The title person is number 5, and the goal of this piece was to show a list of influential women, most of them Nobel Peace Prize recipients, whose work inspires from the past and leads in the present. This article strives to present inspiring profiles with varied achievements from different cultures that reflect the diversity of UIC collegiettes. These are women who helped conceive a better world, not just for other women, but for everybody.
1. Jane Addams
If you know nothing about Addams, especially as a UIC student who walks the same ground that she performed her work upon, that must change immediately. After visiting Toynbee Hall in London, Addams realized the need for a similar settlement house to serve the underprivileged of Chicago. Addams founded Hull House in 1889, and spent the remainder of her life in social service and activism: caring for the city’s poor; helping immigrant families; advocating healthy living, education, and the arts; and lecturing on various social, legislative, and world issues. In 1931, Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. Margaret Sanger
In her youth, Sanger witnessed the ravaging effects that multiple, unwanted pregnancies wrought upon the bodies of women who lacked effective contraception. Impelled to action, she coined the term “birth control” in 1914; educated women; distributed contraceptives; was arrested in 1916 for opening the US’ first birth control clinic; and founded the American Birth Control League, the forerunner to Planned Parenthood, in 1921. Sanger’s activism triumphed in the 1960s with the FDA approval of Enovid, the first oral contraceptive, and Griswold v. Connecticut, the landmark Supreme Court case that legalized birth control in the United States.
3. Aung San Suu Kyi
Born in Burma (now Myanmar), Suu Kyi earned a degree from Oxford and spent most of her early life studying, living, and working in India, Britain, and the United States. She returned to Myanmar in 1988, a country left in the hands of a military junta, and became involved in the pro-democracy movement. Employing democracy and human rights as her struggle’s motives, Suu Kyi’s efforts were quickly condemned by the junta, and over the next two decades she was repeatedly put under house arrest. Finally released in 2010, Suu Kyi was elected to Myanmar’s parliament in 2012. She is the recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
4. Rigoberta Menchú Tum
Raised in the indigenous Mayan culture of Guatemala, Menchú became involved with social reform activities and women’s rights movements during her teenage years. She later worked to improve the lives of farm workers, and educate the indigenous population in resistance to oppression during Guatemala’s Civil War. Menchú became an advocate for indigenous peoples’ rights, and campaigned for the prosecution of Guatemalan military and political members on charges of torture and genocide against the Mayan population. She ran unsuccessfully for the Guatemalan presidency in 2007 and 2011, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992.
5. Jody Williams
As a lifelong activist for freedom, self determination, and human and civil rights, Williams is best known for her work with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, an effort that has become immensely influential with 1,300 non-governmental organizations in 95 countries. Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, becoming the 10th woman and third American woman to receive the award. She is a luminary of several universities, recipient of many academic awards, and in 2012 became the inaugural Jane Addams Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Social Justice Fellows at UIC–we all have a Nobel laureate in our midst!
6. Shirin Ebadi
After becoming a judge at the age of 21, Ebadi served on the bench of the Iranian courts during the sunset of the Shah’s reign. After the 1979 Revolution, the new republic’s dominant Islamic clerics introduced a conservative interpretation of Islamic sharia, annihilating all Iranian progress in women’s rights, and stripping Ebadi of her position. In the 1990s, she was allowed to continue practicing law, and Ebadi became an advocate for the rights of women and children, and democracy. In 2003, Ebadi was the first Iranian to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and has resided in London since October 2009 due to threats against her safety.
7. Wangari Maathai
A native of Kenya, Maathai attended universities in the US, Europe, and Africa; taught and held administrative positions; and became the first woman from East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate. She served on the National Council of Women of Kenya, and initiated the Green Belt Movement, which eventually planted over 20 million trees to prmote quality of life and environmental conservation. Maathai was also an advocate of democracy and human rights, voted to Kenya’s parliament in 2002, appointed as Assistant Minister for Environment, National Resources, and Wildlife, and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She passed away in 2011.
8. Tawakkol Karman
A native of Yemen, Karman responds to the political flux and human rights abuses of the tumultuous country through several means. As a journalist by profession, she reports on injustices, and founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005. From 2007-2011, Karman organized weekly protests in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, enabling the revolution a voice to inquire into the government’s misdeeds. She has been imprisoned numerous times, and is referred to as “the mother of the revolution” and “the iron woman.” In 2011, Karman was one of three women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the current youngest winner at the age of 32.
9. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Born in Liberia, Johnson Sirleaf has spent several years devoted to improving the political and human rights conditions in Liberia and across Africa. Military dictator General Samuel Doe had her imprisoned for over a year, and her life was threatened by former president Charles Taylor. After being part of the successful effort to remove Taylor from office in October 2005, Johnson Sirleaf was elected to the presidency the following month. She has served on multiple committees, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, and was one of three women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
10. Leymah Gbowee
Also a native of Liberia, Gbowee is known for, among other things, her leadership role in a women’s peace movement that ended the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. When the Second Civil War broke out in 1999, she became a trauma counselor to former child soldiers, and organized the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Movement. Her role in the non-violent peace movement also helped remove Charles Taylor from office, and clear the path for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s ascent to the presidency. Aside from serving various roles in many organizations, Gbowee was one of three women to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.