Jeanne Mance was born in Langres, France, to a minor nobility family. From an early age, she decided not to marry and serve God and people in need. When the Thirty Years War reached her region, she started to work with charitable societies, developed nursing skills, and even attended to the victims of the plague that burst in her area and killed more than 5,000 people in Langres. In 1640, at the age of 34, Mance was recruited by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve as a member of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, to travel to the New World and establish a new French colony on the Island of Montréal. Her role in the mission was to find a hospital for the settlers. Devoted to the cause, she persuaded donors to finance the mission and recruit more members. Thanks to her, the donations doubled, and the number of new settlers expanded from 8 to 38. Nine of them were women. On May 9th, 1641, the expedition embarked on three months journey across the Atlantic, reaching the Island of Montreal on May 17th, 1642. On her arrival, she got the responsibility for all “indoors,” including food, housing, health, and property, while Maisonneuve was in charge of “outdoors and war.” In that same year, Mance began to operate a hospital in her home, and within three years, she founded the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, serving as a nurse, director, and treasurer. The hospital was small, containing only eight beds (six for men and two for women). The equipment was poor, and the funds were running out. In addition, the living conditions were difficult, the climate was harsh, and many of the first settlers left the colony. Given the circumstances, in 1650, 44 years old Mance traveled to France and managed to recruit more donations and more colonists, one of them was Marguerite Bourgeoys, a French nun and the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal. Seven years later, Mance went on another recruiting mission in France, returning with enough money and three nuns who helped in the hospital. With the new staff, Mance was able to work less at the hospital and focused on the colony’s administration. She died at the age of 67 after a long illness. Read more...

Sirima Ratwatte Dias Bandaranaike was born in Ratnapura, British Ceylon, the oldest of six children of an aristocratic Kandyan family. She grew up in political surroundings, her father was a member of the Ceylonese senate, and many of her relatives held high positions in the government. At the age of 19, she became involved in social activities, collecting and distributing medicine and food to people in distant villages and improving the living conditions of women in those areas. She joined the Social Service League and served as its treasurer until she was married. In 1940, at the age of 24, she met Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, S.W.R.D., a wealthy politician, and their wedding got referred to as “the event of the century.” For the next two decades, Bandaranaike devoted most of her time to raising her three children, helping her husband in his political activities, and continued with her volunteering work. She joined the Lanka Mahila Samiti – the largest women’s voluntary organization in Sri Lanka and served as its secretary. She also was an active member of various charities, including the Cancer Society, the Nurses Welfare Association, the All-Ceylon Buddhist Women’s Association, and the Ceylon National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis. In 1950, following Sri Lanka’s independence from British rule, Bandaranaike’s husband had founded the nationalist Sri Lankan Freedom Party, SLFP, which took power in 1956. S.W.R.D. had served as the prime minister of Ceylon until his assassination by a Buddhist monk in 1959. Within a few months, she got elected as the SLFP leader, and when the party won the general elections of 1960, 44 years old, Bandaranaike became the first female prime minister of Sri Lanka and in the world. In addition to this position, she took on the role of Minister of Defense and External Affairs. During her first term, she continued her husband’s social-economic policy and international relations plans. Her reforms benefited the native population, secured Buddhist statues, and made Sinhala the official language of Ceylon. In 1964, a continuing economic crisis and the SLFP coalition with the Marxist party had affected her popularity, and she lost the 1965 elections. She remained leader of the opposition, and by the next elections, Bandaranaike formed an agreement with the other left parties, which secured her win in 1970. In this term, she established a new constitution, removed British elements from governmental institutions, and changed the English name of Ceylon to its ancient name of Sri Lanka. Economic stagnation and the government’s failure to suppress ethnic rivalries had resulted in a crushing defeat in the 1977 elections, in which SLFP won only eight seats out of 168. The new government set a commission to investigate claims against Bandaranaike, accusing her of misusing her position as prime minister for personal use. She was found guilty and was stripped of her civic rights and expelled from Parliament. However, in 1986, she was granted a pardon from the serving prime minister J.R. Jayawardene. Afterward, she unsuccessfully ran for the presidency in the 1989 elections but secured a seat in Parliament as the opposition leader. In 1994, after 17 years out of office, 78 years old Bandaranaike made an unprecedented comeback when her daughter, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, won the presidential election (and became the first woman to serve in this position), appointed her as prime minister. In 2000, at the age of 84, Bandaranaike resigned from her post due to failing health. She died only a few months later of a heart attack. Read more...

Born Indira Nehru in Allahabad, India, to a Kashmiri Pandit family. Her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, played a pivotal role in India’s struggle for independence from Britain and later became its first Prime Minister. In her early years, she was homeschooled, and in her youth, she learned in various institutes in Switzerland. After graduation, she attended the Vishwa Bharati in Santiniketan for a year before moving to the UK to study history, political science, and economics at the University of Oxford. In 1940, while in Switzerland for medical treatment, Nazi Germany rapidly conquered Europe, and Gandhi escaped to India. Two years later, she married the freedom fighter Feroze Gandhi, whom she met a couple of years earlier in England. Their marriage lasted until 1960 when he died of a heart attack. They had two boys, Sanjay and Rajiv. In 1947, Gandhi’s father became India’s first prime minister, and she served as his hostess instead of her mother, who died ten years earlier. In this position, she learned the fine details of diplomacy and political relationships. In 1955, at the age of 38, Gandhi, who was already a member of her father’s Congress Party, became a member of its working committee, and in 1959 she was appointed as the party’s president. In 1964, following her father’s death, 47 years old Gandhi was elected to the Rajya Sabha – the upper chamber of the Indian parliament and was nominated the minister of information and broadcasting. Two years later, the serving Prime minister had died suddenly, and Gandhi was elected as the leader of the Congress Party, thus becoming the 3rd Prime minister and the first woman in India to serve in this position. She succeeded in maintaining the title by a narrow win in the elections of 1967. With little support from the Congress Party, Gandhi nationalized the banks, and the elders of the Congress Party tried to force her out of her role as the party leader and prime minister. In response, she formed a new division within the party, having most Congress ministers on her side. The popularity of the New Congress Party guaranteed their win in the 1971 elections. As prime minister, Gandhi led India to numerous national achievements, including the Green Revolution, in which the government adopted modern agriculture technologies that turned India into an industrial system. That solved the chronic food shortages in India and eventually even led to a surplus of grains. She chose a peaceful solution to end the violent conflict between East and West Pakistan and was the first government leader to recognize the newly formed country of Bangladesh. Alongside her accomplishments, she was criticized for her authoritarian methods and government corruption. In 1975, she was found guilty of dishonest election practices and using government resources for party purposes. Her response was to declare a state of emergency throughout the country, imprisoning thousands of her political opponents and forming new laws and policies that limited the personal freedom of the citizens. After two years of emergency rule, she has lost the 1977 election and went to jail for her charges. Within only one year, she won a seat at the Lok Sabha – the lower chamber of the Indian parliament, and in 1980, she became prime minister. In that same year, her oldest son, who served as her chief political adviser, died in an airplane crash, and she began to prepare her second son, Rajiv, for the party’s leadership. During the early 1980s, various nationalistic groups demanded independence from India’s central government, in particular Sikh separatists, which used a violent approach to receive their demands. In June 1984, Gandhi ordered the army to attack the separatists who occupied and fortified the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, which resulted in the death of hundreds of Sikhs. A few months later, two of her Sikh bodyguards shot and killed her. She was 67 years old. Read more...

Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern was born in Hamilton, New Zealand. She attended Morrinsville College, where she was the student representative on the school’s board of trustees. In her teens, Ardern became involved in politics, influenced by her aunt, a member of the Labour Party, and soon became a leading figure in the Young Labour sector of the party. Ardern studied politics and public relations at the University of Waikato. Then, she started working as a researcher for Labour MP (member of parliament), Phil Goff, and then on the staff of New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, whom Ardern referred to as her mentor and political hero. In 2005, at the age of 25, Ardern traveled to London for her Overseas experience – a traditional practice of young New Zealanders, in which they go abroad to work and travel. There, she worked for two years as an associate director for Better Regulation Executive at the cabinet office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In 2007, she was elected president of the International Union of Socialist Youth. In the following year, she ran for MP of the Waikato district, and though she lost the elections, she did enter the House of Representatives as a list candidate, becoming its youngest member. Ardern was appointed as the Labour’s spokesperson for Youth Affairs and served on the Regulations Review and the Justice and Electoral select committees. In 2011, 31 years old Ardern ran for the seat representing Auckland Central. Her opponent, Nikki Kaye of the New Zealand National Party, was only five months older than her, and the race between them was called Battle of the Babes. Ardern lost by only 717 votes but earned back her place as MP and was named Social Development spokesperson of her party. In the elections of 2014, she lost the seat of Auckland Central representative but received the parliament role of spokesperson for Arts, Culture, and Heritage, Children, Justice, and Small Business. In March 2017, Ardern got elected unanimously by her party to fill the vacant seat of representing the district of Mount Albert in Auckland. Two months before the parliamentary elections, the Labour’s prospect seemed bleak, and the serving leader of the party, Andrew Little, stepped down from his position, assuring Ardern takes his place. On August 1st, with no other opponents, 37 years old Ardern was elected leader of the Labour party, the youngest leader in its history. In her campaign, Ardern called for the decriminalization of abortion, free university education, and the formation of programs to decrease poverty among children. Her down-to-earth approach, charisma, and charm drew the voters, especially women and the younger population, and on election day, the Labour received 46 seats, while the National Party received 56 seats. Neither of the parties earned votes to form a majority government, which made the New Zealand First party, which received 9 seats, the party that will determine which party will head the government. After weeks of negotiations, the leader of New Zealand First announced on national television that he chose to partner with the Labour. Ardern heard the news with the rest of the country. On October 26th, 2017, at age 37, Ardern swore into office, becoming the 40th Prime minister of New Zealand and the third woman in this position. As Prime minister, Ardern received acclaim for her responses during some of the worst crises New Zealand ever experienced. Days after the mosque attacks in Greater Christchurch in March 2019, which resulted in the death of 50 people and more than 50 injured, Ardern announced the reformation of gun laws in New Zealand. She gained praise for her leadership after the volcanic explosion in Whakaari/White Island, which claimed 21 lives, and her image hugging the first responders became iconic. Her “go hard and go early” approach to the COVID-19 pandemic was admired worldwide. Under her leadership, New Zealand was one of the first countries to close its borders and impose a nationwide lockdown, thus maintaining the spread of the virus by August, while the rest of the world was still in lockdown. The elections of 2019 got postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but when it was held in October 2020, Ardern won her second term as Prime minister with a landslide victory, receiving 49% of the votes, making the Labour the first party to form a majority government without a coalition partner since 1993. Read more...

Waris Dirie was born near Galkayo, Somalia, one of twelve children in a nomadic herdsmen family. When she was five years old, she and two of her sisters underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) – female circumcision, a common practice in her tribal tradition. Growing up, she looked after the family’s herd, and by the age of 6, Dirie was responsible for taking about 60 goats and sheep to graze in the desert. At 13, her father had announced that she would marry a 60 years old man who traded her for five camels. Backed up by her mother, she managed to escape from her home. After a long and dangerous journey through the desert, she arrived at relatives in Mogadishu and from there to London, where she worked as a maid for her uncle, who was the Somali ambassador to the United Kingdom. When the uncle’s term ended, Dirie rented a room at the YMCA, earned her living as a cleaner in McDonald’s, and took English classes in the evenings. In 1983, at 18, she was spotted by the photographer Mike Goss who asked to take a picture of her. Soon after, she began to receive offers from casting agents. In 1987, 22 years old Dirie had her first big modeling job with the renowned fashion photographer Terence Donovan for the Pirelli Calendar. Afterward, her career took off with advertisements for Chanel, Revlon, and Levi’s, runway shows in New York, Milan, and Paris, and appearances in the top fashion magazines, including Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. In 1997, aged 32, at the pick of her modeling career, Dirie had an interview for Marie Claire magazine, in which she spoke for the first time about the FGM she had as a child. Following her brave testimony, she got nominated as a UN Special Ambassador against female genital mutilation. In this position, she traveled around the world, giving speeches on the subject of FGM, raising the global awareness of the act, and promoting her mission to prevent future generations of girls and women from suffering as she did. At the time, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 130 million women had undergone FGM, and in Somalia, Dirie’s homeland, 98% of the women had the procedure. In 1998, Dirie published her autobiography Desert Flower, in which she details her story as an FGM victim and her journey from a child bride in Somalia to a supermodel in the UK. The book became a bestseller, sold more than a million copies worldwide, and was adapted into a film and a musical. In the early 2000s, Dirie retired from modeling to dedicate her time to activism. In 2001, she founded the Desert Dawn Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises funds for clinics and schools in Somalia. The following year, she established the Waris Dirie Foundation that focused on abolishing FGM. In 2009, she co-founded the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights, and in 2013, she opened in Berlin the first holistic medical center in the world for the treatment and care of FGM victims, followed by other centers in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Paris. Dirie continues to advocate for the cause, giving speeches in front of world leaders around the world urging them to take action against FGM that is still happening in many cultures around the globe. Read more...

Born Fannie Lou Townsend in Montgomery County, Mississippi, the youngest of 20 children of sharecroppers. When she was two years old, the family moved to a plantation in Sunflower County, and since the age of 6, she was picking cotton and attending a one-room school. At 12, she left school to work on the field, picking an average of 200–300 pounds of cotton a day. In 1945, at the age of 28, she married Perry “Pap” Hamer and moved to the Marlow plantation, where he worked as a tractor driver. There, she was the only literate worker, and the plantation owner made her the timekeeper. During the 1950s, after attending the Regional Council of Negro Leadership conference, she became involved in the civil rights movement. In 1962, at the age of 45, she answered a call from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register to vote. She failed the unfair literacy test required for registration and got arrested for her attempt. Afterward, she was fired from the plantation and had to hide from the violent responses of white racists. On her third attempt, she passed the test only to realize she is not allowed to register to vote without two poll tax receipts – a method that aimed to fail black people to vote after the 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. After those events, Hamer became more involved with the SNCC, teaching classes and acting as a field secretary, traveling to gather signatures for voter registration. In 1963, on her way back from a pro-citizenship conference, 46 years old Hamer, alongside other black women, was arrested in Winona, Mississippi, for sitting in a “whites-only” café. In those four days she spent in the local jail, Hamer and her fellow activists were brutally beaten. This event left her with lifelong injuries, including kidney damage, leg damage, and a blood clot in her left eye. Soon after, Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), challenging the regional Democratic party’s attempts to prevent black participation. Within four years, the MFDP had succeeded in its mission, and Hamer was a member of Mississippi’s first integrated delegation. In 1972 she was elected as a national party delegate. In 1968, Hamer founded the Pig Bank, suppling black farmers pigs to breed and slaughter, providing them nutritious food and means to earn money. In the following year, this initiative expanded into the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), buying land for black people to farm collectively. Hamer raised enough funds to purchase 640 acres, where she established 200 housing units, a coop store, and a sewing workshop. Over time, the FFC offered more and more services for its residents, including a housing agency, a scholarship fund, and financial counseling. In 1971, Hamer co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus, promoting the notion that women who act together are by default a voting majority, regardless of race or ethnicity. In the following years, she suffered numerous nervous breakdowns that required hospitalizations and was also diagnosed with breast cancer. She died of complications of the disease at the age of 59. Read more...

Frances Lillian Willard was born in Franklin, California, to a family of ranchers. Her parents were abolitionists, woman suffrage supporters, and temperance advocates. At 15, after insisting on receiving a formal education, she was sent to a boarding school in Pittsfield, Maine. After graduation, she joined her family that by then moved to Verde Valley in the Arizona Territory. There, she worked as a teacher in several rural communities. At the age of 24, she married John Lee Munds, and a few years later, the couple moved to Prescott, where her husband became the county sheriff. Munds rejected the notion of a “women’s sphere” – a belief that women need to focus on domestic life, and she continued working after having children. She joined the Arizona Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association on her arrival to Prescott. In 1898, at the age of 32, she was elected secretary of the organization. This position allowed her to reach out to Mormon women to increase supporters for the territorial legislature to pass a suffrage bill. Devoted to the cause, she was among the few women who attended legislative sessions, lobbying for women’s issues. In 1903, the suffrage bill passed in the Arizona Congress but got vetoed by the territorial Governor. In 1909, at 43, Munds was elected president of the Arizona Equal Suffrage Association. In the following year, at Arizona constitutional convention, she introduced a proposal to grant women’s suffrage, but it did not pass and left out the state’s constitution. In 1912, after Arizona joined the Union and became a state, Munds once again pushed for women’s right to vote and managed to gather enough men to support her ballot initiative for women’s suffrage. This time, her efforts finally paid off, and on November 5, 1912, Arizona became the 8th state to grant women the right to vote. In 1914, at the age of 48, Munds was elected to the Arizona state senate, representing Yavapai County, becoming the first woman senator in Arizona and the second state senator in the US alongside fellow senator Rachel Berry. During her two-year term in office, Munds served on the Land Committee and chaired the Committee on Education and Public Institutions. She also introduced and passed two bills – increasing the widow tax exemption and raising the minimum marriage age to 16 for women and 18 for men. In 1918, Munds ran for Secretary of State but was defeated in the primaries. Afterward, she retired from public life but remained active in local politics and women’s issues for the rest of her life. Munds died at the age of 82. Read more...

Ella Rosa Giovanna Oliva Tambussi was born in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, the only child of an Italian immigrant family. After high school, she attended Mount Holyoke College, earning a B.A and then an M.A in economics and sociology. During WW2, she worked as a researcher for the War Manpower Commission in Washington, DC, later serving as assistant director of research until 1946. In 1942, at the age of 23, she married Thomas Grasso. At the time, she became involved in politics, joining the League of Women Voters and working as a speechwriter for the Connecticut Democratic Party. She became more and more active in the local politics, and in 1952, at 33, Grasso was elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives and reelected again in 1954. In this position, she fought against housing discrimination and for equal rights legislation. In 1955, during her second term, she became the first woman to be elected floor leader. In 1958, 39 years old Grasso got nominated as Connecticut Secretary of the State, serving in this position for 12 years. Grasso turned the office into a “people’s lobby” encouraging the citizens to seek solutions from their representatives. During this period, Grasso was the first woman appointed as chair of the Democratic State Platform Committee. She also was a member of the Platform Drafting Committee for the Democratic National Convention of 1960 and co-chaired the Resolutions Committees of the Democratic National Conventions in 1964 and 1968. In 1970, at 51, Grasso was elected to the U.S Congress, and then again in 1972. In this position, she served on the Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans’ Affairs Committee.   On January 8th, 1975, 56 years old Grasso became the first woman to be elected governor of Connecticut and the first in the U.S to be elected governor in her own right, without having been the spouse or widow of a former governor. She served in this position for 6 years after been reelected in 1976. In early 1980, Grasso was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, resigning from governorship on New Year’s Eve. Grasso died five weeks after leaving office when she is only 61 years old. Read more...

Born Lydia Chapin to a wealthy family in Mendon, Massachusetts. At 19, she married Josiah Taft, and they settled in nearby Uxbridge. There, Taft’s husband was one of the wealthiest landowners of the town and its largest taxpayer. He was among the town’s leaders and served as a selectman and town moderator. In 1756, her eldest son died, and soon after, her husband. At 44, Taft became a wealthy widow with underage children. Her husband’s death occurred just before an important town vote on the financial support of the ongoing French and Indian War. At the time, women were not allowed to vote, but the town needed many supporters to vote for the war funding. With no adult man to represent the Taft family, the people of Uxbridge granted Taft the right to vote as a proxy of her late husband. During an open town meeting on October 30th, 1756, Taft voted in favor of funding the British regiments engaged in the war. On that day, Taft made history as the first recorded woman to legally vote in colonial America, preceding the ratification of the 19th amendment in 164 years. In the following years, Taft had voted in two more town meetings – in 1758 and 1765. Taft died at the age of 66. Read more...

Carol Elizabeth Moseley was born and raised in a segregated neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. While in high school, her parents got divorced, and she moved in with her grandmother. After graduation, she studied Political Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Afterward, she studied law at the University of Chicago, earning her Juris Doctor degree at 25. While at law school, she met Michael Braun, and the couple married in 1973. In the same year, Moseley Braun began to work as a prosecutor in the US Attorney’s office in Chicago, dealing primarily with civil cases. After four years, she took time off to be at home with her newborn son till her neighbors recruited her to run for the state legislature. She served for 10 years, promoting health care, gun control, and education reform. In 1988, when Moseley Braun was elected to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds, she became the first African-American to serve in an executive position in Cook County. In November 1992, after defeating her Democratic opponent, Moseley Braun ran in the primary election for the US Senate. On her win, she became the first African-American woman to be elected to the US Senate, the first African-American US Senator from the Democratic Party, and the first female Senator from Illinois. In her single term as Senator, she supported social causes, such as minority rights, pro-choice bills, child support bills, and budgets for job training of youth and senior citizens. A year after losing the re-election, she was nominated as the US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. In 2003, Moseley Braun began her campaign for the Democratic Party presidential elections, though She dropped out of the race after reaching third in the DC primary. In 2005, she ran for mayor of Chicago, finishing fourth with only 9% of the votes. Since the early 2000s, Moseley Braun teaches political science in numerous institutes, including DePaul University and Northwestern University. Read more...