Female pioneers

1. Look at the list of sports and name the most

famous sportspeople in these fields.
• football
• running
• basketball
• cycling
• tennis

2. Discuss the questions.

• In your opinion, has professional sport achieved gender equality yet? If so,
why do you think so?
• Have you heard of the Boston Marathon? What is it famous for?

3. Watch a video [https://youtu.be/aO2ChjVGL7c] and complete the sentences

with facts from the video.
a) To achieve her goal, which was to run the Boston Marathon, Kathrine Switzer
had to …………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
b) At that time, Kathrine was an unusual athlete because …………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
c) When signing up for the race ………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
d) She had a mixed experience of the race day because …………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
e) Having shown what a woman can do, Kathrine …………………………………...
…………………………………………………………………………………………..

4. Read the sentences and answer the questions.

a) Down the street we went.
b) Down the street went the runners.
c) We went down the street.

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 Female pioneers

• Which sentence(s) sound(s) more expressive?

• Which of the sentences has inverted word order?
• How is sentence a) different from sentence b)?

5. Read the rules about inversion in sentences.

Function: Inversion is used to add emphasis and expressiveness.

INVERSION AFTER ADVERBS OF PLACE AND MOVEMENT

Adverb/adverbial Verb/verb phrase Subject The rest of the
phrase sentence
There stood Peter alone.
Down the street went the runners.

Exception: When the subject of a sentence is a pronoun, the word order

remains unchanged: e.g. Down the street we went.

INVERSION AFTER NEGATIVE AND LIMITING ADVERBS

e.g. in no way, under no circumstances, only, never, seldom, rarely, hardly, little, etc.
Adverb/ Auxiliary Subject Main verb The rest of the sentence
adverbial
phrase

how tremendous our

In no way did we realize
responsibility was.

Under no
was Kathrine going to give up in the race.
circumstances

Little did the coach know about her capabilities.

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 Female pioneers

6. Rewrite the sentences using the adverbs in brackets.

a) I am not going to change my opinion regarding women in politics. (Under no
circumstances)
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
b) Some people do not realize the importance of balanced representation. (Little)
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
c) The place where Rosalind found inspiration to create was in her hometown. (In
her hometown)
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
d) The university where she studied was around the corner. (Around the corner)
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
e) Female pioneers were rarely appreciated by their contemporaries. (Rarely)
…………………………………………………………………………………………..

7. Read the biographies of some female pioneers and say why the underlined
sentences are inverted. Then, discuss the questions.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was the first woman to win the

Nobel Prize. She was the first woman to do it twice, too. Marie
received the award in Physics and Chemistry for her research
on radioactivity. Her and her husband’s joint efforts led to the
discovery of polonium and radium. Under no circumstances
did Marie stop her work: when Pier, her spouse, died, she
continued her research and championed the development of
X-rays. The scientist died in 1934 of anaemia caused by exposure to radiation.

Jane Austen’s novels remain classics to this day. Never before

had a woman in England dared to choose writing as her
professional vocation. There was hardly a writer who had made
women central figures of their work. Jane Austen did both. She
managed to draw her readers’ attention to themes such as love,
women’s rights and family relationships from a woman’s
perspective. She met numerous obstacles when trying to publish

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 Female pioneers

her works: the norms of her times forced her to publish her novels anonymously.
Despite all the hardships, she wrote her whole life.

Katherine Johnson is known as one of the first female

scientists at NASA. When making her career choice, she took
a big risk. Mathematical research was a difficult field for
women to enter, so her first career steps were in teaching. At
NASA, she performed highly complex calculations for projects
such as sending the first American into space and into orbit,
flights to the moon, the Space Shuttle program, and others.
She was called a ‘human computer’ for her incredible mathematical abilities.
While gender barriers were always there, never did she take them seriously. As
an assertive woman she always joined editorial meetings, commanded respect
from male colleagues and stood her ground when it came to her work. She was
awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and included in the National
Women’s Hall of Fame.

• What contribution did these women make to our society?

• How do you think they paid for their achievements?
• Is becoming a female pioneer in a traditionally male field worth the effort?
• Do you know of any other female pioneers? What did they do? In what ways
did their acts influence society?

8. Discuss statements a) and b) with your partner. Then, complete the

remaining statements with your own ideas about women and equality.
a) Empowering women means liberating the feminine in men and the masculine
in women.
b) Only when we introduce gender quotas in business and science will the gap in
the number of female and male innovators decrease.
c) Under no circumstances should women…
d) In no way will I ever agree that…
e) Seldom do we hear…

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