100 Most Important Women in World History

From time to time, people publish lists of top 100 of women in history. As I think about who Id put into my own Top 100 list of women important to world history, the women in the list below would at least make it to my first draft list. Womens Rights European and British Olympe de Gouges: in the French Revolution, declared that women were equal to menMary Wollstonecraft: British author and philosopher, mother of modern feminismHarriet Martineau: wrote about politics, economics, religion, philosophyEmmeline Pankhurst: key British woman suffrage radical; Founder, Womens Social and Political Union, 1903Simone de Beauvoir: 20th-century feminist theorist Americans Judith Sargent Murray: American writer who wrote early feminist essayMargaret Fuller: Transcendentalist writerElizabeth Cady Stanton: womens rights and woman suffrage theorist and activistSusan B. Anthony: womens rights and woman suffrage spokesperson and leaderLucy Stone: abolitionist, womens rights advocateAlice Paul: a primary organizer for the last winning years of womens suffrageCarrie Chapman Catt: a longtime organizer for woman suffrage, organized international suffrage leadersBetty Friedan: feminist whose book helped launch the so-called second waveGloria Steinem: theorist and writer whose Ms. Magazine helped shape the second wave Heads of State Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance Hatshepsut: Pharaoh of Egypt who took male powers for herselfCleopatra of Egypt: last pharaoh of Egypt, active in Roman politicsGalla Placidia: Roman Empress and regentBoudicca (or Boadicea): warrior queen of the CeltsTheodora, Empress of Byzantium, married to JustinianIsabella I of Castile and Aragon, ruler of Spain who, as a partner ruler with her husband,  drove the Moors from Granada, expelled unconverted Jews from Spain, sponsored Christopher Columbus voyage to the New World, established the InquisitionElizabeth I of England, whose long rule was honored by calling that time period the Elizabethan Age Modern Catherine the Great of Russia: expanded Russias borders and promoted westernization and modernizationChristina of Sweden: patron of art and philosophy, abdicated on conversion to Roman CatholicismQueen Victoria: another influential queen for whom a whole age is namedCixi (Tzu-hsi or Hsiao-chin), last Dowager Empress of China, wielding enormous power as she opposed foreign influence and ruled strongly internallyIndira Gandhi: Prime Minister of India, also the daughter, mother, and mother-in-law of other Indian politiciansGolda Meir: Prime Minister of Israel during Yom Kippur WarMargaret Thatcher: British prime minister who dismantled social servicesCorazon Aquino: President of Philippines, reform political candidate More Politics Asian Sarojini Naidu: poet and political activist, the first Indian woman president of the Indian National Congress European and British Joan of Arc: legendary saint and martyrMadame de Stael: intellectual and salonist American Barbara Jordan: first Southern African American woman elected to CongressMargaret Chase Smith: Republican Senator from Maine, the first woman elected to both the House and the Senate, first woman to have her name placed in nomination at a Republican party conventionEleanor Roosevelt: wife and widow of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his eyes and ears as president hampered by polio, and a human rights activist in her own right Religion European and British Hildegard of Bingen: abbess, mystic and visionary, composer of music and writer of books on many secular and religious topicsPrincess Olga of Kiev: her marriage was the occasion of the conversion of Kiev (to become Russia) to Christianity, considered the first saint of the Russian Orthodox ChurchJeanne dAlbret  (Jeanne of Navarre): Huguenot Protestant leader in France, ruler of Navarre, mother of Henry IV American Mary Baker Eddy: founder of Christian Science, author of key scriptures of that faith, founder of The Christian Science Monitor Inventors and Scientists Hypatia: philosopher, mathematician, and martyred by the Christian churchSophie Germain: mathematician whose work is still used in the construction of skyscrapersAda Lovelace: pioneer in mathematics, created the concept of an operating system or softwareMarie Curie: mother of modern physics, two-time Nobel Prize winnerMadam C. J. Walker: inventor, entrepreneur, millionaire, philanthropistMargaret Mead: anthropologistJane Goodall: primatologist and researcher, worked with chimpanzees in Africa Medicine and Nursing Trota or Trotula: a medieval medical writer (probably)Florence Nightingale: nurse, reformer, helped establish standards for nursingDorothea Dix: advocate for the mentally ill, supervisor of nurses in the U.S. Civil WarClara Barton: founder of the Red Cross, organized nursing services in the U.S. Civil WarElizabeth Blackwell: first  woman to graduate from medical school (M.D.) and a pioneer in educating women in medicine  Elizabeth Garrett Anderson:  first woman to successfully complete the medical qualifying exams in Great Britain; first woman physician in Great Britain; advocate of womens suffrage and womens opportunities in higher education; first woman in England elected as mayor Social Reform Americans Jane Addams: founder of Hull-House and of the social work professionFrances Willard: temperance activist, speaker, educatorHarriet Tubman:  fugitive slave, underground railroad conductor, abolitionist, spy, soldier, Civil War, nurseSojourner Truth: black abolitionist who also advocated for woman suffrage and met Abraham Lincoln at the White HouseMary Church Terrell: civil rights leader, founder of National Association of Colored Women, charter NAACP memberIda Wells-Barnett:  anti-lynching crusader, reporter, an early activist for racial justiceRosa Parks:  civil rights activist, especially known for desegregating buses in Montgomery, Alabama More Elizabeth Fry: prison reform, mental asylum reform, reform of convict shipsWangari Maathai: environmentalist, educator Writers Sappho: poet of ancient GreeceAphra Behn: first woman to make a living through writing; dramatist, novelist, translator, and poetLady Murasaki: wrote  whats considered the worlds first novel,  The Tale of GenjiHarriet Martineau: wrote about economics, politics, philosophy, religionJane Austen: wrote popular novels of the Romantic periodCharlotte Bronte: along with her sister Emily, author of key early 19th century novels by womenEmily Dickinson: inventive poet and recluseSelma Lagerlof: first woman to win Nobel Prize for LiteratureToni Morrison:  first African American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993)Alice Walker:  author of  The Color Purple; Pulitzer Prize; recovered work of Zora Neale Hurston; worked against female circumcision