The Only Women in the Room

Politicians, athletes, artists, scientists, and even some criminals – all of them in a sea of men.

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It’s what’s known as the “Smurfette Principle” – the idea that, in works of art, but also in real life, there is often exactly one woman amongst an ensemble of men, despite the fact that women make up half the human race. The original Smurfette was the lone female in the comic book series (and, later, TV series) The Smurfs, who – amongst her little blue creature friends, each named according to an occupation or personal quality, such as “Carpenter Smurf” or “Fireman Smurf” was simply… the girl.

The reality of being a smurfette in real life is significant; research shows that it requires a certain number of women (about a third) to have an impact on a majority-male space – what’s called the point of “critical mass.” Without it, women speak up less, they have less influence, and people tend to think that because she’s speaking as a woman that she’s speaking on behalf of all women. No pressure, right?

(Photo by RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

In her new photo book, The Only Woman, the author Immy Humes gets at this idea through historical photos of lone women who have persisted throughout history: Politicians, athletes, artists, scientists, and even some criminals, all of them in a sea of men. A documentary filmmaker by trade, Humes didn't set out to make a photo book. But she kept stumbling across these photos in her work (or her procrastination). “I felt like I was playing Where’s Waldo – or rather, Walda,” Humes writes. And yet, “Once you start to look for the Only Woman, she is easy to find.”

There is fascinating history behind the women she chosen to feature, many of whom I’d never heard of. Like Lucille Kallen, a comedy writer in 1950s New York, who once said she had to “stand up on the couch and wave a red kerchief” to get her male colleagues’ attention. Or the 1930s stickup artist Virginia Right – a “blonde gungirl,” as the New York Daily News dubbed her – pictured in a glamorous fur coat in her mug shot alongside 10 men.

There are women who were the “first” to do something, such as Jeannette Rankin, the first U.S. Congresswoman, pictured in a skinny black and white photo among hundreds of men. There are those whose jobs had simply brought them there (nurse, cook, servant, actress); those elevated by a husband or father (Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, for instance, was stepping into the family business) and those who, like the Smurfette, might have been perceived as tokens.

There are 100 photos in all, spanning 1862 to 2020. Here are five of them:

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Andrea Motley Crabtree

Panama City, Fl., 1982

Andrea Motley Crabtree became the first woman to deep sea dive for the U.S. Army and the first Black woman in U.S. military diving. Pictured here in 1982, wearing a suit weighing 200 pounds, she was capable of welding underwater and ultimately earned the title of Master Sergeant. “Most of the men hated me being there,” Humes said, reflecting on this photo years later. “The way he’s looking at me with such disgust!” (Photo: Andrea Motley Crabtree)

Katherine Graham

New York, 1975

The former CEO of The Washington Post, Katherine Graham often remarked that a man might actually be better at her job. And yet, she persevered – taking the company public, keeping it profitable, and making journalistic history by publishing the Pentagon Papers, which brought light to the failed U.S. policy in Vietnam. Here she is pictured after being elected to the board of directors for the Associated Press. (Photo: Shutterstock/AP)

Shirley Chisholm

New York, 1972

In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She represented New York's 12th Congressional District for seven terms, and in 1972 became the first Black woman to run for president – with the campaign slogan, UNBOUGHT and UNBOSSED. She's pictured here during a taping of Meet the Press, alongside her Democratic presidential competitors: Henry Jackson (to her left), George McGovern (back right), Hubert Humphrey (middle) and Edmund Muskie. (Photo: Getty Images/Bettmann)

Frances Perkins

Washington D.C., 1939

The first woman member of an American presidential cabinet and the secretary of labor under FDR, Frances Perkins was often called the architect of the New Deal. She outlawed child labor and was responsible for the creation of Social Security, unemployment insurance minimum wage, and myriad other worker protections. (She also famously took notes on her male colleagues early in her career, and saved them in a big red envelope labeled, “Notes on the Male Mind.”) (Photo: Library of Congress/Harris & Ewing)

Kathrine Switzer

Boston, 1967

At age 20, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially enter and run in the Boston Marathon – five years before women were permitted. It was 1967, and Switzer had signed up alongside 741 male runners under the name “KV.” Nobody seemed too concerned about a woman running until one of the race officials caught up with her at mile four. “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” he shouted, while trying to rip off her bib. Switzer’s boyfriend, pictured here, and with the help of the other runners, managed to push him off of her. Switzer finished the race, and returned to run it 50 years later at age 70 – making up one of almost half the race’s female contestants. (Photo: Boston Globe/Contributor via Getty Images)

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What I'm Reading:

• Why are dogs so messy when they drink water?! An amazing question the Wall Street Journal (!) aimed to answer. Read it for the pictures.

• Trump, Dr. Oz and our political cult of celebrity: I chatted with Frank Bruni and Jane Coaston on the The Argument podcast about how everything today is celebrity culture — even our politics. Listen here.

• Introducing the "millennial pause" — that is, when you pause for a split-second before talking when recording yourself on TikTok, because you are old and that's what Gen Z says. The Atlantic

• WNBA legend Sylvia Fowles is preparing for her next act: Mortician.

• How fun are you? You're in luck, I made you a quiz. (More on that in a future newsletter.)

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