For centuries, societies around the world have viewed women as the weaker sex. Social decorum gave them strict parameters to abide by, leaving women as objects of beauty whose only job was to tend to the home. Over the years, mavericks in every field burst out, paving the way for women to pursue whatever dreams they had.

1. Clara Barton: Clara was a self-taught hospital nurse during the American Civil War. In her early years, she was an an educator and a patent clerk. After the Civil War broke out, a group of wounded soldiers came to Washington D.C. where she was living at the time. To help the war efforts, she decided to nurse as many soldiers as possible. Her efforts to help the army went beyond nursing, and she began providing supplies to the soldiers. There were times when she would place herself in harm’s way by going out onto the battlefield to help the men. After the war, she opened an office to help families find their missing loved ones. There were many who were prisoners of war or who had died without any information on them.A doctor recommended that she take a break from her work, so she decided to go to Switzerland. This is where she was introduced to the Red Cross. Upon returning to the USA, she opened the American Red Cross, which continues to benefit countless lives across the country.

1. Marie Curie: She is a Polish and French physicist and chemist who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. And, even more remarkable, she received two Nobel Prizes in two different fields of science. Marie was an avid researcher and wrote numerous articles on her scientific findings. She spent a large portion of her studies on radiation. Her first Nobel Prize was in 1903 in Physics for her and her husband’s work on the “radiation phenomena”. She found that tumorous cells decreased after being exposed to radiation. The second Nobel Prize was awarded to Curie in 1911 in Chemistry for her discovery of the elements radium and polonium. She greatly expanded our understanding and knowledge of how elements interact and influence one another. Her scientific findings laid the groundwork for modern medicine.
2. Sarah Breedlove: Sarah was the first self-made millionaire woman, and she was African American. Sarah was a business savvy entrepreneur who saw a need that she knew how to solve. African American hair follicles need to be treated differently than Caucasian hair follicles. The beauty treatments of the time left African American women’s hair dry and brittle, and it would continuously break. She developed a method to transform brittle, lackluster hair into long, luxurious hair. Sarah created Madam C. J. Walker, complete with shampoo, pomade, and other products to create “The Walker Look”. Her efforts not only gave many African American women confidence and beauty, but she greatly advanced all women as serious contenders in the working world.
3. Jeannette Rankin: The early 1900s were a volatile time in American history. The first World War is here, the Great Depression, and the women’s suffrage movement were all in full swing. Jeannette lead the charge by becoming the first elected official to hold federal office in the USA. She was elected from Montana representing the Republican party. She was influential in initiating the 19th Amendment, which made it legal for all women to have the right to vote. She was a pioneer in Congress and the political spectrum. Rankin successfully shed light on the woman’s perspective in a typically male-dominated arena, opening up countless doors for other women.
4. Valentina Tereshkova: Tereshkova was a Russian cosmonaut, engineer, and politician, who was the first woman to go in space. During the 1960’s, American and Russia were in a race to space. Both countries were challenging each other’s dominance and wanted to reach the moon before the other. Valentina was chosen out of 400 others to join the Russian space program. She was in space for three days and took significant photographs of the horizon, which was used for scientific advancements. She paved the way for women in science all around the globe.

Regardless of what area you are looking, you’ll find a remarkable women who took bold steps to blaze a path for others. All areas of work are valued, and everybody should have the ability to choose what passion to follow. These women saw that and fought so others could go even further.