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The Courage of Women
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Lakshmi Bar, the Rani of Jhansi is one of India’s national heroines. Raised in a household of boys, she was fearless and brilliant as a military strategist. When her husband died, she came out of purdah to fight the British, becoming the key figure extraordinaire who trained women for her army with special care. These women came to be known as the “amazons of Jhansi.” Lakshmi herself was famous for calmly taunting enemy generals, “Do your worst, I will make you a woman.” Her fame spread like wildfire throughout India, making her their national shero when she broke through an encircling ambush of British soldiers during battle and escaped in horseback to a hundred miles away in just twenty-four hours with a ten-year-old boy clinging to her back. She and the boy were the only two survivors of the slaughtered Indian troops. It should also be noted that Lakshmi was in full armor in sweltering 120 degree heat. She died on the battlefield in Gwalior when she was barely thirty; a British general called her the “greatest hero” he’d ever known.
Qui Jin was called a “Heroine Among Women” by Sun Yat-Sen. She was simply amazing! Born in 1874, her hobbies included cross-dressing and riding through the streets of Chinese cities and villages. She founded the first newspaper for women in China, founded a school for girls, and escaped from her arranged marriage to pursue her revolutionary goals of overthrowing the Qing Monarchy. Quite the intellectual, she wrote poetry and took a vow of silence during her imprisonment upon being arrested for plotting the assassination of the Qing governor. Her daughter followed in her mother’s pioneering footsteps by becoming China’s first aviatrix.
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