Grainnuile / Grainne (Ní Mháille) Ó Máille was the Pirate Queen of Connacht and head of the Ó Máille Clan in Ireland in the 1500’s. As a child, Grainnuile was said to have cut off all her hair to diguise herself a boy so that she could sneak onto one of her father’s ships. Her …
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was an actress, style icon and humanitarian. Hepburn was educated in England until, in September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany. Hepburn and her mother relocated to Arnheim in the Netherlands where she attended Arnhem Conservatory and studied ballet in addition to her academic studies. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, …
Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova is a Russian cosmonaut and the first woman to have flown in space. Tereshkova was born in Maslennikovo, a small town in the Yaroslavl Region. She began school late, when she was eight years old and had to leave at 17 to help to support her family. She continued her education while working …
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who became the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern history. She was assassinated in 2007. Bhutto was born in Karachi, Pakistan former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was from Sindhi Rajput ethnicity and Begum Nusrat Ispahani, of Iranian Kurdish descent. Bhutto’s mother’s Kurdish culture played …
Christabel Pankhurst
Christabel Pankhurst was one of the driving forces of the Suffragette movement, she was a co-founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1880. She was the daughter of radical socialist Dr. Richard Pankhurst and women’s suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Her father had been responsible for drafting …
Ida B Wells
Ida B Wells was an American journalist, suffragist, sociologist and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Wells was born a slave in Mississipi in 1862. Six months after her birth slaves were decreed free by the Union thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. Wells faced racial prejudice and discriminatory rules because of her race. …
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, women’s rights activist, and feminist. She co-founded the National Organisation for Women (NOW). Friedan was involved with the school newspaper while at Peoria High School, after her application to write her own column was turned down she and 6 friends launched a literary magazine called ‘Tide’. She graduated from …
Clara Barton
Clara Barton was a pioneer in the field of nursing and one of the founders of the American Red Cross. Barton realised that she was destined to become a nurse when her brother David became seriously ill after a barn-raising accident, 11 year old Barton nursed him for two years. After David recovered Barton was …
Marie Stopes
Marie Stopes was a British author, palaeobotanist, academic, campaigner for women’s rights and pioneer in the field of birth control. Stopes was born in Edinburgh to an archaeologist father and scholarly, suffragist mother. Her parents had met through the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Stopes attended University College London (UCL) where she studied …
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was a hugely influential American jazz musician and singer-songwriter. Holiday (real name Eleanora Fagan) had a difficult childhood, her mother Sadie Fagan worked “transportation jobs”, serving on passenger railroads which meant that Holiday was left with family for most of the time. Holiday frequently skipped school and her truancy led to her being …