The great men of history are and have always been a big topic of discussion and the great women of history have often been left in the shadows. Women have started getting recognized recently, but it is important to acknowledge powerful women from across the globe and history. For this, I asked the people in my life who are from these continents for a powerful woman they believe everybody should know.
The first woman is Claudia Jones from North America. Claudia Jones was a Trinidadian activist and journalist. Time Magazine describes her as “one of the most influential black radical and feminist intellectuals of the 20th century.” Jones was a social and political activist and journalist who advocated for Black women and workers in the U.S. as well as England. She moved to New York City in the 1920s and joined the Communist Party. She worked to broaden Marxist Theory by centering her work on women, gender, and race. She wrote her groundbreaking article, “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman” which highlighted the triple oppression of race, class, and gender and laid the foundation for the concept of intersectionality.
The second woman is Policarpa Salavarrieta from South America. The Banrepcultural Encyclopedia says that Salavarrieta is “without a doubt, the most popular heroine of the era of terror imposed on New Granada at the beginning of the 19th century, during the Spanish reconquest.” She is best known for her espionage work: sewing for the wives of royalists to hear news, enemy movements, orders, and information that was used for the ambushes organized by the guerrillas. She is often referred to as the Heroine of Independence.
The third woman is Artemisia Gentileschi from Europe. Gentileschi was an Italian painter. She was the first woman to join Florence’s Academy of Design and one of the few women to specialize in history painting rather than still life. At the age of seventeen, she was raped by another artist who was friends with her father. Her father sued the rapist, but Gentilesch needed to testify against him. When doing so, she was tortured with a thumbscrew used as a lie detector. The BBC describes her as someone “who defied her rape and torture through masterful paintings.” She paints Christian figures in grotesque ways, often seen as “revenge in oil paint.”
The fourth woman is Halide Edip Adıvar from Asia. Adıvar was a novelist and pioneer in Anatolia’s Turkish War of Liberation. On May 23, 1919, when Istanbul’s Sultanahmet Square was experiencing one of its most crowded events with more than 200,000 people, she stood for a speech against the British, French, and Ottoman Empire. During a time of war, when women were ridiculed and belittled, she spoke to an entire community, bringing hope to people struggling every day. She was a social, political, and military force that played a crucial role in the independence of the Turkish nation.
The fifth woman is Yaa Asantewaa, from Africa. Asantewaa was an influential Ashanti queen, from present-day Ghana. In 1896, the Ashanti people began to rebel against the British colonizers who retaliated by capturing and exiling the king of the Ashanti. As the queen, Asantewaa railed troops and inspired the leaders of the community to defend the people by saying that “if the men did not, women would”. She was captured and exiled to Seychelles, but her empowerment led to rebellion for years, turning her into a national symbol.
The sixth woman is Margaret Tucker, from Oceania. Tucker was an Aboriginal activist and writer. At 12, police took and sent her to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for Aboriginal Girls, and she spent 11 years serving white families. She began fighting for Indigenous rights in the 1930s and became one of the founders of the Australian Aborigines’ League. She was the first Aboriginal woman to be appointed to the Victorian Aborigines Welfare Board and join the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. Thanks to and in honour of her work and activism, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1968.
