13 female pioneers featured in International Women’s Day’s Google Doodle

Ida Wells

Ida Wells wrote prolifically on the fight for civil rights. She quickly established herself as a writer to be heard, which lead to her becoming the editor for Free Speech and Headlight at 25 years old.

 

Lotifa El Nadi

Egypt’s first female pilot born in 1907 in Cairo. Rebelling against her family, she worked as a secretary at a flying school in exchange for lessons. Her achievements received worldwide coverage when she flew over the pyramids and won several international flying races.

Frida Kahlo

The Mexican painter and activist’s work has been celebrated internationally by feminists for it’s realistic depiction of the female experience and of Mexican traditions.

Lina Bo Bardi

A Brazilian architect who is celebrated for her furniture designs. She devoted her life to the promotion of the social and cultural potential of designing and architecture. She designed the São Paulo Museum of Art in Brazil.

Olga Skorokhodova

Skorokhodova was a researcher who focused on deaf and blind communication. Her work has been imperative to the progression and growth of deaf and blind students.

Miriam Makeba

A singer and actress, Makeba was very vocal about civil rights and utilised her platform by speaking about oppression in South Africa.

She used her fame and success as a platform to speak about the oppression in South Africa.

Sally Ride

In 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. Because of her gender, she was asked questions such as, “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” Afterwards her space career, she became a professor of physics and wrote a book based around climate change.

Halet Cambel

Born in 1916, Cambel became the first Muslim women to compete in the Olympics as a fencer at the 1936 Berlin games. At the end of the Second World War, she trained as an architect and later worked as an academic in Turkey and Germany.