Another Lunch List

I was just thinking the other day that I hadn’t posted a lunch list since that first one last year. In fact, it was posted on Feb. 1, 2008!

Do you remember what a lunch list is? It’s a list of folks you’d just love to have lunch with — but not just any ol’ folks, only those that you admire. They can be historical, contemporary — even fictional. In my first list last year I listed the Top 5 Business Women I would love to have lunch with, including Ali Brown, Mrs. Fields and Larina Kase.

This time around, I thought I’d do something a little different and list the Top 5 Historical Women I would love to have lunch with. So, here they are:

Joan d’Arc, “the Maid of Orleans”
Joan was only 19 years old when she was burned at the stake because, in part, she wouldn’t renounce her beliefs. I think that shows an amazing amount of courage and dedication to one’s core. A heroine of France during the Hundred Years’ War, Joan professed that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination. Such tenacity in someone so young! I bet she’d be an inspiration to have lunch with!

Cleopatra VII Philopator, Last Hellenistic Ruler of Egypt
Cleopatra was the last Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. She first shared power over Egypt with her father Ptolemy XII and then later with her brothers/husbands Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV; eventually gaining sole rule of Egypt. She is famed for having seduced two highly influential Romans (Julius Caesar and Mark Antony). She was a woman accustomed to power and knew how to retain it. I figure, she just might have a few tips on how to maintain self confidence, don’t you?

Rosa Parks, “Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement”
Another woman with chutzpa. I guess I really find myself fascinated with women who show the courage and determination to stand up for what’s right. On Dec. 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa refused to obey bus driver James Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. According to Wikipedia, her action was not the first of its kind, but unlike previous individual actions of civil disobedience, Rosa’s sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement. Given the time, what Rosa did was courageous and I really admire that.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Mother Teresa was simply an amazing woman. Internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for work with the Missionaries of Charity, which founded and help grow into an international charity. Regardless of whether you shared all her beliefs, and I can’t say that I do, you have to recognize the business savvy it took to raise the amount of money she was able to raise for the poor. In addition, she was a devout nun, fully dedicated to her life’s work. Oh, and we could have a birthday lunch together — she, too was born on Aug. 26!

Mary Shelley, Author of Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus
A British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, Mary was a woman of her time, but also something of a non-conformist. I have to admit that her novel, Frankenstein, is one of my favorites because of the layers of meaning and depth it has. There is a reason that the story has endured for so long. It is a work of horror, a work of science fiction and, at it’s core, a work of social commentary that has remained adaptable to changing social times. I would love to chat over lunch about her life and political ideas. Oh, and her birthday is only four days after mine!

So, which women of history would you like to have lunch with?