The terms ‘Women’s Rights’, ‘Gender Equality’, and ‘Feminism’ are huge 21st century topics that get our blood boiling and our passions aroused. However, it wasn’t always as fashionable, if history has taught us anything. Have you ever thought about which women were most influential, but kind of lost in the retelling of history? In honour of Women’s History Month (1st – 31st March), let’s take a closer look at some less well-known (but by no means less badass) women who were fearless, intelligent, and constantly defying the constraints of their station in order to prove the worth of the woman.
Eleanor of Aquitaine
As Queen consort of France and England, and Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, Eleanor was one of the wealthiest, eligible, and most powerful women in Western Europe in the 12th century. Using her marriages, influence, and children as leverage to wield power and influence, her awesomeness also included leading armies several times into battle during her lifetime, and she was a leader of the Second Crusade. As Queen dowager, she also acted as regent whilst her son Richard went on the Third Crusade.
Mileva Maric
Also known as Mileva Einstein-Maric, yes you guessed it, Mileva was a Serbian physicist and mathematician, and was the first wife of Albert Einstein. She was the only female student at Zurich Polytechnic and was the second woman to finish a full program of study at the Department of Mathematics and Physics. It is a contested historical debate that Mileva may have considerably helped Einstein in his research, developing scientific concepts together as students, however, the history has done a fine job keeping her out of scientific textbooks due to her gender.
Lady Jane Wilde
Lady Jane was an Irish poet and activist in her own right, but she has been remembered through history simply as being the mother of the famous playwright and dandy Oscar Wilde. Lady Jane wrote for the anti-British Young Ireland movement of the 1840s under the pen name of Speranza during a time when Ireland was under constraining British rule, writing stirring articles on British oppression. She began the figure of grieving Ireland. She was also an early advocate for Women’s Rights, campaigning for better education for women, and hosting famous political dinner parties in her Dublin home, one of which Millicent Fawcett attended and spoke on female liberty.
Harriet Tubman
American abolitionist and political activist, Tubman was born into slavery and escaped to subsequently make 13 missions to rescue roughly 70 enslaved African-Americans, including some of her own family and friends, using a network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. During the American Civil War, she served as an armed scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, she also became an activist of Women’s Suffrage.
The Mirabal Sisters
Born and raised in 20th Century Dominican Republic under a strict dictator Rafael Trujillo; Patricia, Minerva, Maria, and Dede Mirabal were involved in political movements against his reign. Called the ‘Movement of the Fourteenth of June’, the sisters helped expose the corruption of the regime through distributing leaflets exposing his murders. The sisters were assassinated one year before Trujillo himself was assassinated, but were no doubt influential in uncovering his brutality. In 1999 to honour the Mirabal Sisters, the United Nations General Assembly designated the 25th November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.