#FearlessFemales - Day 16 - Dinner Companions?

Today's blogging challenge has got me thinking:

March 16 — If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

Well my sister and mother would definitely be on my list - and Mum would have to cook her "now world famous" spaghetti bolognese. Based on how many Mum would regularly cook for, the size of our family dining room table, I think I have room for five other fabulous Fearless Females.

Based on the topic that seemed to most capture my mother's letter writing attention, I think I would have to invite Margaret Thatcher (Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven) if only for the stimulating debate that would take place

Mum loved a debate - when she asked me to move back home after Dad passed away, her reason was "I don't have anybody to fight with"

Also on the list would have to be Julia Gillard - the first female Prime Minister of Australia.

Mum was a staunch Australian Labor Party supporter and also a feminist, so Julia's addition - as a counterfoil to "Maggie's" Conservative Party politics would also make for a lively dinner party.

Mum's feminist credentials? Here is one example - when I was in high school I was taking a woodworking class (a class mostly of boys with maybe 5 or 6 other girls in it). When the end of year results came out, all the girls had low grades - despite most being either average or above average students for all the exams and assessments throughout the year. When the teacher was asked about our grades, he said that the boys would need the good marks for their careers and the girls would not (girls don't have careers it seemed).

If you knew my mother, you can imagine the steam coming out of her ears when she and a few of the other mothers marched into the Principal's office. I'm not sure how the teacher got away with his gradings before that year, but he never ever discriminated. In fact, with me, he had a complete turn around and in my senior high school years he suggested I become an engineer (that would have been kind of a big deal at the high school I went to).

Let's add my "favourite" ancestor - my great-great grandmother Rosana McLuckie and my "could be favourite" ancestor - her granddaughter Roseanna McLuckie Hunter.

That give me room for one more - the grandmother my sister and I never met - Mary Agnes Gertrude (Maureen) Farley.

• Me
• My Sister
• Our Mother
• Our Grandmother
• Our Great Great Grandmother
• Our First Cousin twice removed
• Margaret Thatcher
• Julia Gillard

So that gives us eight Fabulous Fearless Females around the dinner table - laughing, fighting, perhaps teasing each other, learning about each others lives and eating my mother's fantastic spaghetti bolognese - what could be better?