Las Mujeres Mueven Montañas

by Pepita Sandwich

To get to the ship, Jeanne Baret had to disguise herself as a man. Annie Smith Peck caused scandal by her hiking attire. Van Buren sisters were even arrested a few times for wearing trousers. In their lifetime, neither Baret nor Mary Anning were ever credited for their discoveries.

Women adventurers, explorers, scientists. Most of them, underappreciated, ignored, forgotten. Now this wonderful comic book by Pepita Sandwich (Josefina Guarracino) brings their stories to life.

• Jeanne Baret (1740—1807), a French botanist, the first woman to circumnavigate the globe;
• Annie Londonderry (1870—1947), the first woman to bicycle around the world;
• Mary Anning (1799—1847), an English palaeontologist, discoverer of ichthyosaur and Plesiosaurus;
• Annie Smith Peck (1850—1935), a record-setting mountaineer;
• Josephine Peary (1863—1955), an American Arctic explorer;
• Augusta (1884—1959) and Adeline (1889—1949) Van Buren, American transcontinental motorcyclists;
• Freya Stark (1893—1993), a British explorer and writer;
• Ynés Mexía (1870—1938), a Mexican-American botanist;
• Ángeles Alvariño (1916—2005), a Spanish oceanographer and marine biologist;
• Eva Dickson (1905—1938), a Swedish explorer, rally driver and aviator; the first woman to cross the Sahara desert by car;
• Rosaly Lopes (born 1957), a Brazilian planetary geologist and volcanologist, a 2006 Guinness record holder as the discoverer of the most active volcanoes anywhere;
• Junko Tabei (1939—2016), the first woman to summit Mount Everest and the first woman to ascend the Seven Summits;
• Barbara Hillary (1931—2019), the first African-American woman to reach the North and South poles;
• Valentina Tereshkova (born 1937), the first woman in space.

Of this list, only two are still alive. (Barbara Hillary passed away last November, after the publication of this book.) Rosaly Lopes remains actively involved in planetary science, working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As for Tereshkova, after the Vostok 6 flight, she didn’t exactly lack recognition. A poster-girl for Soviet space programme, she was showered with awards and honours, Soviet (later Russian) and foreign alike, and now, regrettably, is as establishment as they come. Undeniably, she inspired generations of girls — as, I hope, this book will — but I find “Chaika” the odd one out in this collection.

Colour-wise, the book’s chapters are as diverse as their heroines: ranging from stark black-and-white (Mary Anning) through duotone and Ben Day dots to paper collage-style (Rosaly Lopes) and watercolour (Ángeles Alvariño). And there even is an original soundtrack!

Las Mujeres Mueven Montañas: Annie Smith Peck