1. Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)
Chilean Gabriela began her career as a teacher who championed greater access to education for all and was instrumental in the reformation of the Chilean school system.
She then went on to become a poet-diplomat and the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature for her emotive lyric poetry, which explored themes of morality, motherhood, love and Latin American identity.
2. Émilie du Châtelet (1706-49)
French natural philosopher, author and amazing mathematician/physicist Émilie did much to convince sceptical Europeans that Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity was right by publishing translations of and commentaries on Newtonian physics.
Throughout her life, she sought education in mathematics and physics – much to horror of her mother who threatened to send her to a convent as a teenager – and refused to let her gender get in the way of her ambitions; she was reportedly ejected from a café where male scientific intellectual types gathered, but went straight home to knock up some men’s clothing for herself and then returned dressed in disguise!
Émilie also loved being a mother, dressing up, dancing and dinner parties, and maintained that her main aim in life was to enjoy herself – but that she found just as much pleasure in learning.
3. Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97)
Mary was a London-born writer and philosopher who wrote what is seen as one of the foundational texts of modern feminism, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In the book, she was the first to argue that women were not naturally inferior to men but just appeared that way as they weren’t allowed an education.
Much maligned in her own time because of her “freakish” lifestyle (she questioned everything about conventional femininity and championed equality at every turn), she has been cited as an inspiration to all sorts of future feminists ranging from Jane Austen to Caitlin Moran.
4. Sacagawea (1788-1812)
A member of the Lemhi Shoshone tribe, 16-year-old Sacagawea (pictured above) travelled thousands of miles with Meriwether Lewis & William Clark’s Corps of Discovery expedition – all the way from modern-day North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean – acting as interpreter, guide, foraging for food and helping them forge invaluable relationships with Native Americans. And she did all this while carrying her newborn baby son on her back.
The National American Woman Suffrage Association of the early twentieth century adopted her as a symbol of women’s worth and independence, erecting several statues and plaques in her memory.
5. Mary Anning (1799-1847)
Mary was a working-class seashore collector-turned-palaeontologist in Dorset who went on to become a leading world expert on prehistoric fossils in Britain.
While walking her dog Tray on the Blue Lias cliffs near her home, she collected her first fossils, worried they’d be lost to the tide. During her career, she discovered various dinosaur skeletons and fish fossils, and went on to consult in global geographical circles – and she is widely believed to have been the inspiration behind the well-known tongue-twister ‘She sells seashells on the sea shore’.
Despite all this, as a woman she was not eligible to join the Geographical Society of London and she did not receive full credit for her accomplishments.
6. Mary Seacole (1805-81)
When the Crimean War broke out, Jamaican-Scottish Mary was one of two outstanding nurses who tended to the wounded – alongside Florence Nightingale – drawing on her knowledge of Caribbean herbal remedies to care for fallen soldiers on the battlefield.
After offering her services to the War Office, she was initially turned down as a result of her race, so she funded her own passage to Balaclava in the Crimea and set up a ‘British Hotel’ where veterans could coalesce.
Mary was posthumously awarded the 1991 Jamaican Order of Merit and, in 2004, she was voted one of history’s greatest black Britons.
7. Ada Lovelace (1815-52)
Considered by some to have been the first ever computer programmer, Ada grew up fascinated with mathematics and science, defying contemporary expectations of her class and gender.
Her life changed at the age of 17 when she met scientist Charles Babbage: despite being 24 years his junior, they struck up a firm friendship and she began acting as his ‘interpretess’ (in his words) while he developed the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine.
It was later revealed that Ada’s insights into Babbage’s inventions far exceeded his own – while he saw them as mere mathematical machines that could do calculations, she recognised their potential to undergo all sorts of complex processes from governing applications to composing music. She is now widely regarded as one of the most important historical figures in the field of computing.
8. Nellie Bly (1864-1922)
This American investigative journalist was a true pioneer who refused to write the usual ‘feminine’ articles on fashion, gardening and society, instead pursuing hard-hitting stories on the plight of the poor and oppressed – who were usually women.
Most famously, she was admitted to the Women’s Lunatic Asylum in New York to research her famous book Ten Days in a Mad-House, and later went on to achieve a world record for bringing to life author Jules Verne’s fictional trip Around the World in Eighty Days – and managing it in just 72!
9. Marie Stopes (1880-1958)
Scottish-born birth control advocate and sex educator Marie rose to prominence after publishing her successful books Married Love and Wise Parenthood, and then set up the first birth control clinic in Britain. She took a particular interest in bringing knowledge of contraception and planned parenthood to the working classes.
The charity Marie Stopes International was established in her name and now provides sexual and reproductive healthcare services in 37 countries across the world.
10. Alice Milliat (1884-1957)
Alice (pictured above), a French rower, was a key advocate for women’s sport who organised, at a time when the Olympic Games had very few events for women, the first Women’s World Games.
Her lobbying led to the inclusion of women’s athletics in the Olympics in 1928 and kicked off a global dialogue about women’s representation in a broader range of sports, which continues today.
