Good morning everyone,

Two amazing women for you all today. We start with Ingeborg Rapoport, who this week was awarded a science PhD denied to her by Nazis. This included her boning up on the last eightyish years of research into diphtheria to defend a thesis written in 1938:

"It was about the principle," she said. "I didn't want to defend my thesis for my own sake. After all, at the age of 102 all of this wasn't exactly easy for me. I did it for the victims.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33048927

I had to check that I’d not already featured Edith Stein, who being a woman and saint and a doctor of philosopher is pretty squarely in the Feminist Friday wheelhouse. She wrote and understood some incredibly difficult philosophy, and ran afoul of the Nazi regime in a series of increasingly awful ways. I enjoyed this beautiful quotation about kindness and love from her:  

As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.

http://www.ocarm.org/en/content/ocarm/edith-stein-quotes

Enjoy your days,

Alex.