My grandmother Meena ([[Meacham-526 | Lillian Florence Meacham (1886 - 1973)]] said she would rather be an example TO her grandchildren than an example FOR her grandchldren, and she was both.
As a teenager at the turn of the 20th century, she was sent off to study piano at the Royal College of Music in London, and quickly fell in with the Bohemian crowd, including H G Wells and G.B. Shaw among her friends.At this time she also dabbled in [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophy Theosophy]
In 1907 she married the composer and Irish Music collector, [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hughes_(composer) Herbert Hughes]. (He wrote the music to "She Moved through the Fair" and "Down by the Sally Gardens", among other well known pieces). In 1908 they had a son [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Hughes Patrick], later know as "Spike Hughes".
By 1911 she and Herbert had separated (though not divorced until 1922), and she moved to Italy with Pat where she supported herself by, among other things, making and selling wooden toys for children.
She returned to London where she was successful as ceramacist (one of her pieces hung at the Victoria and Albert) among other things. She was also an early Buddhist.
She developed an interest in psychoanalysis (see [
http://www.psychoanalytikerinnen.de/greatbritain_biographies.html Women Psychoanalysts in Great Britain] and scroll down to "Gunn") and studied with [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud Freud] in (1924) and [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Ferenczi Ferenczi]. About 1926 she married the Egyptologist [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battiscombe_Gunn Battiscombe Gunn] (known as Jack), with whom she had been living (though they were often apart pursuing their separate careers) since the end of W W I.
In 1928 my father, [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._B._Gunn J. B. Gunn] (known as Iain) was born in Cairo. Meena established a successful psychoanalytical practice on Harley Street in London, while Jack became a professor at Oxford.
In 1940 she divorced Jack, and married Alex Grey-Clarke, a naval doctor, some 30 years her junior. A few years later he died of meningitis, contracted when he was shipwrecked in the Navy. She continued her psychoanalytical practice, working with Anna Freud on children. She was also involve in the first gender change operation in England.
In the 1960s she followed us to the US, where she continued to practice into her 80s.
A high school friend of mine who knew Meena said "she is the first liberated woman I ever met."
So, while she was not actively involved in the women's movement, by doing what she wanted to do and not letting gender stereotypes stop her, she set an example and helped the cause of women's rights.