Throughout history, women have made groundbreaking contributions to science, often overcoming significant barriers and discrimination. Despite facing exclusion from universities, research institutions, and professional recognition, these remarkable women persevered and made discoveries that changed our understanding of the world. Their dedication to scientific inquiry paved the way for future generations of female scientists and left […]
Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Marie Antoinette’s favorite portraitist
A few years ago, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art held a retrospective of Louise-Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s oeuvre. Reviewers gave the exhibit so much praise that, despite never having heard of the artist, I went to see it. Vigée Le Brun’s paintings were riveting, her brief introductory biography intriguing. This unusual woman, I vowed […]
Carmen Amaya, Queen of the Gypsies
Carmen Amaya (1913–1963) was a Romani dancer who performed around the world and had a huge impact on the art of flamenco. During her lifetime she was called the greatest of dancers, and Queen of the Gypsies. Carmen Amaya is hail on a windowpane, a swallow’s cry, a black cigar smoked by a dreamer, thunderous […]
Mary Anning: Female Fossil Finder
Mary Anning is now known as a pioneer in fossil collecting and discovery; setting the course for British paleontology as we know it today.
Vigdis Finnbogadóttir: The World’s First Female President
Who was the world’s first female president? This amazing woman was a pioneer who was also the first single woman to adopt a child solo.
Théroigne de Méricourt, Heroine of the French Revolution
Born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne on 13 August 1762, but better known as Théroigne de Méricourt, Théroigne is a sad, yet fascinating figure who was a political activist of the French Revolution. The French press turned her into a flamboyant caricature, labeling her a “patriots’ whore” or a “female war chief” and praising her for impersonating the […]
Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Courtesan and Spy
The infamous eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott’s birth has not been recorded, but she was certainly born in Scotland, most likely in Edinburgh around 1754. She was to grow up to achieve a scandalous notoriety due to her divorce and high-profile lovers — but there was much more to Grace than mere scandal. She was […]
Melanie Klein, the Founding Mother of Children’s Psychology
As with many fields of study, the canonical works of the social sciences are overrun with the findings of white males. But in the field of psychoanalysis, Melanie Klein, a Viennese Jewish woman, made an impact on the field with her unlikely-sounding theories published in her book The Psychoanalysis of Children, where she documents infants’ […]
Indra Devi, Mother of Western Yoga
Indra Devi was not only a female pioneer in the field of yoga; she helped spread the ancient discipline to Western civilization. Yoga was the domain of men from its inception. The earliest visual evidence of yoga comes from about 2500 BC. Men were the teachers and practitioners of yoga from that point until the […]
Sarah Guppy, Eclectic English Inventor
I used to live in Richmond Hill in Bristol and was aware of the green plaque a few doors down advising the world that it used to be the home of Sarah Guppy, an English inventor who lived between 1770 and 1852. Indeed I always parked my car in the tree-filled garden opposite her home […]