Women’s Day 2020: 7 inspiring women you need to learn about

“Each person must live their life as a model for others.” — Rosa Parks

“In my view, all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims: the improvement of mankind.” — Rosalind Franklin

“If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” — Shirley Chisholm

It’s Women’s Day, and 2020 is a good time to be a woman. Although a lot still needs to be done, women today have access to education, economic opportunities and leadership roles more than ever before. As we celebrate our heroes, who have brought countless amazing contributions to society throughout history, there are some women who didn’t get the credit and worldwide recognition they deserve. Scroll ahead to read about some of these lesser-known heroes, who changed the world one achievement at a time.

Rosalind Franklin

Franklin is the forgotten name behind the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure. A lesser-known female scientist, she was snubbed of a Nobel Prize in 1958, when Francis Harry Compton, James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA, without any mention of or thanks to Franklin. However, this important discovery wouldn’t have happened without Franklin, who used her skills in X-ray crystallography to capture a clear and concise picture of the DNA molecule.

Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

While we all know her brother, Jawaharlal Nehru, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit was a freedom fighter and a political activist who made a mark in Indian history. She was elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly of the United Provinces in 1921, a post from which she retired in 1939 as a form of protest against the British in World War II. Later in 1943, Pandit became the president of the All-India Women’s Conference. 10 years later, she also became the first woman ever to be elected president of the UN General Assembly.

Shirley Chisholm

Carol Moseley Braun, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton—we have all heard of these names and how they changed the face of politics in the United States. However, before them was Shirley Chisholm, who was the first woman and the first African American to run for the nomination of a major party, for the presidentship of the United States. Already the first black woman to be elected to the United States Congress in 1968, Chisholm made her ambitious attempt to win the White House decades before her country was ready for her. Although she garnered just 152 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention, this was a move that nobody saw coming.

Grace Hopper

During World War II, Hopper barely made the age cut-off for the US navy and was assigned to a project at Harvard University, where she helped program Mark I, the first computer in the country. In 1952, she and her team created the first compiler, which helped translate source code written in one computer language into another. Hopper also helped develop the COBOL programming language, and in 1983, was promoted to Rear Admiral (Lower Half). Upon retirement, she was awarded the highest level of distinction for non-combat personnel. At age 79, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the navy, and loved training young people. She even gave lectures until she passed away. Her invaluable work helped expand the scope of modern computing and changed the world as we know it. Fun fact: When a moth shorted out the Mark II, she jokingly said that they’ll have to ‘debug’ the computer, and that’s how the term was coined.

Josephine Baker

The first person of colour to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), Josephine Baker was a famous dancer and performer. Standing up for women of colour, she refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, and was also known for being a front runner during the civil rights movements. Not just this, she was also a spy for the French Resistance during WWII, as she smuggled messages in her sheet music.

Susan Kare

We all have one Apple product that we can’t live without—iPhone, Macbook, Air Pods, etc. While Steve Jobs deserves the rightful credit for creating these masterpieces, it was Kare who worked with him to make the Mac one of the most user-friendly computers in the world. Love that command button so much? It was thanks to Kare, who focused on making the system usable more than anything else, by creating a suite of icons people could use to communicate with the system with. She is also credited with brining the lasso tool to Photoshop, and also for creating icons for Facebook. 

Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb

Officially, the first female to run the Boston Marathon was Kathrine Switzer. However, that’s only because they don’t count Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb. In 1966, when she was denied by the Boston Athletic Association because women were ‘not physiologically able’ to run strenuously, she decided to do it anyway. So, she snuck in wearing her brother’s Bermuda shorts and a hooded sweatshirt to cover her ponytail. She completed the marathon at three hours and 21 minutes, beating half her competition. In 2016, she celebrated the 50th anniversary of her run.

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