Celebrating Women's History Month 2025: the women across history who inspire us

Marie Equi was an early 20th century American physician, suffragist, prison reformer and labour rights activist and lesbian. The daughter of working-class Irish-Italian immigrants, she dropped out of high school to support her family by working in the textile mills. She later moved to Oregon and became one of the first 60 women in the state to earn a medical degree.

Over her life, Equi advocated for women's right to vote, an eight hour work day and provided women with access to birth control and abortions when such activity was illegal. She served 10 months in prison for sedition after speaking out against US involvement in WWI. In a time of increasing uncertainty around the future of civil liberties in the US, Equi's activism should serve as an important example to Americans of the power of action in the face of adversity.

Marie Equi (chosen by Delaney)

For me one of the women that inspired me was Mary Seacole (1805-1881). She was a Jamaican nurse who was part of the Crimean War, she was also the first black women to publish an autobiography in Britain. Due to racism of the time, she was unable to work within the British official war front hospitals she instead set up her own one called the “British Hotel” that became very popular among those on the British side.

She is inspiring to me because it was the first time at school I got to learn about a Jamaican in a historical context, and what she was able to do despite the racism she was faced with as well as how she was able to help those fighting and injured in the war.

Mary Seacole (chosen by Chloe)

The Black Angels were a group of black nurses who helped cure Tuberculosis in New York during Jim Crow. They are some of public health’s hidden figures!

Their names were Virginia Allen, Edna Sutton, Missouria Louvinia Meadows-Walker, Clemmie Phillips, Phyllis Alfreda Hall Lambert, Marjorie Tucker Reed, and Kate Gillespie.

The Black Angels (chosen by Alma)

My inspiring woman is Nina Simone. Known now for the recordings of her amazing music and voice, her story isn't quite as well known. She was denied continuing her formal musical training, something she attributed to her race and injustice. Fortunately, she persevered and worked as an accompanist, took private lessons and adopted a stage name so her Mum would not find out she was performing in bars. She resisted being described as a jazz artist with the connotations it brought and I'm glad her lyrics still inspire today.

Nina Simone (Matthew)

Alice Ball was the first woman and first African American to graduate from University of Hawaii with a Masters in Chemistry. She then went on to develop the cure for Leprosy, but for a long time the credit went to a man. As someone who constantly wanted to do things and got told ‘girls don’t do that’, I always love it when a woman is the first to do something and I also think it’s such a prime example of how easily women’s contributions get forgotten.

Alice Ball (chosen by Meghan)

Dr Mary Putnam Jacobi had a long career practicing medicine, teaching, writing, and advocating for women's rights, especially in medical education. She established her own private medical practice. Dr Putnam Jacobi also participated in research and became a professor.

Mary thought women's contribution to all medical specialties should be considered equivalent to men's. For most of their lives, women experience menstruation. Throughout history, it’s been argued that this biological fact makes women unfit to do things like go to space or run for political office, and in the 1800s it was argued women should not study medicine. In the 1870s, Dr Mary Putnam Jacobi made the case that it shouldn’t stop women from going to college. Thanks in part to Dr Mary Putnam Jacobi we have amazing women working across the NHS today.

Mary Putnam Jacobi (chosen by Laura)

Ruby Bridges was the first black child to attend an all-white school in the American south. Following the Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), schools in the U.S. were required to integrate and despite experiencing extreme racism and threats, Ruby Bridges never missed a day of school. Her life story and continued activism highlight the importance of perseverance and fighting for yourself in the face of hardship (which we all need reminding of occasionally). She remains a prominent activist, and her work reminds us that slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, etc. are not just in our history, but heavily impact our present.

Ruby Bridges (chosen by Dellina)

My pick is French Aeronaut Sophie Blanchard (1778- 1819) who was the first woman to pilot a hot air balloon - she was also the first woman to die in an aviation accident.

Her first hot air balloon flight was in 1804 and over her career she entertained Napoleon Bonaparte and Louis XVIII and contributed to an obsession with air travel in Europe in the 19th Century that sparked huge change in aviation and inspired Jules Verne to write Around the World in 80 Days in 1872.

Sophie Blanchard (chosen by Hannah)

Berta Caceres was a Honduran indigenous leader who stood up against powerful landowners, the world’s largest dam builder and an army of private security guards to defend the rights of her fellow Lenca people and the environment.

She is not in the strict sense a public health person, but with what she did she stood against unsustainable development led by giant mining companies, inspiring a large movement of anti-mining grassroots groups.

Berta Caceres (chosen by Nelly)

Aphra Behn was one of the first English women to make a living by the pen. A playwright, poet, novelist and translator, she faced heavy criticism from her contemporaries throughout her career on the grounds of her being a woman. Despite this, she chose to face her critics head on, making stark reference to her gender in her writing and refusing to shy away from topics that weren't deemed appropriate for women.

Behn is a critical figure in feminist literature, one who opened doors for women writers to come. As Virigina Woolf said in her seminal work A Room of One's Own, "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.

Aphra Behn (chosen by Connie)