Happy International Women's Day! The month of March celebrates the contributions women have made throughout history in science, politics, the arts, and many other fields. This day in particular, we encourage you to explore women who have inspired us all to break the glass ceiling and reach higher than ever before.
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Sappho — 630 BC
One of the first known female poets, her work has been greatly admired by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Plato referred to Sappho as one of the 10 great poets. Currently, she is well known as a symbol of love and desire between women.
Agnodice — 400 BC
The first female gynecologist in ancient Athens. She famously practiced medicine in Greece, even when the punishment for women found was death. She was eventually caught, but acquitted as a result of her patients praise in the court. The law against female physicians in Athens was revoked.
Joan of Arc — 1412
Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans," was born in 1412 in Domrémy, Bar, France. A national heroine of France, at age 18 she led the French army to victory over the English at Orléans. Captured a year later, Joan was burned at the stake as a heretic by the English and their French collaborators. She was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint more than 500 years later, on May 16, 1920.
Sor Juana Ines De la Cruz — 1651
A self-taught scholar and student of scientific thought, known in her lifetime as “The Tenth Muse”, “The Phoenix of America”, or the “Mexican Phoenix”. Sor Juana wrote poetry and prose dealing with topics of love, feminism, and religion. Memorably defended women’s rights to education by proclaiming “one can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper”. Today, she appears on Mexican currency.
Mary Wollstonecraft — 1759
An English writer, philosopher, and advocate of women’s rights. Best known for authoring “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men, but appear to be only because they lack education. She suggested that both men and women should be treated as rational beings and imagined a social order founded on reason.
Sojourner Truth — 1797
Sojourner was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist. She was born into slavery in New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. Her best-known speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
Susan B Anthony — 1820
Anthony, along with activist Elizabeth Lady Stanton, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Tireless in her efforts, she gave speeches around the country to convince others to support a woman’s right to vote. She even voted illegally in the 1872 presidential election. Anthony was arrested and tried unsuccessfully to fight the charges, and ended up being fined $100 (which she never paid). Anthony paved the way for when, 14 years after her death, the 19th Amendment was passed.
Harriet Tubman — 1820
Born into slavery, Harriet Tubman escaped to freedom in the North in 1849, and became the most famous “conductor” on the Underground railroad. She risked her life to lead hundreds of family members and other slaves to freedom on an elaborate secret network of safe houses. A leading abolitionist before the American Civil War, Tubman also helped the Union Army during the war, working as a spy among other roles. After the Civil War ended, Tubman dedicated her life to helping impoverished former slaves and the elderly.
Anna Filosofova — 1837
A Russian philanthropist and feminist, Anna believed it was better to educate and train the poor rather than provide cash benefits. She co-founded a society to provide support to the poor, including affordable housing and decent work for women.
Kate Sheppard — 1847
The most prominent member of the women’s suffrage movement in New Zealand. She promoted suffrage by organizing petitions and public meetings, her work culminating in a petition with over 30,000 signatures calling for women’s suffrage. She presented it to parliament and, as a result, New Zealand became the first country to establish universal suffrage.
Marie Curie — 1867
She was a Polish and French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. In 1903, she became the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and she helped pave the way for female scientists in the future.
Raichō Hiratsuka — 1886
A pioneer in Japanese editing, writing, and political activism. Raichō co-founded her country’s first all-woman literary journal Seitō in 1911 through which she challenged women’s traditional roles at home. She helped inspire other influential figures such as Korean Feminist author Na Hye-sok and social critic Ito Noe.
Doria Shafik — 1908
Doria catalyzed a women’s rights movement in Egypt when in 1951 she, wth 1,500 women, stormed parliament demanding full political rights, pay equality, and reforms to personal status laws. Her efforts helped pave the way for the women’s right to vote in 1956.
Rosa Parks — 1913
Rosa was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement, whom the United States Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement”. On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery Alabama, Parks refused to obey a bus driver that ordered her to give up her seat. Parks' act of defiance and the Montgomery bus boycott became important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.
Unity Dow — 1959
As a plaintiff, Unity Dow won a historic case in 1992 enabling women married to non-citizens the right to confer nationality to their children. Later, as Botswana’s first female High Court Judge, she gained international acclaim on a case that allowed Botswana’s San people to return to their ancestral homelands.
Rigoberta Menchú — 1959
Rigoberta is a K'iche' political and human rights activist from Guatemala. She has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala’s indigenous feminists during and after the Guatemalan Civil War, and to promoting indigenous rights in the country. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.
Bhairavi Desai — 1973
Bhairavi is a founding member of the New York Tax Workers Alliance, a union representing approximately 15,000 taxi drivers in New York City. She is known as a social activist, including advocating for the Cuba, Palestine, and El Salvador solidarity movements. Her major success came in
May 1998 when the first strike in thirty years was called by the yellow cabs. Over 90% of New York taxi drivers joined the strike to protest against unfair regulations, medical checkups and health insurance for the drivers.
Loveness Mudzuru and Ruvimbo Tsopodzi — 1997
Two former child brides, Loveness and Ruvimbo sued Zimbabwe in an unprecedented effort to end child marriage in their country. They made history when Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court ruled in their favor stating that nobody in the country may enter into marriage, including customary law unions, before the age of 18.