International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the achievements of women. Marked each year on the 8th March, International Women’s Day (IWD) is witnessed worldwide by groups celebrating women’s achievements and calling for an acceleration in gender parity and equality.
International Women’s Day has been observed for well over a century with women across the world highlighting issues that have been important in the move towards gender equality. In its early years, IWD campaigned for women’s rights to work and vote. In recent years, IWD has been used to raise persistent issues with gender inequality, especially in areas such as pay, healthcare and education.
Over the last few weeks and months, we’ve been looking at the stories of just a few amazing women from history and on this International Women’s Day in 2021, we thought we’d share these stories with you.
Gráinne [Grace] O’Malley
Grace was a female pirate in the late 1500s, with a reputation for piracy off the north and west coast of Ireland. Although she was a mother and married at least twice, her seafaring ways are what gave her renown. Sir Henry Sidney described Grace as 'a most famous femynyne sea captain' in 1577. She spent two years in prison, having been arrested by the Earl of Desmond, although it is likely that Desmond’s motivation for arresting her was his wanting to show loyalty to the government rather than any particular criminal activity committed by O’Malley. Her son's arrest in 1593 precipitated O'Malley's visit to Elizabeth I. A remarkable aspect of Grace's petitions was that she acted as spokesperson for the men in her family and in the incident of her son’s arrest petitioned for his release, as well as her brother’s who had been arrested separately for another incident. She is significant as being the only woman from sixteenth-century Gaelic Ireland who is recorded as taking a leadership role within her sept. In later centuries her life became the topic of many folklore stories that celebrated her piratical and military achievements.
More information is available online
Mary W. Jackson
The release of the critically acclaimed film, Hidden Figures, in 2016 made three female NASA employees household names. Mary W. Jackson was one of these women.
Graduating in 1942 with a dual degree in Maths and Physical Sciences, she originally accepted a job teaching maths in a segregated school in Maryland. After three subsequent career changes, she eventually found herself employed at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory’s segregated West Area Computing section in 1951. After working as a “computer”, Mary was invited to work with Kazimierz Czarnecki, where she conducted experiments and gained hands-on engineering experience. Czarnecki encouraged Jackson to enter a training programme that would allow her to become a NASA engineer. However, she was required to take extra courses in maths and physics, which were delivered by the then-segregated Hampton Highschool. Due to this, Mary petitioned the City of Hampton to be allowed to take classes alongside her white peers. Mary completed the courses required and in 1958 she became NASA’s first black female engineer.
Despite leaving NASA after limited job progression, her decision to challenge the restrictions put on her because of her race and gender, has meant that her legacy lives on. In 2020 it was announced that NASA’s Washington D.C headquarters building would be named after her.
More information online
© NASA
Queen Charlotte
After Bridgerton hit our screens on Netflix on Boxing Day 2020, Queen Charlotte is an individual that has been brought into the public eye. Queen during the infamous Regency era and wife to George III, she was more than just a consort of the United Kingdom and Ireland and Queen of Hanover. She shared interests in science, art, theatre, and music with her husband, and bore fifteen children, including two future heirs to the throne. She was forced into political prominence during the regency crisis of 1788-89, when George III fell ill. Eventually, the care of the king's person and household, assisted by a council, was entrusted to Charlotte through the Regency Act of February 1811. In Bridgerton, Charlotte is portrayed by Golda Rosheuvel, and this echoes the continuous riddles about her and her ethnic background as a result of J. A. Rogers book Sex and Race: Volume I around 1940. This lends itself to the debate of myth v. fact and something which scholars are probably likely to continue to debate for many years to come.
More information available online
Charlotte (1744–1818) by Johan Zoffany, 1771
The Royal Collection © 2004 HM Queen Elizabeth II
Edith Cavell
Born in 1865, Edith Cavell would go on to be a significant figure in the British histories of the First World War.
After being a Governess, Edith Cavell made the decision to train as a nurse. She took a number of posts at different medical institutions, both in Britain and on the Continent. In the years leading up to the First World War, Cavell became well-known for both her work as a nurse and her skills and tact in recruiting new nurses, which earned her the respect of the committees in charge of a nurses’ training school in Brussels where she was the director. Her reputation led to growth in recruits.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the clinic where she worked became an integral part of an escape organisation that helped allied soldiers escape Brussels. In August 1915 she was arrested for her role in helping soldiers to escape. In October 1915, Cavell was court-martialled along with 8 others and found guilty. She was executed on the 12th October. Edith Cavell’s death created shock and outrage. In the British press, Cavell became a heroine of the war and depictions of her were prevalent in newspapers and propaganda. After the war, her body was returned to Britain, where she received a state funeral at Westminster Abbey. Her legacy lives on today in Britain and abroad, and statues of Edith Cavell can be found in London. People know about the actions of Edith Cavell and in towns in Belgium and the UK, streets sharing her name serve as a reminder of her brave actions in the First World War.
More information available online
Edith Louisa Cavell (1865-1915) by unknown photographer, 1915.
© National Portrait Gallery, London.
These are just a handful of the remarkable women who have put their stamp on our history and there are many other strong characters who we would love to write about and tell their stories.
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