From time to time, people publish lists of "top 100" of women in history. As I think about who I'd 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.
Below my list, there's a link where you can suggest your own favorites for "top 100 women in world history."
Women's Rights
- European and British: Olympe de Gouges, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Martineau, the Pankhursts, Simone de Beauvoir
- Americans: Judith Sargent Murray, Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem
Heads of state:
- Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance: Hatshepsut, Cleopatra of Egypt, Galla Placidia, Boudicca (or Boadaceia) of the Celts, Empress Theodora, Queen Isabella, Elizabeth I of England
- Modern: Catherine the Great of Russia, Christina of Sweden, Queen Victoria, Cixi (Tz'u-hsi or Hsiao-ch'in), Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino
More Politics
- Asian: Sarojini Naidu
- European and British: Joan of Arc, Madame de Stael
- American: Barbara Jordan, Margaret Chase Smith, Eleanor Roosevelt
Religion
- European and British: Theodora, Hildegard of Bingen, Princess Olga of Kiev, Jeanne d'Albret
- American: Mary Baker Eddy
Inventors and Scientists
Medicine and Nursing
- Trota or Trotula, Florence Nightingale, Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Social Reform
- Americans: Jane Addams, Frances Willard, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, Ida Wells-Barnett, Rosa Parks
- More: Elizabeth Fry, Wangari Maathai
