Here are some of the most influential women in history:
1. RUTH BADER GINSBURG (1933-2020)
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September 2020, the United States mourned the loss of one of its most prominent advocates for gender equality. Ginsburg’s commitment to the principle of equal justice underneath the law transformed the legal landscape in the United States — particularly for women — throughout her career as an attorney, judge, and associate justice of the Supreme Court. President Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supreme Court in 1993, where she served for 27 years despite cancer and other illnesses. According to Rolling Stone, her record of dissenting viewpoints on the court established her as an icon. According to Forbes, Ginsburg has advocated for causes such as financial equality for women throughout her career.
2. HARRIET TUBMAN (1822-1913)
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery but escaped by traveling alone on the Underground Railroad. Later in life, she became a prominent voice in the abolition movement and fought for women’s voting rights, helping to shape a path in the United States away from colonialism and apartheid and toward justice.
3. EMMELINE PANKHURST (1858-1928)
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“We’re not here because we’re lawbreakers; we’re here because we want to be lawmakers.” Emmeline Pankhurst’s immortal words in her autobiography (“My Own Story,” Hearst’s International Library Company, 1914) encapsulated the British women’s suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the Women’s Franchise League’s tenacious leader,
4. EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI (1835-1908)
Cixi was born in the winter of 1835 during the Chinese Qing dynasty, the daughter of a low-ranking official, but she received a good education, according to National Geographic. When the Emperor died, Cixi’s son was set to succeed him as Emperor. The former concubine established partnerships with some of his regents and assassinated others in an 1861 coup, ceding control of the empire to her. Until her death in 1908, she was a potent but unofficial ruler of Imperial China.
5. ROSA PARKS (1913-2005)
During the 1950s, Black and white citizens in the United States were primarily separated, including on public transportation. Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, to a white passenger. Parks responded by mobilizing the NAACP. Parks remained a prominent voice and symbol of courage in the civil rights movement after successfully challenging the law and having segregation ruled unconstitutional by the courts.