Inspirational Women you may not have heard of?

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says “I’m possible!”

Audrey Hepburn

I love finding articles about amazing women and I found a brilliant one in the week, here’s a few amazing heroic women that personally, I’d never heard of that I wanted to share with you!

Constance Smedley

"Constance Smedley (1876 - 1941) was an author, playwright, and founder of the International Lyceum Clubs. Her life is breath taking due to the amount she got done and her commitment to improving professional opportunities for women from all backgrounds. She had an illustration published in Pall Mall magazine at 16, went on to publish articles and novels often focusing on women’s emancipation, staged a historical ‘Pageant of Progress’ with 1,300 performers, and established a theatre company ‘the Greenleaf Theatre’ with her husband. She also established the International Lyceum Clubs which provided professional women of all backgrounds with institutional support - she was determined to create a world in which women could compete equally with men. Smedley was committed to internationalism, and she wanted to create new, democratic opportunities for cultural exchange. Although the first Clubhouse was established in London in 1904, by the 1920s, 28 branches had been founded in 13 countries and across 3 continents, including China and Australia. Smedley did all of this whilst suffering from physical disability throughout her life (likely caused by childhood polio), travelling around the world in a wheelchair and on crutches. She died in 1941 after several years of illness, living quietly in West Wycombe, which has likely contributed to her later obscurity."

Dr Zoë Thomas, lecturer in the history of 19th Century Britain and the Wider World at the University of Birmingham

Lillian ‘Big Lil’ Bilocca

"Another of my favourite women from history has got to be Lillian ‘Big Lil’ Bilocca. Lil was an ordinary working-class woman from Hull, who worked in the city’s fishing industry as a cod skinner. The men in Lil’s community worked on fishing trawlers in the Atlantic – an incredibly dangerous job where men often died because of almost non-existent health and safety measures. In 1968 when 58 men tragically died in the space of a month, Lil decided that enough was enough. Together with other Hull women she launched a petition, gathered hundreds of women for demonstrations, and eventually travelled to London to pressure the government for change. Lil was amazing because she used her voice at a time when women like her were expected to stay silent, and refused to be turned away from spaces where she wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be, like on the docks (where only men were allowed) or in the buildings of Whitehall. I love her story because it shows how ordinary women can change the course of history if they put their minds to it."

Charlotte Tomlinson, historian of modern British history at the University of Leeds

Ada Lovelace

"Science, like all the other professions, was essentially forbidden to women for centuries. Those few women who broke the barriers of convention were deprived of much of the recognition they deserved in their lifetimes, and were often dismissed as assistants to the men, who naturally took the credit. For example, Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852) the daughter of the poet Byron, was a brilliant mathematician who worked with Charles Babbage - considered the father of computing. However, Ada published work describing how codes could be created for Babbage’s ‘analytical engine’ using both letters and numbers which surpassed his work. She was the first person who proposed how such an engine could be given a series of instructions to follow – essentially, she created computer programming by doing this! At the time of publication in the 19th century, her work was ignored, and her ground-breaking contribution was not discovered until the 1950s."

Dr Anne Whitehouse, author and PhD scientist

Dorothy Height

"Some of the most famous names of the American Civil Rights movement are men, including Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, with the women of the movement often forgotten. Dorothy Height, who died in 2010, spoke openly about the sexism she experienced within the civil rights movement, challenging this by working with other women to establish women’s political organisations such as the National Women’s Political Caucus. Height engaged white women in the movement, highlighting the particular struggles faced by African American women who experience both sexism and racism. The National Women’s Political Caucus still exists today, showing the extent and importance of Dorothy Height’s political activism."

Kate Sang, Professor of Gender and Employment Studies at Edinburgh Business School

The Spitfire Women

"When many people think about pilots in World War Two, they will imagine a dashing young man flying a Spitfire or a Lancaster bomber. However, in many ways, the most daring pilots were the women who worked in the Air Transport Auxiliary. The Spitfire Women, or Attagirls, delivered planes to the RAF and flew without any supporting defence. These women also had to fight the ingrained sexism as they challenged the prevailing gender norms of the early twentieth century. Called the Spitfire Women, the pilots flew different planes in the war including Lancaster Bombers. Despite working in very dangerous and challenging conditions, these women are rarely recognised as heroes of the War even though they worked tirelessly for their country."

Kate Sang, Professor of Gender and Employment Studies at Edinburgh Business School

What’s on this week?