Last month (March) was Women’s History Month - to celebrate this, I thought I would write a blog post about female pioneers who had been forgotten by modern society.
Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Kwolek was the inventor of Kevlar®️, a material which is used in both household and industrial settings. It is a lightweight, heat-resistant fibre which is said to be five times stronger than steel and can be found in items like oven gloves, walking boots, and stab/bulletproof vests. For her discovery in 1965, she earned the DuPont Lavoisier Medal, and is still the only woman to do so. Although she passed away in 2014, her discovery has saved countless lives and changed the everyday lives of many.
The Ford sewing machinists
In 1968, the ladies of the Ford sewing machine room in Dagenham went on strike after they were ranked as unskilled workers, while the men in the factory doing similar jobs were classed as skilled workers. This meant a pay difference which, due to there not being any laws against sex discrimination, was legal. This led to the ladies going on strike and the factory grinding to a halt, as there were no seats for the new cars. After four weeks of strikes, the women went back to work as skilled workers, now earning 92% of the men’s wages. Following this, a women’s trade union was created called the National Joint Action Campaign Committee for Women’s Equal Rights. They held a strike in London and, combined with the actions of the Ford sewing machinists the previous year, this directly led to the 1970 Equal Pay Act - meaning it was now against the law to pay men and women differently if they were doing the same job.
Dame Margot Fonteyn
Although known widely for being a prima ballerina assoluta, she is lesser known for her personal life. She retired in 1979, at the age of 60, to settle down with her husband in Panama on their cattle farm. Due to her husband’s injuries from being shot, he was fully reliant on her for full-time care. Margot took on this role, but this meant that they still needed an income to survive so she left retirement to go back to performing. I have included her on this list for this reason as, at the time, once someone retired they were unlikely to go back to work. She pioneered dancers continuing into their later years, which was a break from the norm of dancers retiring before middle-age.
Charlotte Cooper
Charlotte Cooper was a five-time Ladies Singles Wimbledon Champion and eight-time consecutive finalist between 1895-1902 (her eight-final record was broken 90 years later by Martina Navratilova). Fitting with the times, Cooper played in an ankle-length tennis skirt. Remarkably, at 26 years old, she lost her hearing and won all but one of her titles whilst deaf. In 1900, she made history by becoming the first woman to win a First Place Prize (the modern Gold Medal equivalent) in tennis in the Summer Olympics – later in those games, she won another First Place Prize in the mixed doubles tennis.
Viscountess Nancy Astor
American-born British politician Viscountess Nancy Astor was the second woman to be elected as an MP and the first woman to take her seat as a female MP in the House of Commons in 1919. This was the year after the Representation of the People Act 1918 (sometimes known as the Suffragette Movement Act). She made several speeches to Parliament and had a bill nicknamed after her, “Lady Astor’s Bill”. The Intoxicating Liquor Bill aimed to raise the age of people able to drink in pubs from 14 to 18. She also had an interest in Women in Engineering and chaired the first International Conference of Women In Science, Industry and Commerce, which was a 3-day event in London in 1925. She retired from politics in 1945, but paved the way for women in politics.