I recently saw a post like this getting spread around by a lot of friends on social media. And I think it’s important for the genders to recognize the folks who moved ALL of us forward.
I’ll be honest, it really made me stop and think.
Men of Reddit, who are your female heroes?
byu/xanthopants inAskReddit
The guys of Reddit certainly weren’t at any loss for heroes.
Here are a lot of historic women most definitely worth your attention.
1. Hedy Lamarr
Actress who also invented a frequency hopping spread spectrum communication for torpedo guidance.
– JohnnyTNT
2. Harriet Tubman
She’s f**king hard core.
Took a 2 pound iron ball to the dome to protect her brother from being whipped and just dealt with the blinding headaches for 60 years.
When she couldn’t take it anymore she got it repaired and had someone saw into her forehead with no anesthesia.
– bralma6
3. Emmy Noether
For those who don’t know, she proved that symmetries in a system directly mean a derivable conservation law.
Conservation of linear momentum? That’s a direct result of “here” being the same as “there”.
Conservation of angular momentum? That’s a direct result of facing “this way” being the same as facing “that way”.
Conservation of energy? That’s a result of “this moment in time” being the same as “that moment in time”.
Absolutely beautiful and brilliant result.
– N8CCRG
4. Lucille Ball
Didn’t take no f**kin’ s**t, did she?
She did it all at a time when women weren’t allowed to do f**kin’ any of it, and she just said “Oh, is that right? …so anyway”.
Pretty bada**
– LudusRex
5. Yosefzai Malala
Had more courage than all the men in her village put together.
As a child she stood up to the Taliban, looked one their members straight in the eye and told them they can f**k right off if they think they can stop women from getting an education.
She took an AK-47 round to the face for it and still continues her fight today.
That same year Caitlin Jenner was voted woman of the year which still p**ses me off.
– SpecialK118
6. Jeanne d’Arc
She carried the French Army on her massive shoulders to take back the Kingdom and take Orleans back from the Englishmen
– Iltruism
7. Rose Namajunas
I’ve been on her team ever since she fought Paige Van Zant.
The UFC was marketing their fight as a barbie v barbie fight cause they’re both super attractive women. So what does Rose do?
She shaves off her f**king head, and then beats the s**t out of PVZ.
She’s had some losses since then, but I know imma be in her corner till she retires.
– TapDancingA**assin
8. Poppy Northcutt
An engineer on the Apollo program.
I followed her on Twitter because of that, and found someone I could look up to politically as well.
– bokmann
9. Jacinda Ardern
My favorite Jacinda story is that when her daughter was an infant,
Jacinda would wheel her down to the waterfront in a stroller at the end of the workday just to talk to other mothers.
Seems like no matter what their occupation, mothers like hanging out.
– RealisticDelusions77
10. Rosalind Franklin
She really was the first person to elucidate the structure of DNA before Watson and Crick.
They pretty much stole her work but they still did a lot in the understanding of bonding and such.
– SeinfeldYouth
11. Sister Rosetta Tharpe
A black bis*xual woman in the 1940s and she basically pioneered the way we play the electric guitar today.
She inspired Johnny Cash, Elvis and she even put Little Richard on stage for the first time.
IMO she deserves to be a household name.
– Shakes-Fear
12. Betty White
I watched a documentary on her and it’s great how hardworking, funny, and open-minded she’s been her whole life.
Really gave a lot of people good opportunities and someone great to work for. And has been a queen for animal charities.
Total win all around, well done Betty White
– balanaise
13. Elizabeth Elliot
Her husband was Jim Elliot, a missionary to an unreached people group.
Long story short, in 1956 her husband and several of his friends were k**led by the Auca tribe.
She continued to pursue relationship with the tribe, contacting them and reaching out to them. She loved them. They were in danger of literally k**ling themselves off because of all the in fighting.
Eventually the infighting between tribes ended, and one of the men who k**led her husband is good friends with their (now adult) son.
Her story has always touched me because it shows the deep love and devotion another person can have for a complete stranger, let alone one who m**dered their most beloved person.
The whole story is really amazing.
– loveCinnamonRolls33
14. Simone Giertz
Her mentality around building sh**ty things intentionally to make it okay to not always succeed helped me with similar performance anxiety.
She’s also a very good person.
– [user deleted]
15. Mary Shelley
She was the daughter of two very famous authors, married an even more famous poet, and most of her circle was comprised of famous (male) writers like Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt.
Despite this, she still held her own and wrote a world-renowned work of literature that is arguably far more influential than anything Percy or Lord Byron.
S**t, the only people who read Byron or Percy Shelley in their entirety are academics like me, but everyone has heard of Frankenstein.
16. Jane Austen
The sheer talent and mastery over the writing craft she employed to create several novels that are still read today is kind of mind-boggling.
Especially considering she was a woman writing in the early 19th century.
– ominousobscure
17. Elizabeth Friedman
A bad**s mathematical genius who used her code breaking skills to help bring down some of the biggest mobsters in the 1930’s while they were busy running circles around law enforcement. More importantly, she was responsible for breaking up Nazi spy rings in the 1940’s, particularly in South America, and helped turn the tide of major conflicts that very possibly shifted the outcome of World War II.
And she did all of it while being mocked, dismissed, and forced to keep her work secret by order of the government. Nobody knew her contributions in taking down the Nazis until after she d**d and her work was declassified.
Everyone should know this amazing woman who sought neither accolades nor credit for doing what her male counterparts couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
– Bma1500
18. Marie Curie
One part of her life that really stuck with me was how she took up her husband’s position as professor when he d**d, becoming the first woman professor at the University of Paris.
How she moved on, even though his loss was devastating to her, is just so powerful.
– JustAnotherAviatrix
19. Debby Rihn-Harvey
She’s a retired Southwest Airlines captain, longest running member of the US Aerobatic team, has competed in 15 world championships and is on the Board of Directors of the International Aerobatics Club.
She’s also been inducted into multiple aviation halls of fame.
More importantly, as an FAA designated examiner, she tested me and granted my private pilot’s license. She’s accomplished, smart as all get out and an all around great person.
– SpaceDave83
20. Sophie Scholl
Active member of a non-violent resistance group against Nazi Germany. If I remember correctly, she was executed for distributing pamphlets promoting her cause.
She stood up for others even in the face of d**th. I deeply admire that.
– Bird-in-a-suit
21. Yelena Malyutina
ww2 soviet bomber pilot who was hit by shrapnel and still finished the mission and managed to land the bomber and then going under stomach surgery.
You can listen to her story on BBC ww2 witness podcast.
– CounterOk2933
22. Dolly Parton
She’s brilliant, brave, determined, and generous. Her charity work is incredible. And she’s quite progressive *when that’s not her cultural background*–I admire anyone who had to think out their views and go against the grain, much more than someone who has “perfect” politics because those views got approval in their community.
– intet42
23. Sabine Schmitz
A couple of years before my father’s d**th, he and my mother went to Germany to rent cars to drive on some tracks, including Nürburgring.
He very specifically wanted Sabine’s taxi service, too, because what better way to learn the best lines on the track than experience them with the master of that track?
My father was, um, quite the awkward person in public, but afaik Sabine was enthusiastic to deal with him as a typical race fan/customer and gave him tips for his private run.
This was essentially his prime bucket-list thing to do, y’know, to drive The Ring, and Sabine helped make that experience as good as it could be.
I have yet to see anything in German or English that disparages her. She seemed like a super hard-working, skilled, witty, and very, very vast driver on one of the world’s trickiest courses.
The racing world is a little darker without her.
– EwDontTouchThat
24. Yoko Shimomura
The woman is a genius composer who perhaps doesn’t get the recognition she’s earned because most of her work is for video games such as Kingdom Hearts, Mario + Luigi and Final Fantasy.
I will spend my life studying her work, hoping to preserve even a portion of her style in my own art.
If you haven’t heard her work, please do yourself a favour, look her up.
– OrangeMonkeyTJ
25. Amanda Nunez
she’s just a f**king beast who rules two divisions like its a piece of cake, and is probably the best female athlete of all time (arguably over Serena Williams even).
Her wife, who is also a UFC fighter, recently had their baby, and in the behind the scenes of Amanda’s title defence fight, they were showing how she would train with her baby around, and you already know that kid is going to have a k**ler work ethic.
I find the whole thing super wholesome.
– TapDancingA**assin
26. Jane Goodall
One of her chimpanzee documentaries was my favorite piece of content from an anthropology class I took.
– Chizal
27. Margaret Hamilton
Who coined the term ‘software engineer’ while managing a team that wrote the software for the Apollo Guidance Computer.
Look up the 1202 error and how she had the foresight to write a Multithreaded real time operating system when others thought it wouldn’t be necessary.
– bokmann
28. Kate Mulgrew
She took her role as a woman entering a male-dominated field (Star Trek’s captains), and the impact it would have on young women in the ‘90s and beyond, very seriously. Fully aware of how her portrayal of Janeway had inspired people in real life, she’s taken ownership of it and become a strong and eloquent advocate for women in the sciences.
Honestly, when looking her up on Wikipedia just now, I was surprised and a little troubled to find that she’s anti-abortion (although, being a guy, that isn’t my issue to argue) — but even then, in the same article which cites that position, she stresses that dialogue and understanding with people who believe differently is essential.
– ExplainLikeImAnOtter
29. Carmen Medina
A former CIA deputy director. However, early on in her career, she caught a lot of flack for suggesting that intelligence should… ya know… be shared among allies, not just silo’d within agencies and never heard from again. The real big scare she made was when she said this could easily exist on the internet in a classified way, ensuring that enemies never saw the intel that Americans had on them.
Upon surviving the heat she got for that, she continued working on it. Lo and behold, 9/11 happens, and a big reason for it is because different intelligence agencies never just put the pieces together that Al Qaeda dudes had snuck into the country and had a plan to k**l Americans. The information sharing she had been preaching all along would have saved thousands of people.
Suddenly people were ready to listen to her, and modern national security hasn’t been the same since.
– Athomeacct
30. Emma Watson
She took her money and fame and has worked as an activist since basically Potter ending and I can say the world is a better place because of it.
She could’ve easily let the fame go to her head but she didn’t.
– ajperry1995
Well, I’ve got a few new names to look into!
How would you answer this question?
Tell us in the comments.
