In March 2024, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, presented the International Women of Courage Award to twelve women from countries around the world “who have demonstrated exceptional courage, strength, and leadership in order to bring about positive change in their communities, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.” Since 2007, over 190 women from countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Cuba, and Uganda have received this little-publicized award. To read the biographies of the chosen women is to marvel at their strength, fortitude, moral integrity, and outstanding courage. Witness Fatou Baldeh from Gambia fighting to extinguish female genital mutilation and cutting in a country where 75% of women have endured some form of it.

What is courage? Is courage defined differently for men and women? What are the gender stereotypes associated with women and courage? Is courage socially conditioned, innate, or some mixture of nature and nurture?

Let’s begin with a loose definition. Bravery and courage are often used interchangeably, but the origin of each word illustrates the difference. Bravery is thought to be a quality a person possesses that is acted out spontaneously and without fear. For example, if you see a dog about to be hit by a car, you run into the street to save it. You do not feel fear; you simply jump into action. The origin of “brave” translates as bold, savage, and wild.

Courage is a learned skill and an aspect of character. One undertakes a perilous risk despite being fearful, often for a moral reason that serves the greater good. The challenge may create overwhelming fear, it may subject a person to ostracism, disapproval, and danger, but one takes action anyway. The war journalist Jane Ferguson reported from some of the fiercest battlefronts on the planet. In her memoir No Ordinary Assignment........

© Psychology Today