Most people know March as the month filled with leprechauns, barren trees, and the first signs of spring, but it is also one of the most important months of the year: Women’s History Month. While there are many women who have gotten us to where we are today, these are five that stand out.
Susan B. Anthony
Born in Massachusetts and raised in New York, Anthony was one of the most well known suffragettes of her generation. In 1872, she was arrested and indicted for voting in the presidential election where she argued that the Fourteenth Amendment gave all citizens the right to vote, and she was in fact a citizen. Unfortunately, she was unsuccessful and made to pay a $100 fine, but her act brought attention and awareness to the women’s suffrage movement. She was president of the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1892-1900 and a founder of the U.S. delegation to the International Council of Women. Her work largely contributed to the Nineteenth Amendment which gave women the right to vote in 1920, fourteen years after her death in 1906.
Harriet Tubman
Tubman escaped from slavery in the South in 1849. She then became one of the most influential abolitionists, leading 70 people out of slavery to freedom in the North through her Underground Railroad. She served in the American Civil War as a nurse and laundress for Union forces in South Carolina and as a spy for the Second Carolina Volunteers. After her work in the Civil War, Tubman settled in Auburn, New York where she housed and cared for orphans and older people, eventually leading to the creation of the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Negroes where she later died in 1913.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Born in 1933, R.B.G. was the second woman – and first Jewish woman – to become a Supreme Court justice. She dedicated her time as a justice to fight for gender equality and women’s rights. She worked on many important cases for women’s rights such as Roe vs. Wade, United States vs. Virginia, and Gonzales v. Carhart. Famous for her legendary dissent and ornate collars, Ginsburg continues to live on in the hearts and minds of United States women even after her death in 2020.
Malala Yousafzai
Yousafzai began fighting for education for Pakistani girls at the young age of eleven after being forced to leave her school as her town came under the control of the Taliban. As she became an advocate, she became increasingly criticized and targeted, which culminated in her attempted murder by a gunman on a school bus in 2012. After almost losing her life, she decided to create the Malala Fund with her dad in 2014 which was dedicated to “giving every girl an opportunity to achieve a future she chooses” (Malala Fund). She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in 2014 as well, making her the youngest person ever to do so. She continues to be an inspiration and advocate for young girls everywhere.
Marie Curie
Curie was a famous chemist and physicist who was the first woman to ever win the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice in different fields. She was instrumental in the discovery of polonium and radium and made important discoveries regarding radioactivity. She paved the way for more female scientists, and to this day serves as an inspiration to women in STEM everywhere.
