Margaret Mead - Nominee

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

 - Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead became world famous for her studies of South Sea peoples, especially Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which rejected biological determinism to emphasize the inexorable influence of cultural forces on adolescent development. She later expanded her study, which led her to admonish American parents for what she saw as comparatively inept child-rearing practices in the United States. She wrote more than 1,000 articles and 30 books in addition to working as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Though she was married three times, in the mid-1920s Mead began a life-long relationship with fellow anthropologist Ruth Benedict which influenced how the two women interpreted what was deemed “normal” in a culture. As a result, Mead came to describe the “deviant” as a person who “demanded a different or improved environment but who rejected the traditional choices” to set up alternate standards. She became one of the earliest proponents of bisexuality, questioning the socio-cultural forces that demand people choose between a lifetime of exclusive homosexuality or heterosexuality.