Calypso Rose: What the “Lioness of the Jungle” can tell us about STEM
A few weeks back I saw the documentary, “Calypso Rose: Lioness of the Jungle,” about the first professional woman Calypso singer from Trinidad. Calypso Rose was the first woman to win the Calypso King contest and the Trinidad Road March competition in the 1970s. Still performing at 72 years old, she’s now written more than 800 songs. Some of her calypsos are about women’s issues such as domestic violence, and she’s used her platform of music to bring awareness around the world.
In her documentary, she talks about how much resistance she faced as the first woman calypso singer and many of the stories she told sounded so familiar – they are the stories of all women breaking into a man’s world. First, how fellow musicians tried to ban her from competing in the formerly all-male Calypso King contest, but she persisted and eventually even won the competition. Later she talked about how she was so careful not to have relations with any of the other musicians she was working with, and living with, in the Calypso tents, yet there were still rumors that she was sleeping with all the male musicians and then other rumors that she was sleeping with the female musicians. Through it all, she kept her head high, and focused on her music.
During the film, a professional female calypso singer from St. Lucia meets Calypso Rose for the first time and is overcome with emotion. She tells Calypso Rose that she has been her role model all of her life and that she helped her to see it was possible for her to pursue her own career in this male-dominated genre of music. While today, we don’t have that many more women firsts remaining in the US, the dynamic is still the same for women and girls who might be the firsts in their families, their communities, their schools, and among their friends. They still need the hope and inspiration of the female role models who have gone before them so that they know they too can do it. Not everyone can be a pioneer like Calypso Rose, pioneers by their nature are few in numbers, but all girls can feel it’s possible to be a Calypso singer, a drummer like Sheila E, an astronaut like Sally Ride, or a surgeon general like Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Or equally important, a computer network technician perhaps like her Aunt, a geographic information systems analyst like her sister, or an auto technician like her neighbor Sue. Female role models help women and girls see their own unlimited potential.
Is there a female role model who inspired you? Please share in the comments the person in your life who helped you see your own potential.
Warmly,
Donna
PS I love Calypso Rose’s music, and following the documentary I went home and downloaded her Best of Calypso Rose album and it’s my new work out music playlist! You can’t but help move when you are listening to it. Go to her website to hear her music and see clips from her documentary. I’d love to share the joy of Calypso Rose’s music with all of you!
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Jon Spangler on August 7th, 2012
I was raised by and have been surrounded by strong and inspiring women (my mother, my wife, my sister, my grandmother, my aunts, and many, many friends and colleagues) throughout my life, and I am deeply grateful to them all. Here are two examples:
Olga Reifschneider, my maternal grandmother, was one of the first women to work for the US Postal Service in WWI at the age of 16, and she was the only woman in a 1951 Desert Ecology class at the University of Nevada Reno when she got her BS in Botany.
My wife, Linda Hudson, was the first woman in several positions she held at AT&T and at Bell Laboratories, breaking the gender barrier in one of America’s most sexist corporate cultures.
Being surrounded by strong, smart, and capable women has most certainly made me a better man and a better human being.