International Women’s Day 2018: Women We Admire

Journal
August, 2018

A few days ahead of International Women’s Day, an email​ was​ sent around our office​, ​asking everyone to share women they admire​. This became an ongoing chain of replies, ​turning into a celebration of amazing women from all over the world, across different eras and disciplines.

In honour of International Women’s Day, we’d like to share our list (so far) and shine​ a light on just a few of the incredible women who inspire us every day (in no particular order).

This is our list …So far:

Gloria Steinem – Journalist, feminist & social political activist

Bana al-Abed – Syrian 8-year-old peace activist from Aleppo

Shirley Chisholm – The first African-American woman elected to the US Congress

Ginni Rommetty – Chairman, president & CEO of IBM, first woman to head the company

Merly Streep – The greatest living actor with the most Oscar nominations and wins of all time

Rachel Carson – American marine biologist, author and conservationist, credited with advancing the global environmental movement

Piera Geraldi – Executive Creative Director & Co-founder @refinery29 + @29rooms

Ellen DeGeneres – American comedian, ‘The Ellen Show’ host, actress, writer, producer, and LGBTIA activist

Virginia Wolf – the foremost modernist authors of the 20th century

María De Jesús Patricio – Mexican Nahua traditional medicine healer and human rights activist

Queen Elizabeth II – Queen of the UK and the other Commonwealth realms, longest-reigning monarch in British History

Margaret Atwood – Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, and environmental activist

Princess Nokia – Rapper & founder of ‘Smart Girl Club’

Stacy Smith – TED Speaker & Founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California

Nazik Al – Abid – Women’s rights activist and critic of Ottoman and French colonialism in Syria

Michelle Obama – Lawyer, writer & first African-American First Lady of the United States

Emma Watson – Actress & activist

Grace Hopper – American computer scientist and US Navy admiral

Sophie Scholl – Anti-Nazi political activist

Amelia Earhart – American aviation pioneer and author. Earhart was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean

Laverne Cox – Actress & LGBT advocate

Oprah Winfrey – American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Emma Gonzales  – Activist

Angela Davis – Author, political activist & academic

Sharmin Obaid Chinoy – Pakistani journalist, filmmaker and activist

Eva Chen – Instagram Fashion Partnerships Director, former Editor-in-Chief Lucky mag

Lupita Nyong’o – Kenyan-Mexican actress

Tina Fey – Actress, comedian, writer & producer

Cardi B – Rapper

Emily Weissman – Founder & CEO of Glossier

Nadia Comaneci – Romanian gymnast, five-time Olympic gold medalist, first perfect 10 in gymnastics

Tiffany Haddish – American comedian and actress

SZA – Singer

Leandra Medine – American author, blogger, and humour writer best known for Man Repeller

Petra Collins – Artist

Jesmyn Ward – American novelist and an associate professor of English at Tulane University

Zadie Smith – contemporary British novelist, essayist, and short-story writer

Christene Barberich – Global EIC and co-founder of @Refinery29

Marie Curie – Polish and naturalised-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity

Valentina Tereshkova – Russian cosmonaut, engineer, and politician

Patricia Bath – Inventor, doctor, educator

Amy Schumer – Actress & stand-up comedian

Mama Cax – Survivor, blogger, speaker

Adwoa Aboah – Model, activist, founder of Gurls Talk

Carlota Guerrero – Photographer

Anne Frank – Jewish victim of the Holocaust, writer of ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’

Mindy Kailing –Actress, comedian and writer

Amrita Shergill – Eminent Hungarian-Indian painter

Salma Hayek – Actress & producer

Serena + Venus Williams – professional American tennis players

Dominique Crenn – French chef, two-Michelin-star restaurant owner

Rachel Morrison – The first woman nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography

Ashley Judd – Actress & political activist

Lilly Singh – Canadian YouTube personality, vlogger, comedian, author, and actress

Beyonce & Solange Knowles – Sisters, singers, songwriters, models and actresses

Melina Matsoukas – Director of music videos, television shows and commercials

Greta Gerwig – American actress, writer, and director

Rosalind Franklin – English chemist and X-ray crystallographer who made contributions to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA

Amandla Steenberg – Actress & singer

Sofia Coppola – American screenwriter, director, producer and former actress

Jane Goodall – British primatologist and anthropologist

Mary Anning – fossil collector, dealer, and paleonthologist

Rita Moreno – Puerto Rican actress, dancer and singer

Aretha Franklin – American singer and songwriter.

Sheryl Sandberg – American technology executive, activist, and author

Shonda Rhimes – American television producer, screenwriter, and author.

Lori Robinson – US Air Force general

Amy Poehler – Actress, comedian, director, producer & writer

Tavi Gevinson – Founder of Rookie Mag, writer, actress

Ava Duvernay – Film director, producer & screenwriter

Tarana Burke – American civil rights activist, known for being the first to use the phrase “Me Too”in 2006

Judith Butler – American philosopher and gender theorist

Madeleine Albright – Czechoslovak-American politician and diplomat, the first female US Secretary of State

Mae Jemison – Engineer, physician, NASA astronaut, the first African-American woman to travel in space

Sylvia Earle – first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Eileen Collins – The first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle

Manal al-Sharif – Saudi Arabian women’s rights activist

Emma Morano – Italian supercentenarian, the world’s oldest living person, the last living person born in the 1800s

Margot Wallstrom – Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Nordic Cooperation

Henda Ayari – French writer, feminist and secular activist

Aslı Erdoğan – Prize-winning Turkish writer, human rights activist

Yu Xiuhua –  Chinese poet

Yayoi Kusama – Japanese contemporary artist

Alice Schwarzer – German journalist and prominent contemporary feminist.

Maija Isola – Finnish designer of printed textiles whose work made Marimekko famous in the 1960s

Armi Ratia – One of Finland’s most famous female entrepreneurs, founder of Marimekko

Elisabeta Rizea – Romanian anti-communist partisan, symbol of the country’s anti-communist resistance

Malala Yousafzai – Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate

Kathrine Switzer – The first woman to run the Boston Marathon in 1967

Helen Sharman – First British Astronaut

Sonia Sotomayor – The first Latina Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history

Setsuko Thurlow – Japanese–Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Queen Nanny of the Maroons – Jamaican National Hero

Ada Lovelace – The first computer programmer

Margueret Radclyffe-Hall – English poet & author, known for her groundbreaking work in lesbian literature

Boudicca –  British folk hero

Triệu Thị Trinh – Female warrior in 3rd century Vietnam

Harriet Tubman – American abolitionist, humanitarian, and an armed scout and spy for the United States Army during the American Civil War

Diana Vreeland –  Noted columnist and editor in the field of fashion

Anna Wintour – British-American journalist and editor, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue since 1988, artistic director for Condé Nast

Dalia Grybauskaite – Lithuania’s first female president

Hypatia – Hellenistic Neoplatonist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician,[6] who lived in Alexandria, Egypt and the Eastern Roman Empire

Irena Sendler (Sendlerowa) – Polish nurse, humanitarian, and social worker who served in the Polish Underground during World War II in German-occupied Warsaw

Emma Goldman – Russian anarchist political activist and writer

Sylvia Rivera – American gay liberation and transgender activist and self-identified drag queen

Lucy Parsons – American labor organiser, radical socialist and anarcho-communist.

Sara Lund – Drummer in Unwound

Kathleen Hannah – American singer, musician, artist, feminist activist, pioneer of the feminist punk riot grrrl movement, and punk zine writer.

Chrissie Hynde – American singer-songwriter and musician. She is a founding member and the guitarist, lead vocalist, and primary songwriter of the rock band The Pretenders

Kim Gordon – American musician, singer, songwriter, visual artist, and actress. Sonic Youth’s singer, bassist and guitarist.

Lesley Woods – Lesley Woods, leader of  Au Pairs.

Poly Styrene – British musician, singer-songwriter, and front-woman for the punk rock band X_Ray Spex.

Patti Smith – American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and poet.

 

 

 

 

Read more
Please update your browser for the best experience.