Today’s Illustrated Woman in History was written by Emily Ruth Taylor. Berta Cáceres was a Honduran activist who was both an environmental advocate and an indigenous leader. In 1993, while she was still a student, she co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH.) In 2015 She was awarded the Goldman Prize …
Constance Markievicz, known as Countess Markievicz was an Irish Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil politician, revolutionary nationalist, suffragette and socialist. She was both the first woman elected to the British Parliament and the only woman to serve in the first Dáil Éireann (Irish Assembly). Markievicz was born in 1868 and grew up at Lissadell, her …
Farrokhroo Parsa was an Iranian physician, educator and parliamentarian. She served as Minister of Education of Iran during the Pahlavi Dynasty and was the first female cabinet minister of an Iranian government. Parsa was born in 1922 in Qom, Iran. Her mother, Fakhr’e Afagh Parsa was the editor of the women’s magazine, Jahan’e Zan (The …
Florynce Kennedy was an American lawyer, activist, civil rights advocate, lecturer and one of the pioneers of second-wave feminism. Kennedy was born in 1916 in Kansas City, Missouri. She grew up in a mostly white neighbourhood, and as a young child was arrested as the police didn’t believe she lived in the neighbourhood. On one occasion, …
Joyce Banda is a Malawian politician who served as vice president (2009–12) and president (2012–14) of Malawi. She was the first woman to serve as head of state anywhere in Southern Africa. Banda was born in 1950 in Malemia, a village in the Zomba District of Nyasaland (now Malawi). After completing school, Banda went on …
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a Guatemalan Indigenous rights activist who became the first indigenous person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Menchú was born in 1959 in Laj Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala Her family were of K’iche descent, and lived in poverty as a result of their Mayan heritage, as, like many other countries …
Vilma Espín was a Cuban revolutionary, feminist, and chemical engineer. She was known as “Cuba’s First Lady” and was the most politically powerful woman in the country. Espín was born in 1930 in Santiago, Cuba to Margarita Guillois and Jose Espín, the chief accountant and executive assistant to the CEO of the Bacardi rum company. …
This post is in collaboration with Sheroes of History who researched and wrote the biography of Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa Luxemburg died when she was just 47 years old, and was described as a small, frail woman. But in those 47 years she managed to pack enough in for two lifetimes and leave a huge impression …
Margaret Ekpo was a Nigerian women’s rights activist, social mobiliser and pioneering female politician in Nigeria’s First Republic. Ekpo was born in 1914 in Creek Town, Cross River State Okoroafor Obiasulor, a native of Agulu-Uzo-Igbo near Awka in Anambra State and Inyang Eyo Aniemewue, who was from the family of King Eyo Honesty II, of …
Mary Barbour was a Scottish political activist, community leader and social policy pioneer who became one of the first female Labour Councillors on the Glasgow Town Council, the first woman Bailie on Glasgow Corporation and one of Glasgow’s first female Magistrates. She is best known for her part in the Red Clydeside movement in the …