Angela Merkel
Politician
(b.1954)
When Angela Merkel (born Angela Dorothea Kasner) came into the world, Germany was split into two states: West Germany and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Angela was just a baby when her parents moved from Hamburg, West Germany, to the GDR. She grew up and was educated there.
Just after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, Angela joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). She wanted to shape the new, unified Germany. In 2000 she took over as CDU leader and in 2005 she became the first female German chancellor (head of government). Multiple re-elections made Angela the longest-serving head of state in the European Union (EU). Hillary Clinton has described her as “the most important leader in the free world.”
Emmeline Pankhurst
Women’s Rights Activist
(1858–1928)
Emmeline Pankhust (born Emmeline Goulden) grew up in Manchester, UK, in a politically active family. Democracy and suffrage (the right to vote) were the big issues of the day. Only five percent of Britain’s population had the vote at that time—they were men who owned property above a certain value.
In 1897 Emmeline married Richard Pankhurst, a lawyer who believed in women’s suffrage. He wrote two acts of parliament to ensure women could keep their earnings and property instead of giving it to their husbands.
In 1889 Emmeline founded the Women’s Franchise League. Five years later it won the right of married women to vote in local elections.
In 1903 Emmeline started the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), with the aim of securing full, equal voting rights for women. The WSPU’s motto was “Deeds not Words” and it adopted fierce and often violent tactics to draw attention to its cause.
“We are here not because we are lawbreakers; we are here in our efforts to become lawmakers.”
WSPU members, who became known as “suffragettes,” demonstrated on the streets, smashed windows, and started fires. If they were imprisoned, they went on hunger strike. The authorities feared public outcry if the women died of starvation and resorted to force-feeding, a horrible and dangerous procedure. From 1913 the so-called Cat and Mouse Act allowed prisons to release hunger strikers long enough to regain their health, then rearrest them. Suffragette Emily Davison went on seven hunger strikes and was force-fed 49 times. She died in June 1913 by walking out in front of the king’s horse during a race at the Epsom Derby.
Emmeline and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia were behind many of the suffragettes’ activities. In 1913, Emmeline went on a lecture tour of the United States to raise funds. She looked frail but was mentally strong. In the previous 18 months she had gone to prison 12 times and spent 30 days behind bars, all on hunger strike.
When World War I (1914–18) broke out, Emmeline stopped all WSPU activities. The government freed imprisoned suffragettes so they could help with the war effort. Once the war was over the government granted women over 30 the right to vote—but by then all men over 21 could vote. Emmeline continued her campaign, giving talks across the United States, Canada, and Russia.
In 1927 back in the United Kingdom, Emmeline was chosen to stand for parliament, but she was not in good health. She died in June 1928, just weeks before a law was passed which finally gave women the same voting rights as men.
Rigoberta Menchú
Human Rights Activist
(b.1959)
When she wasn’t at school, Rigoberta Menchú spent her childhood helping out in the fields. Her family struggled to survive and often had to travel to the coast to work on coffee plantations.
Rigoberta is one of the Maya, indigenous people of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Her group, the K’iche’ people, live in the highlands of Guatemala. Rigoberta’s father was an activist and she joined him on visits to nearby communities to teach people their rights. It was dangerous but important work. Guatemala was in the grip of a civil war that had begun in 1960. The army and security forces were constantly threatening people or making them “disappear.”
In the 1970s many Maya, including Rigoberta and her family, started to protest. They wanted to end injustice, have a say in how their country was run, and be recognized as full citizens. People from Mayan communities were extremely poor and had no basic rights.
The authorities responded to the demonstrations and rallies with a sustained and violent offensive. In 1979 soldiers kidnapped, tortured, and killed Rigoberta’s mother and brother. Her father died the following year when police set fire to the Spanish embassy in Guatemala City, which was being occupied by K’iche’ protestors. Over the next few years more than 200,000 indigenous people lost their lives. Rigoberta went to live in exile in Mexico. She wrote her autobiography I, Rigoberta, which was published in 1983. It brought the suffering of the Maya to the rest of the world’s attention.
In 1992 Rigoberta was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work defending the rights of indigenous peoples and trying to find a peaceful end to the civil war. She used the prize money to found the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, which aims to improve indigenous lives through education and political engagement.
In 1996 the 36-year Guatemalan civil war finally ended. Rigoberta became a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador with special responsibility for indigenous peoples.
“What I treasure most in life is being able to dream. During my most difficult moments and complex situations I have been able to dream of a more beautiful future.”
Rigoberta realized that trials for war crimes such as torture or genocide might be corrupt if they take place in Guatemala. She has urged Spain to demand the handover of criminals and has had some success.
Rigoberta ran for president in 2007 and 2011. Meanwhile her foundation continues to seek justice for Mayan survivors of the war. It has also replaced the all-colonial history taught in university with a multicultural story that has meaning for all Guatemalans. Rigoberta is president of Salud para Todos (Health for All), which aims to supply indigenous people with low-cost medicines.
Chapter 2
Scientists and Inventors
From biochemists and physicists to volcanologists, mathematicians, and engineers, women have been shaping the worlds of scientific research and invention ƒor centuries.
Even though they had fewer opportunities than men, many female scientists and inventors have reached the top of their fields. Some had to leave their home countries—either to escape political persecution or to access schooling, research money, or jobs—and many were not given recognition for their achievements. All of them had to deal with the mistaken and damaging idea that men were more gifted than women at science and technology.
In this chapter, we meet some of the incredible women who refused to accept outdated, sexist notions and were willing to tackle prejudice head-on. Their achievements include numerous scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, as well as the invention of technologies that were far ahead of their time.
Working to the very best of their abilities, these women have shone in their chosen areas. They didn’t always receive the same recognition as their male equals, but their monumental contributions to science and technology have helped to improve the lives of us all and to move humankind forward.
Françoise Barré-Sinoussi
(b.1947)
In 1983 the French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi was part of the team that discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Thanks to her work, treatment for AIDS sufferers has improved dramatically. Françoise was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work in 2008.
Maria Sibylla Merian
(1647–1717)
Maria Sibylla Merian was a German naturalist and scientific illustrator who specialized in entomology. She made detailed paintings of the life cycles of nearly 200 insects and her work was the first proper investigation into the process of metamorphosis (transformation).
Mamie Phipps Clark
Social psychologist
(1917–83)
Mamie Phipps was born into a divi
ded, unfair society. There was racial segregation across the United States, but especially in southern states such as Arkansas, where Mamie grew up. African Americans had separate schools, hospitals, and prisons, and they had their own entrances to cinemas and sports grounds. They were not even allowed to sit on certain bus seats or park benches. The education in schools for African-American children was often poorer than in “white” schools.
Despite these disadvantages, Mamie worked hard, completed school, and won a university scholarship. She began a degree in mathematics and physics, but soon switched to psychology. In her final year she married Kenneth Bancroft Clark, who was studying to be a doctor of psychology. After graduating, Mamie began a master’s degree. She researched how African-American children in segregated communities saw themselves—a field of study that nobody had ever looked at before.
Mamie and Kenneth were the first African Americans to graduate as doctors from Columbia University, New York City. In the 1940s they carried out “doll tests” that built on Mamie’s original research. The Clarks interviewed young African-American children from segregated and non-segregated areas. They showed the children dolls that were identical, apart from being either white with yellow hair or black with brown hair. They asked the children if they felt that they looked more like one doll than the other. They also asked the children if they liked one of the dolls more, and if so, why.
The results of the study were shocking. Most of the children—especially those from segregated areas—preferred the white doll. They thought the black one was ugly and bad, but they also believed that they looked like the black doll. Mamie and Kenneth saw that segregation had damaged the black children’s self-esteem and made them think they were not as good as the white children. Something had to change. They needed to be treated as equals.
“I think that whites and blacks should be taught to respect their fellow human beings as an integral part of being educated.”
In 1954 the court case Brown vs. Board of Education used the Clarks’ study as proof that segregation was harming black children. As a result, school segregation was banned in the United States.
Mamie faced prejudice as an African-American woman, but she finally found a fulfilling job when she opened the Northside Center for Child Development in 1946. It provided support for children who had emotional problems. Mamie improved the lives of countless young people from poor and minority backgrounds.
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Neurobiologist
(1909–2012)
Although her father thought that a woman’s duty was to be a wife and mother, Rita Levi-Montalcini had her own ideas. Determined to be a doctor, she graduated from the medical school in Turin, Italy, in 1936. Her plans to spend three more years studying the human brain were blocked—not because she was a woman, but because of her Jewish faith. Italy’s leader Benito Mussolini was an ally of Germany’s Adolf Hitler. To show his support for Hitler, Mussolini introduced race laws that made Jews second-class citizens. With Jews forbidden to work as doctors or carry out academic research, Rita set up a secret lab at her parents’ house. She studied chicken embryos’ nerve cells with homemade instruments. She had to move house once, taking all her equipment with her. Despite the difficulties, Rita made ground-breaking discoveries that would explain how cancer spreads.
In 1946 Rita took a position at the university in St Louis, USA. She repeated the chicken embryo experiments with biochemist Stanley Cohen. The pair discovered the protein that controls nerve growth and were joint winners of the Nobel Prize in 1986.
“Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them.”
Rita was also awarded membership of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and made a senator for life in the Italian government. She worked right up to her death, aged 103.
Nettie Stevens
Geneticist
(1861–1912)
Born in Vermont, USA, Nettie Stevens grew up in an era when it was unusual for girls to be educated. Luckily for her, she was able to attend a school that welcomed girls. Nettie had to work as a teacher and librarian to save up enough money to go to college and was 39 by the time she left Stanford, California, with her masters degree.
Nettie took a research position at Bryn Mawr, a women-only college in Pennsylvania. She studied mealworms and other insects to work out what decides an offspring’s sex. Nettie showed that chromosomes (lengths of DNA) come in pairs—females have two X chromosomes (XX), while males have an X and a Y (XY). Offspring always receive one X chromosome from their mother, but can receive an X or a Y from the father. If it’s a Y, the offspring will be male. X chromosomes had been identified in 1900, and Nettie named her discovery the Y chromosome because it follows X in the alphabet.
“Her single-mindedness and devotion, combined with keen powers of observation; her thoughtfulness and patience, united to a well-balanced judgement, account, in part, for her remarkable accomplishment..”
NOBEL LAUREATE Thomas Hunt Morgan on Nettie Stevens
It took time before scientists accepted the idea that chromosomes determine sex. Nettie’s research career was only short—sadly, she died aged 50—but in that time she made great leaps that helped us to understand genes.
Ada Lovelace
Mathematician
(1815–52)
Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born in London (then Middlesex), UK. Her parents—the famous poet Lord Byron and mathematician Annabella Milbanke Byron—separated five weeks after Ada’s birth, so she never got to know her father.
Determined to give Ada a good education, Annabella hired private tutors. Most of Ada’s schooling was in science, logic, and mathematics. Annabella believed that studying would keep Ada out of trouble. She was worried that Ada might have inherited her father’s wildness—Lord Byron was always being involved in scandals, and Ada’s mother didn’t want Ada to follow in his footsteps.
Ada met Charles Babbage at a party when she was 18. Charles was an inventor who became famous for his work on the earliest forms of computers. He showed Ada the prototype of a mechanical calculator called the Difference Engine. He also talked to her about a complex computing machine that he had just started to design. Called the Analytical Engine, it would be programmed using punched cards. Ada was fascinated by the machine’s possibilities.
“That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal, as time will show.”
Ada married at 20 and started a family but her mathematical studies were not interrupted for long. In 1842 the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea asked Ada to translate an article he had written about the Analytical Engine, recognizing that she had the language skills and mathematical understanding to do a great job.
Ada not only translated the article, but she also added her own detailed annotations and explanations. When the article was published in 1843, Ada was praised for its insightful, comprehensive notes. She clearly had a unique grasp of Charles Babbage’s vision. Charles himself was in awe of her mathematical talent and ability to formulate complex calculations.
Only a small section of the Analytical Engine was built during Charles’ lifetime, but Ada’s contributions are valued to this day. Her instructions to make the Analytical Engine solve problems are now considered the “first programming language.” A century later, in the 1940s, the English computer scientist Alan Turing referred to Ada’s notes while developing some of the first modern computers.
Ada died of cancer when she was just 36 years old, but her name lives on. Every year, on the second Tuesday in October, people around the world mark Ada Lovelace Day. It celebrates the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Lise Meitner
Physicist
(1878–1968)
Lise Meitner grew up in Vienna, Austria, at a time when girls could not go to school after the age of 14. However, as soon as Austrian universities started accepting women, she sat the entrance exam and was accepted. Lise went on
to become one of the very first women in the world to hold a PhD in physics.
Lise discovered nuclear fission, the process that powers the atomic bomb. To her lifelong disappointment, the Nobel Prize for its discovery was unfairly awarded solely to her fellow (male) scientist Otto Hahn. However, Lise did win many other awards and even has a radioactive element, meitnerium, named after her.
Elizabeth Blackburn
Biochemist
(b.1948)
Born on the island of Tasmania, Australia, Elizabeth Blackburn studied biochemistry at Melbourne University and was awarded her PhD from Cambridge, UK. In the early 1980s, she discovered telomerase. The protective tips on the end of chromosomes are called telemeres, and over time they shorten and are unable to protect the chromosomes. Telomerase slows down this shortening. Elizabeth and her colleagues Carol Greider and Jack Szostak won a Nobel Prize for their work.
101 Awesome Women Who Changed Our World Page 3
