political convict, she had to give birth to her first child in prison, she had to escape the country in her seventies and many more bitter examples. To put it in a word, she faced the brutality of the government but she never gave up on her cause and kept her resistance alive till the day she passed away in exile.

To sum up, Behice Boran made history as a woman social scientist, academician and a socialist leader. Everyone, whether they embraced her thoughts or not, had to talk about Boran's strong personality because she was a fearless woman, a political leader, an academician, a mother and maybe more…

N.K.

She was the last of three children and lost both of her parents when she was quite young. So she was grown by her sister (who was twenty years older than her) and in a second moment by her brother. Even if loved, she was perceived by the families of her sibilings as a burden. Therefore, they made her leave school at 8 years old so that she could start working. When she was only 14 she was sent one year in Northern Italy to work in a tabacco firm.

She met my grandpa when she was 16 and they married at 19, they spent the first marriage night on the train to go to the "North" hoping to create a better future for themselves and their future family.

In Piedmont, she found work in a firm that produced chips for electronic objects. There she was victim of bullying because she was from the South. This aspect, together with the burden of caring for her new family, the house and the consuming working hours caused her severe depression. For this reason, she went into pension pretty soon (she was only 45).

What I find incredible is that, besides all the difficulties that she had to go through, my grandma is the most happy person that I know, from her every day I learn the beauty of simplicity and the importance of being connected to nature.

Her life is not an example of feminism, she adapted without any question to the fact that she should be first and foremost a "mother" and a "caregiver". This is one of the reasons that made me start studying feminism: to show her that an alternative to what she has always known exists and to validate some feelings that she sometimes has.

My grandma is incredibly curious, so even if reading is now complex for her, she would often ask me questions about some things that I mention or decisions that I took for myself, and she would listen with an open heart and without judgment, making me feel as if what I am doing is worth the effort.

She co-founded the Wages for Housework campaign in the 70s which paved the way for the recognition of domestic and care work as a feminist matter on a global level, and collaborated with a lot of radical feminist organizations around the world including Women in Nigeria (where she thaught for years) and Ni Una Menos.

I believe her work is an outstanding example of radical feminist politics and critical theory also with respect to "classic" leftist politics and marxism, dominated by men and macho attitutes. Her takes, for example, on the history of the witch hunt related to the modern conception of women's roles impressed me immensely and I think marked my way of thinking.

In 1696, apprehensive of a potential resurgence of Mongol power, the Qing dynasty dispatched three armies westward towards Mongolia, with the Qing Kangxi Emperor leading the expeditionary forces. Galdan manoeuvred his troops southward from the Khentii Mountains to confront the western column of the Qing army at the Battle of Jao Modo in May 1696. However, his forces soon found themselves encircled by the superior Qing forces.

In a decisive moment, Anu led a counterattack, enabling her husband to evade the enemy encirclement.

She was not only a formidable fighter but also a devoted soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice to secure the future of the Mongolian empire. Her courageous actions left an indelible mark on history, shattering the prevailing stereotypes surrounding the portrayal of women within the annals of the Mongolian Empire.