Do you know your natural stress response – fight, flight, freeze, or fawn? Do you gird your loins and gear up for a fight? Run away as fast as you can, physically or emotionally? Play possum and become immobile? Or become submissive and use your best people-pleasing skills to ease the threat?
For me, that automatic response is fight – every time. Even when it’s not the best solution, I can’t help myself. I’m not mad that this is my natural response. It has helped me keep going during hard times and is definitely one of my survival tools. Giving up is not an option for me, to a fault. To win, we have to fight. What can I say? I’m a fiery redhead.
What I wish I were better at, though, is knowing what battles to pick. Fighting for something important is one thing. Fighting because you don’t know any better is something else entirely.
The women that I have chosen to write about in this installment of inspirational women inspire me because of their bravery in battle, refusing to back down, and how they fight for the underdogs. They are Connie Kennard and Shirley Chisholm.
Connie Peters Kennard
Susanna Salter was the first woman ever elected mayor of an American city. She served as mayor in Argonia, Kansas, after winning the election in 1887 when a group of men put her on the slate as a stunt, hoping her loss would be humiliating enough for women to be discouraged from politics.
It took another 88 years for a woman to be elected mayor of Wichita. In 1975, at the beginning of my formative high school years, Connie Ames Peters Kennard became the first woman mayor of Wichita. The Women’s Movement in Wichita was very active during that time, and my mother was all in, so it was a topic that frequently came up at the dinner table right after the evening news was over. Seeing Connie on television was powerfully inspirational. She was a role model who showed me that women could enter the good-old-boy world of politics and fight for women’s rights from the inside.
Connie Peters, later Kennard, became the first woman commissioner elected to the city council in 1973 and served twice as mayor (’75-‘76 and ‘78-’79.) Since then, Wichita has had only four other women serve as mayor: Margalee Wright (’83-’84), Kathleen Edmiston (February ’85 – April ’85), Elma Broadfoot (’93-’95), and most recently Lily Wu (2024).
I couldn’t find much information on Connie’s life and career online, but an article on the Wichita Eagle editorial page on March 1, 1981, called her “the people’s commissioner.” The article said she was known for seeking out and acting on the advice and feelings of her constituents, and ‘it was ‘the people’ who elected her to be the first woman to the commission in the 102-year history in 1973.”
Still, it must have been tough to be the first woman mayor. The article says that Connie “represented the city with dignity and was big enough to withstand the ugly criticism of her personal life and her effrontery as a woman plunging into what was considered then, among some, the ‘man’s-world’ of elective politics.”
But the reason Connie stands out so vividly in my memory and inspires me today is a story on the nightly news all those years ago. At the time, the commission was fighting over what to do about licenses for exotic dancers. Connie was fighting to end the license requirement, saying they were expensive and unnecessarily complicated and barriers to employment for work that was completely legal.
But mostly, the licenses were unfair to women since they were mostly the ones impacted. Before Chippendale’s came on the scene in 1979, most exotic dancers were women. These licenses were hurting women’s ability to make a living and provide for their families in a job where they could make more in a few hours than a whole 40-hour week, a godsend for single mothers.
To make her point, Connie went through the process of applying for and paying for a license. I can still see her on the news, sitting at a bar, telling the reporter about what she had to do to get the license and how she was fighting to end the requirement. Then, to my shock and awe, Connie got up on a table and started dancing. As long as she had gone through the trouble of getting the license, she was going to use it one time.
It blew me away that she would take the battle to the front lines to fight for women whom much of society looked down on. I am always inspired by those fighting for the underdog and taking a stand that dramatic is bound to catch my attention.
Shirley Chisholm
Around the same time Connie was making news in Wichita, another fearless woman entered the political ring, seeking the nomination for President of the United States from one of the two major political parties. In 1972, Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm had the audacity to be the first woman and the first person of person of color to run for President. Considering Black citizens had only secured the right to vote after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this was a big deal.
It wasn’t on a whim that Shirley decided to go for the top office in our country. While winning prizes on the debate team at Brooklyn College, her professors encouraged her to consider a political career, but she answered them that she faced a “double handicap” as both Black and a woman.
Continuing her education, Shirley earned a master’s in early childhood education from Columbia University in 1951. By 1960, she was a consultant to the New York City Division of Day Care. This must have changed her mind about running for office because, in 1964, Shirley became the second Black legislator in New York State before going on to run for Congress.
She was the first Black woman in Congress (1968), representing New York’s 12th District for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. Her motto and title of her autobiography—Unbought and Unbossed—tells the story of her outspoken advocacy for women and minorities during her seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. There, “Fighting Shirley” introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War.
Shirley fought discrimination fiercely throughout her quest for the 1972 Democratic Party presidential nomination. She was blocked from being at the televised primary debates and, after taking legal action, was allowed to make just one speech. Still, enough people followed the “Chisholm Trail” that she received 152 delegate votes (10% of the total) in the 12 primaries she entered.
She knew her campaign was woefully underfunded and her chances of winning nonexistent. Shirley explained that she ran for office "in spite of hopeless odds ... to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo".
McGovern won the nomination that year and only 17 electoral college votes, losing to Nixon, who had the largest share of the popular vote for the Republican Party in any presidential election ever. I think Shirley would have done better if only she had the chance.
I remember hearing Shirley Chisholm's campaign speeches and feeling her passion for equal rights and her hopeful view of what our country could be if we all worked together for the greater good – not the greater greed. She was so different from any of the other candidates that I was inspired and transformed by her words.
Here’s a video of her announcement that she was running for office. As I listened to her speech to research this article, I was amazed at how what Shirley was saying is just as relevant today and how little progress has been made in all the problems we were facing then and now.
Of her legacy, Chisholm said, “I want to be remembered as a woman … who dared to be a catalyst of change.” She certainly was a spark to me, teaching me that sometimes the fight is about more than winning. It’s about shaking up the status quo.
Now, 52 years later, I’m writing this article on the eve of an election where, once again, we have a woman of color running for Commander in Chief. I am waiting with bated breath to see if the United States will finally elect a woman president and give women a chance to have power. Whether you agree that Kamala Harris would make a good president or not, this election is historic in so many ways.
Who you vote for is your business, and even when this election is extra contentious, I respect you and your right to choose who you think the best candidate will be. What I admire and encourage more than anything is making your voice heard by owning your power as a citizen and casting your vote.
I am excited to go to my polling place tomorrow and turn in my ballot. Voting with my neighbors is fun and always has a festive vibe. I see people I know, and sometimes there are cookies. It reminds me of how exciting it is to be part of the democratic process and life in a country where I still get a say in who rules and that my vote matters. Yours does, too. Please vote if you haven’t already.
Much love,
Headmistress Jill
Next week: Fierce Inspirational Women
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