Last week, we celebrated International Women’s Day, “a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.” So today I thought, what better way to demonstrate the life-changing things women have invented than to walk you through a day of life without them?
Picture this: you wake up in your bed. But the first thing you can think of is how absolutely, bitterly, cold you are. Without women, we would not have central heating. In 1919, African American inventor Alice Parker invented the first central heating system and patented her system to heat homes using natural gas. Her idea came from her own struggles heating up a home with only a fireplace, so she took it upon herself to take classes at Howard University, even in a time when it was uncommon for women and African Americans to attend university.
After your freezing morning without central heating, you go downstairs to make breakfast. The first place you’d look to would be where you keep your milk, fruit, and meat – but wait! You have no electric refrigerator to keep your food fresh and cold. Many people believe it was a man who created the electric refrigerator, but the first to do it was American inventor Florence Parpart. Parpart revolutionized lives with this invention, giving people the ability to store food for longer.
Your breakfast is done, and it was likely very grain heavy, because you don’t have a fridge to keep food fresh. You have some dishes to do, and the automatic reaction for most of us would be to turn to the dishwasher to place our dishes in. Except there is no dishwasher in this day in the life, because it was invented by a woman. In 1887, Josephine Cochrane invented the dishwasher. This invention was revolutionary for households across the world. It made millions of lives easier, not only impacting households but restaurants and hotels too, much like the invention of the electric refrigerator. Cochrane’s brand was later purchased by one many of us now know, KitchenAid!
Now that you’ve had your breakfast, it’s time to do some work. You open your computer to realize that you have no Wi-Fi! American-Austrian actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr has been named the ‘mother of Wi-Fi’ because of the technology she created that would be used as the basis for Wi-Fi. But her technological discoveries didn’t stop there — Lamarr’s foundation would help create Bluetooth and GPS as well.
While you’re working (probably now on paper for lack of Wi-Fi), you receive a call. Funny, it doesn’t say who’s calling – there is no Caller ID on your phone! Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, an African American scientist, and also the first African American woman to receive a doctorate degree from MIT, invented Caller ID. Caller ID (Caller Identification) allows you to view the phone number on your phone before picking it up, a key invention for security, especially for women.
That unknown call was strange…you hope they don’t know where you are. But the next thing you know, someone’s broken into your house! That’s because without women, there would be no CCTV. Marie Van Brittan Brown, an African American nurse and inventor, invented CCTV. CCTV (Closed-Circuit Television) would be one of the most vital inventions for home security and public security. Van Brittan Brown was concerned about the security of her neighbors and took it upon herself to create CCTV, which would not only end up helping her community but communities throughout the world.
All jokes aside, it’s easy to see how different a regular day in your life could be without women and their inventions. It is so important that we have days like International Women’s Day to bring light to the amazing accomplishments women have made. When I researched each invention, the first result was a man’s name. Only upon deeper investigation did I find that it was actually women who created the first version of each of these inventions that would impact each and every one of our lives. A common theme upon each invention is that they are all designed to help others. But women are still left in the background, as I found out in my research of each invention. Women are selfless and intelligent, and each woman possesses qualities that have been shown to change the world. So while we only have one day a year to get celebrated by society, let’s celebrate each other and our accomplishments every day.