Women Who Thought Different

After I first learned of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman and the other women who fought in the Civil War, back in 1998, I started keeping a list of notable women who did important things. Many of the women who ended up on my list were women I had never heard of, while others were quite well-known (to me, at least). I surveyed other women in my life and asked them for the names of women who thought different, and added them to the list. Here it is, with admittedly somewhat arbitrary categories–so many of these women really belong in multiple categories).
I’m curious–how many of these women do you know? And who are some women you’d add?

Women Who Thought Different

Authors
Aphra Behn
Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz
Ellen Glasgow
Kate Chopin
Virginia Wolfe
Toni Morrison
Maya Angelou
Adrienne Rich (poet)
Sandra Cisneros
Mary Wollenstonecraft
Karolina Pavlova
Harper Lee

Artists
Georgia O’Keefe
Judy Chicago

Musicians
Mahalia Jackson
Joan Baez
Marian Anderson
Yoko Ono
Madonna
Ella Fitzgerald
Bessie Smith

Journalists
Jane Grey Swisshelm
Margaret Fuller
Nellie Bly
Connie Chung
Katie Couric
Diane Sawyer
Pearl Stewart (1st African American to edit major national daily newspaper, the Oakland Tribune)

Politicians
Margaret Thacher
Golda Meir
Joan d’Arc
Queen Elizabeth 1
Madeleine Albright
Mary Queen of Scots
Cleopatra
Barbara Boxer
Geraldine Farraro
Eleanor Roosevelt
Hillary Clinton
Condoleeza Rice

Lawyers/Judges
Sandra Day O’Connor
Myra Bradwell (1st U.S. lawyer)
Clara Foltz (1st CA lawyer)

Miscellaneous
Sally Ride
Dr. Joyce Brothers
Annie Oakley
Madam C.J. Walker (1st African American millionaire)
Joan Brumberg (social historian)
Emma Goldman (anarchist)

Activists
Mother Teresa
Dr. Cicely Saunders (founded modern hospice movement)
Elizabeth Packard (lobbied for rights of the insane)
Rosa Parks
Clara Barton
Florence Nightengale

Athletes
Florence Joyner (Flo Jo)
Billie Jean King (tennis player)
Elizabeth Robinson (100 m. gold medalist, 1928 Olympics)
Wilma Rudolph (first American woman to win three gold medals at a single Olympics)

Film/Actresses/TV Personalities
Oprah Winfrey
Marilyn Monroe
Jane Fonda
Shirley MacLaine
Jane Campion

Fashion Icons
Twiggy
Coco Chanel
Princess Diana
Jacqueline Onassis
Mary Kay
Elizabeth Arden

Suffragettes/Women’s Rights Activists
Lucretia Mott
Susan B. Anthony
Gloria Steinem
Betty Friedan
Mary Ware Bennett (advocated birth control for all women)
Maria W. Stewart (1st U.S. woman to give a speech to a mixed crowd)
Sarah and Angelina Grimke (abolitionists)
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Margaret Sanger (birth control advocate)
Charlotte Perkins Gillman
Helen Gurley Brown (author)

Soldiers/Military
Deborah Samson (Revolutionary War soldier)
Sybil Luddington (known as the “female Paul Revere”)
Civil War Spies:
Belle Boyd
Rose O’Neal Greenhow
Sarah Slater
Mrs. E.H. Baker
Pauline Cushman
Emma Edmonds
Elizabeth Van Lew
Mary Bowser
Civil War Soldiers:
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman
Jennie Hodgers
Sarah Emma Edmonds
Martha Lindley
Mary Brown
Elizabeth Finnern
Elizabeth Niles
Charlotte Hope