Thank You Thursdays: Conchita Cintrón

Thank you to the late, great Conchita Cintron. As you might guess, I’m not a big bull fight fan (spearing animals=sad to these wimpy urban eyes), but I was totally blown away when reading Ms. Cintrón’s obituary a week or so ago in the Times:

A headline in The New York Sun on Sept. 4, 1940, captured accurately, albeit with amused condescension, the startling anomaly embodied by Conchita Cintrón: “She’s a Timid Blue Eyed Girl But — She Kills Bulls Without Qualms.”
Ms. Cintrón was 18 years old then and, as the headline went on to announce, had never been on a date, but she was already an international star of the bullring, a prodigy who was on her way to becoming perhaps the most celebrated torera in history. She was known as la Diosa Rubia, the Blonde Goddess.
“I have never had any qualms about it,” she said of her deadly skill in the article. “A qualm or a cringe before 1,200 pounds of enraged bull would be sure death.”
Ms. Cintrón, who retired from bullfighting after having killed as many as 750 bulls in the ring, died in Lisbon on Tuesday. She was 86.

Conchita Cintrón is a hero for any of us forging our own identity, our own work, in male-dominated spaces. She reminds us to depend on our strength–not just of brawn, but of brains and heart–while fighting all the metaphorical bulls (sexist dickheads, economic depression, objectification etc.) in our midst. Ole to that! RIP Conchita.