Throughout history, there have been numerous noteworthy female figures. Even though women’s history has frequently been overlooked or even completely forgotten throughout the years, many women have had a significant influence on society via activism, the arts, politics, and leadership.
So here is the list of some of the great women figures throughout our history:
1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
From 1993 until her passing in 2020, Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an American lawyer, and judge was a member of the Supreme Court of the United States as an associate justice. President Bill Clinton proposed her as the replacement for retiring justice Byron White. She served as the sole female justice on the Supreme Court from her retirement in 2006 until the selection of Sonia Sotomayor in 2009. Ginsburg raised her level of dissent throughout that time.
The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which Barack Obama passed into law in 2009 and made it easier for employees to show pay discrimination, is widely acknowledged to have been inspired by Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion. The nickname “The Notorious R.B.G.” was given to her, and she later accepted it.
2. Harriet Tubman
American abolitionist as well as social activist Harriet Tubman. She worked as an armed scout and spy again for Union Army during the American Civil War. She assisted in guiding runaway slaves farther north into Canada after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was implemented and assisted newly freed slaves in finding employment.
When Tubman first encountered John Brown in 1858, he assisted him in organizing and gathering support for his 1859 Harpers Ferry raid. At the start of the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army as a cook, nurse, armed scout, and spy. She oversaw the operation at Combahee Ferry, which freed more than 700 slaves, and became the first woman to command an armed expedition during the war.
3. Queen Elizabeth I
Due to her decision to wed her kingdom rather than a man, Elizabeth dubbed herself “The Virgin Queen.” Even though it might seem like ancient history now, Queen Elizabeth I was among the most successful kings in British history the only women, and it was during her reign that England rose to prominence in Europe in terms of trade, politics, and the arts.
In theory, Elizabeth should never have been permitted to rule since she was a woman and since her mother was Anne Boleyn, the despised ex-wife of Henry VIII. Elizabeth had a difficult journey to the throne. Elizabeth I, however, disproved everyone’s predictions and went on to become one of history’s greatest female leaders. Known for her wit, cunning, and anger, “The Virgin Queen” was one of humankind’s truly great women.
4. Marie Curie
Marie Curie was a trailblazing physicist and scientist who found two new substances (radium and polonium), coined the word “radioactivity,” and created a portable x-ray machine.
Currie is still the only person, male or female, to have won two independent Noble Prizes—one for physics and the other for chemistry—and to have been the first person (not women) to do so. Since science and physics were such men’s fields, Currie experienced almost continual prejudice throughout her career. Nevertheless, her research is still important and has influenced science to this day.
5. Rosa Parks
In 1955, while riding a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was requested to get up and offer a white man’s seat. Black seamstress Parks was asked whether she would comply, and by refusing she launched the American civil rights movement. White people could only seat in the front of municipal buses in 1955 when segregation rules were still in effect in Alabama. Black men and women were required to sit in the back.
The bus driver instructed the four black passengers to rise and offer the white man an entire row on December 1st because there were no more seats available in the white section. While Parks disobeyed, the other three did. Following her incarceration, Parks’ actions inspired a surge of demonstrations across America. She was the first person(among women) in American history to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol when she passed away on October 24, 2005, at 92.
6. Empress Dowager Cixi
Cixi, who was the child of a low-ranking official, had an excellent education and was likely literate and a writer. She was given the rare distinction of being a mistress of the Xianfeng Emperor in 1851. In the emperor’s eyes, Cixi swiftly exceeded her fellow concubines. When the emperor passed away, Cixi’s son was set to succeed him. To take control of the empire, the former mistress connected with some of his regents and assassinated others in a coup in 1861.
She ruled Imperial China until her demise in 1908 as a strong but unofficial leader. She is regarded as China’s final and most well-known empress(among women) and has been credited with influencing uprisings, laws, and the imperial court for more than 50 years.
7. Malala Yousafzai
On July 12, 1997, Malala Yousafzai was brought up in Pakistan. When the Taliban seized control of Yousafzai’s town, they prohibited all girls from attending school. Yousafzai’s father was a teacher and headed an all-girls school in her village. Malala, then 15 years old, was shot in the head by a gunman who boarded her school bus after she spoke out in 2012 for women’s rights to education. Malala got by.
Yousafzai relocated to the UK, where she established herself as a formidable force on the international scene and, at the age of 17, became the youngest person(not only women) to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. At the University of Oxford, Malala is now pursuing studies in philosophy, politics, and economics.
8. Kamala Harris
When Kamala Harris was elected vice president of the USA in 2021, she made history by becoming the first Asian American woman, Black person, and woman to hold the nation’s second-highest position. Harris, a child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, grew up amid the civil rights movement of the 1960s. According to a post on African American senators from the U.S.A. Senate, Harris campaigned for the Senate in 2016 and was just the second Black woman and the first Indian American to do so.
After withdrawing from consideration for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy in 2019, she was chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate. In November 2020, they proceeded to win the election, elevating Harris to the position of the highest-ranking appointed women official in American history.
9. Maya Angelou
American memoirist, well-known poet, and civil rights advocate Maya Angelou. Her 1969 book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which chronicles her life up to the age of 17, earned her praise and renown on a global scale. Her works have been regarded as a defense of Black culture, and she was valued as a voice for Black people and women.
The most well-known of Angelou’s writings have been classified as autobiographical fiction. She intentionally set out to subvert the typical format of the autobiography by criticizing, altering, and expanding the genre. She collaborated with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. throughout her time as a Civil Rights Movement activist. She started making around 80 visits a year on the lecture circuit in the 1990s and kept doing so into her eighties.
10. Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart was a pioneering aviator and a remarkable female trailblazer. She was the first woman to fly alone all across the Atlantic and the very first person to ever fly solo from Hawaii to the US. Earhart, who was born in Kansas in 1897, resisted being confined by her gender from an early age. Growing up, Amelia participated in sports, took auto repair classes, and briefly went to college.
Earhart started taking flying lessons in 1920 and rapidly became determined to get her pilot’s license. In December 1921, she passed her flight test. Earhart broke numerous aviation records, however, she attempted to become the first person (not only women) to circle the earth which caused her to vanish over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937. She was pronounced dead in absentia in 1939.
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