It's very easy to talk the talk when it comes to feminism, but can you walk the walk? Listen, it's 2021, and being ignorant is definitely not an option anymore. Sure, you might know who Amelia Earhart or Florence Nightingale are, but trust us, there are countless more women who deserve the same recognition. Join us on this wild ride through history to discover all of these phenomenal women and how they've shaped our lives today. If you're making a conscious effort to become more educated on HERstory, this is for you.
1. Margaret Heafield
Margaret Heafield is known for her work at NASA, specifically handwriting software which was put into the Apollo space program. She was the pioneer of women in computer programming and paved the way for women in NASA.
So far there have been no women on the moon, but NASA has hopes to do so in 2024. But that isn’t to say there aren’t invaluable contributions by women behind every man who has been on the moon. Women like Margaret Heafield made space exploration what it is today.
2. Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmentalist who worked to empower local women in Kenya through small businesses that worked in harmony with nature. The communities she worked with planted trees and learned how to capture rainwater sustainably.
Her work was recognized on an international scale and she eventually served in the Kenyan parliament where she pushed the environmental agenda. She went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
3. Sofia Lonescu-Ogrezeanu
Sofia Ionescu-Ogrezeanu is considered the first female neurosurgeon in the world, but her name is often left out in medical history. She was born and raised in Romania where she worked her entire life but worked on everyone from Soviet prisoners to the wife of an Abu Dhabi sheik.
Sofia was a neurosurgeon for 47 years and performed just about every procedure known at the time. In 2018 she was memorialized on a stamp issued in Romania, helping her become more well known to the public.
4. Jane Goodall
Jane Goodall is a world-renown primatologist (someone who studies primates) and anthropologist. She has traveled the world studying chimpanzees, great apes, and humans alike. She is most famous for her work in East Africa, namely in Tanzania and Kenya.
Beyond her contributions to science, she has also done extensive work in conservation and animal rights. She has been honored by the UN as a Messenger of Peace and has now founded the Jane Goodall Institute which researches and protects chimpanzees around the world.
5. Fatima al-Fihri
When most people think about old universities they think about institutions like Oxford or Cambridge. But the oldest university in the world is much older than those and was founded in Morocco in the 800s. Fatima al-Firhiri is credited with being the founder of it.
There is not much historical evidence about al-Fihri, but her legacy is found in old texts in Morocco, which characterize her as educated and an exceptional woman. Legend or not, she is someone worth knowing about.
6. Marie Curie
Marie Curie isn’t a household name, but it should be. This Polish/French physicist and chemist won two Nobel Prizes (the first woman to ever do so!) for her work in discovering radioactivity and treatments for cancer.
Marie wasn’t the only one in her family to win a Nobel Prize. Three of her other family members, including her husband and daughter, also won Nobel prizes for their scientific work.
7. Althea Gibson
You’ve heard of the Williams sisters, who dominate tennis these days, but have you heard of Althea Gibson? She was the first African-American female tennis player who made it into the big leagues.
Gibson won numerous matches, including a Grand Slam title. She wasn’t just an all-star tennis player, either, she also competed in Golf Tours. It’s because of her we are able to watch women like Serena and Venus Williams play today.
8. Eileen Collins
Better known as Commander Collins, Eileen Collins has spent over 38 days in outer space during her career as an astronaut for NASA. Collins was the first female pilot and first female commander of a space shuttle.
Collins has received numerous awards and honors for her achievements and character. There is even an astronomical observatory named after her at a university in Corning, New York--not too far away from her childhood home.
9. Smaranda Braescu
Known as ‘the Queen of Heights’ Smaranda Braescu spent her lifetime jumping out of planes. Braescu was an avid parachuter and set several world records for highest parachute jumps--the highest jump in her career was from 6929m in California.
Braescu was also the first European woman to ever receive an American’s private pilot license. She served as a medic in World War II and died soon after in jail for having spoken out against the recent Romanian election.
10. Sappho
You might recognize the work of Sappho before anything else. Sappho was a Greek poet who lived in 600 BCE. Her writing lives on today and is hailed as timeless and lyrical.
Sappho’s sexuality is highly debated by scholars. She is thought to be lesbian and her love poems are directed to female lovers, but details are lost in history. In fact, the word lesbian comes from the name of the island where she lived, Lesbos.
11. Nadia Comaneci
In the 1976 Olympics in Montreal Nadia Comaneci made history by becoming the first woman to get a perfect score in gymnastics. The Romanian gymnast accomplished this only at the age of 14 and went on to win 9 gold medals during her career.
You might not have recognized her name but it is thanks to her that gymnastics is so well known today--and one of the most popular events in the Olympics. Comaneci married another Olympic gold medalist and retired in America after her years of gymnastics were over.
12. Stephanie Kwolek
Kevlar is a synthetic substance which, when created, revolutionized how tires were made. Stronger than steel today Kevlar is used in everything from clothing to military equipment. It was created by Stephanie Kwolek in 1965.
Kwolek invented kevlar while working in DuPont lab as a chemist. Because of her discovery, she was awarded the Lavoisier Medal and remained the only woman to have done so until 2019. Kwolek has also since been honored in the National Inventors Hall of fame.
13. The Night Witches
This isn’t one woman, but rather a group of them. The Night Witches were a group of Russian fighter pilots who wreaked havoc on the Nazis (in fact the Nazis gave them their epic name).
The Night Witches were instrumental in ending World War 2 through their bombing of Nazis in the dead of night. These incredible women fought gender norms and Nazis alike, making them worth remembering.
14. Kartini
When Kartini was born in Indonesia in the late 19th century the nation was then known as the Dutch East Indies. From a young age, Kartini was an advocate for Javanese women and girls. She pushed for girls to be included in education and for the political emancipation of Javanese women.
Kartini has left an impactful legacy on Indonesia, as well as in the Netherlands. There are several branches of ‘Kartini Schools’ named in her honor and she appears on some Indonesian banknotes.
15. Khutulun
Genghis Kahn is a household name famous for his conquests in Asia, but his great-great-great-granddaughter is less well known. Khutulun was a Mongolian noblewoman but is most well known for her wrestling ability.
Khutulun would accompany her father on military campaigns and act as both strategist and bodyguard. There are stories of her chatting with her father before violently running and grabbing a spy she’d noticed and wrestling him until he subdued.
16. Gertrude Caroline Ederle
The English Channel is a section of the Atlantic ocean which separates England and France. The shortest section of it is over 20miles of open water, which to some might seem unconquerable, but to Ederle, it was a challenge.
Ederle was an American Olympic swimmer, who became the first woman to swim across the English Channel in 1926. She did so in just over 14 hours. It took her many years of training and numerous attempts to do so, but when she completed it she held the record for over 20 years.
17. Thunder Hawk
Madonna Thunder Hawk is an indigenous woman and activist from the Cheyenne River Sioux River Tribe. She has helped coordinate and lead movements such as the Red Power movement, the Women of All Red Nations, and the Warrior Women project.
Her work has attracted media attention all over the world. If you’re interested in learning more about her you might check out “Warrior Women,” a documentary about her life and activism.
18. Florence Nightingale
Today we can’t imagine a world without modern medicine delivered through trained professionals like doctors and nurses, but in the 1850s such things didn’t exist. Known as “the Lady with the Lamp” Florence Nightingale has been credited as being the first modern nurse.
Nightingale worked with wounded soldiers during the Crimean War and would often be seen beside bed tables in the dark, which earned her the nickname “Lady with the Lamp.” Not only did she revolutionize nursing, but she is also credited for her contributions to sanitation while working.
19. Annette Kellerman
Everyone loves a good trip to the beach, nothing beats getting a tan in a cute swimsuit, but it hasn’t always been that easy for women to enjoy sunbathing. In the early 1900s when Annette Kellerman wore a one-piece bathing suit (still covering her from shoulders to toes) she was arrested for indecency.
Kellerman was a well-known actress and continued to push for women’s rights to swear swimsuits. She ended up opening her own fashion line which made female swimsuits fashionable and accessible.
20. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Dr. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was the first person to get a Ph.D. from Radcliffe College. The work that earned her that title was about stars, specifically discovering what they were made of (helium and hydrogen).
Payne-Gaposchkin later went on to be a Professor at Harvard and continued to study astronomy. Her work was groundbreaking at the time, going against centuries of understanding about stars, and is in textbooks even today.
21. Maria Teresa De Filippis
Maria Teresa De Filippis was born in 1926 in Naples, Italy. She grew up riding horses and playing tennis, but quickly gained a passion for racing. At the age of 22, she began racing professionally, one of the first women to ever do so.
Maria went on to become the first woman to ever compete in Formula One as well as other races all over the world. She faced intense sexism in her career, sometimes being prevented from racing because people would refuse to outfit or sponsor her.
22. Jeanne Manford
In 2012 Jeanne Manford, who had died a year earlier at the age of 92, was posthumously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal. She was honored due to her role in LGBTQ activism, specifically in founding PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
PFLAG is the largest network uniting allies and LGBTQ persons in the United States. Manford founded it in the 1970s after her son had been brutally attacked while handing out fliers relating to gay activism.
23. Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler worked in the Polish Underground Resistance during World War II. She helped rescue Jews from German occupation camps, mainly children from the Warsaw Ghetto, and sent them to Polish families and other care facilities.
Her work ended up getting her arrested and sentenced to death by the Gestapo. Despite being tortured she never revealed any information about the children she had rescued. She managed to escape the day before she was sentenced to death and continued to work in Poland.
24. Angela Vorobeva
Angela Vorobeva climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, one of the tallest mountains in the world and the tallest in Africa, which is a feat in and of itself. But the amazing thing is that she did so at 86 years old, making her the oldest woman to ever reach the summit.
Vorobeva dedicated the hike to her sister, Lydia, who had died at a young age due to pneumonia. Angela summited on her birthday, holding true to a promise she made to her sister to travel for the both of them.
25. Khertek Anchinmaa-Toka
Khertek Anchinmaa-Toka was the world’s first non-hereditary, female head of state. Anchinmaa-Toka was a Soviet politician who lived in Tuva in the 1940s. Her role as head of state helped her defend the Soviet Union from German invasion, but eventually, her nation was annexed and became part of the USSR.
Anchinmaa-Toka worked for the Tuvan people her whole life. She fought poverty, advocated for education, and protected cultural identities even when her nation no longer existed. She was married to Tuvan’s supreme leader, Salchhak Toka, but retained her maiden name for most of her life.
26. Milunka Savic
Born in Serbia in 1888 Milunka Savic lived a relatively normal, simple life. That is until 1912 when her brother was drafted to fight in the First Balkan War. Savic decided to go in his place, so she cut her hair and put on a soldier's uniform, and went to join the military.
Savic was immediately successful in the military. She was highly regarded in combat and won her first war medal early on. It wasn’t until she suffered severe injuries that her identity as a woman was made known. She continued to fight, despite the sexism she encountered and is now the most decorated female combatant in the world.
27. Claudette Colvin
Rosa Parks is a name most people are familiar with, known for refusing to give up her seat on a racially segregated bus in America. But before Parks made her stand Claudette Colvin did.
Colvin was only 15 at the time, but she refused to give up a place on a crowded bus in Alabama almost 9 months before Parks made the headlines too. It is thought that Colvin’s name is less well-known due to her age and an illicit pregnancy that developed soon after the incident.
28. Hattie McDaniel
The first African-American woman to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel, who won it for her role as supporting actress in the film “Gone with the Wind.” McDaniel was a hugely successful actress, but despite appearing in over 300 films, she only got screen credit for 83 of them.
McDaniel also graced the radio with her blues songs, becoming the first African-American woman to sing on the radio in the USA. Despite living when the US was still practicing segregation, McDaniel never let people’s expectations of her slow her down.
29. Ida B Wells
Ida B Wells was one of the foremost journalists during the American Civil Rights Movement. She is most well known for her work which documented lynchings of African Americans. She also was involved in the women’s suffrage movement.
Wells faced lots of criticism for her work, including threats of violence which culminated in a White mob destroying her newspaper office. She was highly regarded for her work though and traveled nationally giving lectures about her work.
30. Angela Davis
Known for her engagement in the second wave of feminism Angela Davis is an iconic feminist and political activist. A distinguished professor Davis has also written over 10 books and lectured all over America.
Davis is also heavily involved in the far left politically. A supporter of communism she has often faced backlash in her work and activism due to her extreme views. Despite this, she has earned her place in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and as Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1971.
31. Pardis Sabeti
Pardis Sabeti is an accomplished geneticist from Iran. Her work was hugely influential during the Ebola pandemic in West Africa in 2013. She, among others in a team, helped prove that Ebola was being spread through humans, instead of animals.
Sabeti’s work in West Africa earned her a place in Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year” in 2014 as well as their “100 Most Influential People” in 2015. Sabeti is now a professor at Harvard, where she runs the Sabeti Lab.
32. Tarana Burke
#MeToo was a hashtag used in 2017 to bring awareness to sexual violence against women. The hashtag was particularly prominent in Hollywood after several big names, like Harvey Weinstein, were exposed in sexual-abuse scandals.
The hashtag was created by Tarana Burke, who actually created it in 2006, despite it going viral many years later. Burke is a native New Yorker and grew up being sexually abused in housing projects. Her experiences led her to become an activist for women’s rights and eventually led her to #MeToo.
33. Hedy Lamarr
You might recognize Hedy Lamarr’s face before you do her name. An icon of the golden era of film Lamarr was an actress labeled ‘the world's most beautiful woman’ in the 1940s. She starred in numerous films, but is most famous for her role as Delilah in “Samson and Delilah.”
There’s more to Lamarr than meets the eye. Besides being a successful actress she was also a brilliant inventor. Alongside her husband, she co-invented radio guidance systems used in World War II.
34. Kate Sheppard
In 1893 New Zealand became the first country to grant universal suffrage, giving women the right to vote. This success was credited primarily to Kate Sheppard who wrote pamphlets advocating women’s right to vote and organized a petition which gained thousands of signatures. This petition was taken to parliament and voted on, earning women their political freedom.
Sheppard continued to fight for women even after winning the vote for universal suffrage. She was the first president of the National Council of Women of New Zealand and even worked abroad in Britain to secure women’s right to vote.
35. Maud Stevens Wagner
You might recognize this iconic image of Wagner, but do you know the story behind it? Wagner was a performer in the circus but eventually found her way into a tattoo shop. She went on to become the first female tattoo artist in the United States.
Wanger actually learned how to tattoo by going on a date with a tattoo artist. She agreed to date him in exchange for lessons in tattooing. She went on to ink hundreds of people, including herself.
36. Alison Bechdel
The Bechdel test is a measurement used to determine how well a work of fiction represents women. The main requirement is that two women must engage in a conversation together and talk about something other than a man.
The Bechdel test was created by none other than Alsion Bechdel. She is an acclaimed cartoonist and author, as well as a recipient of the MacArthur 'Genius’ Award. Her test is now used to analyze films and movies around the world.
37. Halima Aden
Not very many people can say they’ve been on the cover of Vogue, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, and Allure, but Halima Aden can. Aden is a Somali-American fashion model and is known for wearing a hijab in all her shoots.
Aden was the first contestant to wear a hijab in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant and the first model to wear a burkini when she was in Sports Illustrated. Aden was born in a refugee camp in Kenya but has lived and worked in America for most of her life.
38. Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese activist, politician, and author. Her work advocating for democracy in the 1980-the 90s in Burma ended up getting her on house arrest--where she remained for over 15 years.
Even while under house arrest Suu Kyi continued to write and influence the world around her. After her house arrest, she went on to get into politics herself, serving as a member of parliament and eventually the State Counselor in 2016.
39. Kat Gunn
When most people think about video gamers they think of nerdy boys in basements. Kat Gunn doesn’t fit these stereotypes. This 32-year-old Californian girl is the highest-paid video gamer in the world.
Gunn has competed in numerous video game championships around the world, was featured in the Guinness World Record Book, and is an avid cosplayer. She makes 6-figures a year from her playing, what a life!
40. Rehyan Jamalova
Rainergy is a company that helps rural communities generate electricity from rainwater. The company’s CEO is Reyhan Jamalova, who is only 18 years old. Jamalova is from Azerbaijan and has been featured on Forbes “30 under 20 Asia”.
Jamalova may be young, but her list of accomplishments keeps growing. From Forbes to BBC’s “Most Influential and Inspiring Women” in 2018, to being a guest speaker at conferences around the world, Jamalova is an inspiration to young girls around the world.