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On 9 August 1956, about 20 000 women of all races, religions, and walks of life followed Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Albertina Sisulu, and Sophia Williams-De Bruyn to Pretoria’s Union Buildings and loudly – but quietly (because it was a silent protest) – said NO. “No, we will not accept the new unjust laws that require black women to carry pass books” they demonstrated, as a petition of 100 000 signatures was handed over to the government. What a remarkable display of strength, unity, and principle that was, which is why Women’s Day is now celebrated annually on 9 August in South Africa. 

A few decades earlier, Londoner Emily Hobhouse also said NO. Travelling in SA in 1900 during the Anglo-Boer War, she was appalled and distressed by the living conditions that the Boer women and children had to endure in the British concentration camps. Her subsequent protests against, and financial support for improvement of, the camp living conditions upset the Cape-based British administration and so they arrested her in Cape Town in 1901 and shipped her back to England. Determined to help, she returned after the war (1902) and assisted the impoverished Boer families set up home industries in the Free State and Transvaal. While she was here, she noticed the Boers weren’t treating the Indians very nicely and, not done with fighting against social injustice, lent her voice and help to Gandhi during his protests for equality in SA in 1913. She died poor and alone in London in 1926, but when her remains were shipped back to SA, thousands gathered at her internment at the Vrouemonument in Bloemfontein to pay their respects.

There are many other South African women who have made a difference, and one of these is Miriam Makeba, or Mama Africa as she was fondly known. Despite a very rough start – she went to prison at just 18-days old because her mother was arrested for brewing beer – Miriam made her way onto stages all over the world where she achieved two things: (1) popularised African music, and (2) created global awareness around apartheid. Here’s a link to early recordings of her famous The Click Song and PataPata

You are probably familiar with famous women like Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks, and Marie Curie. To recap, in the early 1900s, Emmeline (Emily) got rather angry that the UK government wouldn’t let women vote and so decided that women were going to have to “do the work ourselves” to achieve equal voting rights to men. She launched the suffragette movement in 1903 and women finally got the elective vote several years later. Emily’s actions related to this and other protest actions for women’s rights have shaped democracies since. Rosa also played a significant role in furthering equality in society. After a long and tiring day at work in Alabama (USA) in 1955, she refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. She wasn’t the first black person to do this in protest against Alabama’s segregation laws but was the first to challenge her arrest in court, thereby ultimately contributing to having bus segregation declared unconstitutional.

Then there’s Marie (1867-1934), the pioneering scientist who coined the word radioactivity when she discovered radium, and this in a time when women were mostly denied an education. Her research led to the creation of a new scientific field called atomic physics and the invention of X-Rays. Marie immersed herself in her work with radium, polonium and other radioactive elements, which is why her notebooks and even recipe books are currently stored in lead-lined boxes in France and cannot be touched without protective clothing. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize (Physics), the first and only woman to be awarded a second Nobel Prize (Chemistry), and the only person to win the Prize in two scientific fields. Ultimately, her discovery not only resulted in her moniker ‘mother of modern physics’, but also her death linked to her continued exposure to radioactivity – the negative effects on the human body were not known at that time. Her body, which will remain radioactive for at least 1500 years, is interred in a lead coffin in the Pantheon in France.

Less well-known but almost equally as significant in terms of her intellectual contribution to mankind is Emmy Noether (1882-1939), a physicist and mathematician whose discoveries lie at the heart of quantum mechanics. As a teenager she didn’t excel academically and also showed a distinct lack of interest in learning the skills deemed necessary for women of that time i.e., cooking, cleaning, and playing the piano. She was, however, known for being clever, friendly, and enthusiastic about dancing. It was only later in life that she applied her considerable intellect sufficiently enough to become regarded as the most important woman in the history of mathematics for her contributions to mathematical physics. Although her reputation for being friendly, helpful, and considerate intensified during her professional academic years, Emmy never really embraced the more traditional women’s roles, and biographies frequently and euphemistically refer to her ‘lack of vanity’ and concern for personal appearance, and disregard for the fussy etiquette and manners of the day.

Unlike Emmy, Hedy Lamarr used her intellect and her looks to make her mark in the world. Already a film star when World War II started, she and a friend, George Antheil, invented a radio guidance system that relied on frequency-hopping spread-spectrum technology to assist the US Navy. Their invention, although not used in WW II, formed the basis for the later development of WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth. At the time, however, her beauty was considered more useful than her brains, and the US government requested that she play the role of pin-up girl and generate income to fund the war effort. The trailer of a 2017 movie about Hedy can be watched here Hedy Lamarr, and there are more details about her life, acting career, and inventions here https://hedylamarr.com/.

Actress Margaret Hamilton (1902-1985), best known for her role as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, was a contemporary of Hedy’s. But it is the efforts of another Margaret Hamilton, who was a mere three-years-old at that time, that have had a greater impact on the 20th century. Margaret Hamilton is considered the world’s first software engineer – a description she created for herself – for her critical role programming/coding the NASA computer software that helped take humans to the moon. Here is the famous 1969 photo of the hand-written software that sent Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins on their three-day, three-hour and 49-minute trip to the Sea of Tranquillity on the moon, and which brought them back to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean eight days, three hours, 18 minutes and 35 seconds later.

Neither Hedy nor Margaret’s work would likely have been possible without the efforts of Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter and only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord Byron. Lord Byron may have been a great poet, but he was an absent father on top of being erratic, abusive and a womaniser. Ada’s mom, Lady Anne Byron, was determined that her daughter would not grow up to have the same kind of moody, quixotic character as her father and so she pushed her daughter in the study of things logical and rational, especially maths and science. This was most unusual for a female in 19th century England, but Lady Anne’s pressure and persistence paid off because Ada is widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer. Working under Charles Babbage, the ‘father of the computer’, she was the first to predict that computers could be useful for more than just crunching numbers and published the first algorithm, or what was effectively the first computer language. Her genius was only recognised many decades later. She was, however, less successful at using mathematical predictions in her personal life where, as a compulsive gambler, she lost so much money that she had to secretly pawn the Lovelace family diamonds.
While there are women, like those mentioned above, who have worked at the frontline of scientific discovery, there are also those whose humanitarian efforts are quite remarkable. You’ve probably heard of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved +1200 kids from the holocaust – as depicted in the movie Schindler’s List (considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made). But have you heard of Irena Sendalerowa (aka Irena Sendler), who was sentenced to death by the Gestapo for her efforts to smuggle 2500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto in WW II? Fortunately, she escaped on the day of her execution. Given her incredibly brave actions during the war, it’s not surprising that she suffered from an anxiety disorder later in life.

Someone else who has fought for those unable to fight for themselves is Jane Goodall. She spent 60 years studying chimpanzees in Tanzania, and in doing so became the only human ever accepted into a chimpanzee society, even though she was the lowest-ranking member of the troop! She’s also done extraordinary work in raising awareness around environmental and human rights issues. For her efforts she’s been awarded many prestigious honours, one of the most interesting of which is arguably the Dr. Jane Goodall Barbie doll, the first of the series of Inspiring Women, and made of recycled material. Here’s a video on the life of Jane Goodall.
Henrietta Lacks has been extremely influential in the field of medicine since 1951. However, unlike all the other women already mentioned, Henrietta died, at age 31, without
any inkling that she would be immortalised in the field of medicine. Or more specifically, that the cause of her death – cancerous cervical cells – would mark a turning point in medical history, particularly cancer research and the study of viruses. The astonishing and remarkable story of Henrietta’s cells, named HeLa, can be watched in this four-minute YouTube video – HeLa Cells.

Many changes to the course of history are the result of small but significant actions taken by lone women. Annette Kellerman, frustrated by the impractical swimming clothes for women in the early 1900s, designed, made and wore the first skintight one-piece bathing suit – the precursor of modern women’s swimwear. This caused considerable consternation, given the prevailing Victorian societal norms that valued modesty. In 1916, she was the first woman to appear nude in a film, which makes it somewhat ironic then that she pulled up her nose when the bikini was introduced in 1946, saying: “The Bikini bathing suit is a mistake…The bikini shows too much…”.

Someone else who broke down barriers for women is Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run a public marathon. When she submitted her application to run the Boston Marathon in 1966, she received a rejection letter telling her that women where physiologically incapable of running a marathon. Undeterred, she donned her brother’s shorts and new running shoes and joined the race just a short distance from the start line. It wasn’t an easy race for her, in part because the new shoes caused painful blisters, but she completed it, became The First Woman to Run a Marathon, and changed the running landscape forever.

There are those whose contributions to society are seemingly small, but ever so helpful, like Mary Anderson. Mary, originally from Alabama, was visiting New York in the winter of 1903 when she noticed the frustration of the streetcar driver as he continually had to stick his head out of the window to see where he was going because of all the snow on his windscreen. So, she invented the windscreen wiper. And Josephine Cochrane, who was exasperated with her servants constantly chipping her crockery, but was reluctant to do the washing-up herself – and so she invented the dishwasher, registering her patent in 1886. Then there’s Stephanie Kwolek, who first wanted to be a fashion designer, then a medical doctor, but settled on being a chemist. After fiddling around with polymers, she invented Kevlar in 1965. Kevlar is used in the manufacture of bulletproof vests and body armour and so her invention has undoubtedly saved the lives of many a policeman or military person.

Kevlar has many other uses, as in indicated in the short YouTube video, and one of these is for space travel. Which brings us to Elon Musk and his company SpaceX. Musk is well-known for his ambitions to encourage space travel and in particular flying to and colonising Mars. Elon is a visionary and an extremely intelligent chap – and he’s also someone who thinks that being a mom is a really important and valuable job, as he tweeted on Twitter last week (17/08/22). His mom, Maye, clearly agrees, responding that it was a most important thing to her and especially so when her children were younger. Women’s Month celebrates inspirational women: let’s not overlook the central and essential, but often underappreciated and undervalued, role of the many, many women out there who, every single day, are looking after their families.