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by Joanne Bamberger
There are plenty of women in the news, and while some are good role models, many aren’t the types of women we’d like our daughters to emulate. You don’t often hear mothers saying, “Some day, I hope my daughter will be just like Britney Spears!”
So where are the role models? Sure, there are high profile heavyweights like U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, just to name a few. But what about the women who have blazed trails or championed causes who don’t get daily headlines? There are thousands of them out there, yet their names don’t often make the nightly newscasts or get mentioned in cocktail party conversations.
While it was certainly hard to choose, here are 10 women you may not have heard of who are definitely worth taking the time to learn more about:
Emme Aronson: First plus-size supermodel
Recent stories about the deaths of anorexic fashion models have suggested that more should be done to convince clothing designers and producers of runway fashion shows to resist hiring models unless they meet a certain body mass index requirement. In other words: No more stick-figure models.
Plus-size supermodel Aronson—a spokeswoman for the National Eating Disorders Association, has championed that cause for many years. The outspoken advocate tries to convince girls to embrace the fact that we all come in different shapes and sizes, and that being healthy doesn’t mean being a size zero.
”We need to take collective responsibility for this cultural catastrophe and recognize our obligation to not only learn as much as we can about eating disorders but also how our actions influence young women and girls,” Aronson says. “It is imperative that we not just skim the surface, but dig deeper about unattainable ideals of beauty which can lead to life-threatening diseases with sometimes permanent consequences."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Christian Charisius/Reuters/Corbis
Waris Dirie: Crusader against female genital mutilation
When Waris Dirie was 5 years old, she was subjected to the ritual female circumcision that was commonplace in her native Somalia. In that culture, female circumcision is performed to supposedly ensure a girl’s purity before her eventual marriage. But many times, as in Dirie’s case, it is performed under unsanitary conditions, without anesthesia, and can lead to death or lifelong pain.
At 13, Dirie managed to escape Somalia by agreeing to work in her uncle’s home during his tenure as Somalia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. There, years later, Dirie was discovered by a fashion photographer, which led to her eventual career as a successful model.
To help prevent other girls and women from suffering her same fate, she created the Waris Dirie Foundation to shine a light on this cruel procedure. As a result of her work, she was named the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in 1997.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press
Dr. Julie Gerberding: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Ranked No. 12 on Forbes magazine’s 2005 list of the 100 most powerful women, Dr. Julie Gerberding is not a name one hears on a daily basis. But with a possible bird flu pandemic on the way that could change.
Gerberding is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Gerberding and her staff have spent years studying and preparing for an anticipated bird flu pandemic. In February, she led a drill to test the country’s readiness in the event of a human outbreak of avian flu.
Gerberding allowed the media to monitor the trial run and report on how the CDC and other agencies involved would handle such a crisis. Some were surprised at the move, but Gerberding told the International Herald Tribune that, since a human pandemic could lead to millions of deaths worldwide, it was necessary to demonstrate to state and local governments the importance of focusing on bird flu preparedness.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE/AP
Dr. Wangari Maathai: 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner
An environmental and political activist, Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 2004 for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
As founder of the Greenbelt Movement, Maathai was directly responsible for convincing Kenyans, mostly women, of the need to start a tree-planting campaign in their country, both to protect against soil erosion and to provide an ongoing source of firewood for cooking fires. That effort has led to planting more than 20 million trees in her nation.
In addition to her environmental activism, Maathai also was active in opposing the oppressive government of Daniel arap Moi. She was eventually elected to the Kenyan Parliament in 2002.
According to one news report, her former husband was said to have remarked at one time that they divorced because Maathai was “too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control.”
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
Afghanistani woman at school
Safiye Amajan: Afghan teacher
Despite threats from the Taliban during their time in power in Afghanistan against those who defied their orders to cease educating girls, Safiye Amajan spent many years running a school for girls out of her home. After that oppressive government was toppled, Amajan served as the provincial head of the country’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs until she was murdered in 2006. In that post, she was responsible for opening several schools and vocational training centers specifically with the purpose of educating women and girls who had not had that opportunity under the Taliban.
Even though she must have known her life was still in danger from the Taliban, Amajan continued her commitment to educating Afghan girls. According to Amnesty International, the group that took responsibility for her death claimed Amajan had been an American spy, using the country’s nascent women’s movement as a cover for her activities.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Edward Stapel/AP
Dr. Ruth Simmons: First African-American woman to lead an Ivy League university
Dr. Ruth Simmons is not your average academic. In 2001, Simmons was named president of Brown University—the first African-American woman to be at the helm of an Ivy League university. Immediately prior to taking over at Brown, Simmons served as president of another prestigious school, the Seven-Sister institution Smith College.
Simmons did not have an easy path to academic super-stardom. One of 11 children born to Texas sharecroppers, Simmons rarely received more than a few pieces of fruit as holiday gifts. She eventually earned a scholarship to attend college.
Her career in academia has been marked by a commitment to enhancing diversity and opportunities. According to one report, a Smith faculty member once asked Simmons’ advice for two additional discussion sections for his course.
Simmons answer? “Dream bigger."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Deborah Feingold/Corbis
Zainab Salbi: Women for Women International
Zainab Salbi was born and raised in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Surviving that nation’s wars taught her that the hardest-hit victims inevitably were the women and children—women who lost husbands, children who lost fathers, women who were used as tools of war through rape and torture.
Determined to change that, in 1993 she founded Women to Women International to help women survivors of war rebuild their lives through vocational training, providing seed capital for women to start their own businesses and helping women learn to read and write to become active citizens in their societies.
Since its inception, WFWI has raised $24 million and helped more than 55,000 women in wartorn countries including Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Rwanda. For its trailblazing humanitarian work, WFWI was awarded the 2006 the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which included a $1.5 million award to continue its work.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Nicholas Ratzenboeck/AP
Kelly Perkins: Heart transplant recipient, mountain climber, organ donation advocate
By the age of 30, Kelly Perkins was an enthusiastic mountain climber who had climbed many of the world’s most famous peaks. In 1992, shortly after she and her husband Dan returned from a European hiking trip to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, Kelly discovered she had a form of heart disease called cardiomyopathy. In 1995, she would undergo a heart transplant.
Not wanting to face life as an invalid, Perkins vowed to improve her physical health so she could continue to pursue her passion for mountain climbing. She became the first heart transplant recipient to reach some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
Perkins continues to climb mountains around the world, not only for her personal pleasure but also to raise awareness for organ transplantation and donation.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© PELLETIER MICHELINE/CORBIS SYGMA
Jody Williams: Founder of International Campaign Against Land Mines and winner of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize
Trained as a teacher of English as a second language, Jody Williams became aware in the 1980s of the growing problem of land mines around the world—deadly weapons planted for a wartime enemy, but left after war’s end to kill or maim innocent civilians. Williams began the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines in 1991, which led to the 1997 Land Mine Ban Treaty. Today, the ICBL has 90 countries and 1,400 nongovernmental organizations as members, though the United States has yet to sign and ratify the treaty banning the use of land mines.
Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for the ICBL’s efforts. She also was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2004.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Linda Carfagno
Kathy Eldon: CEO and co-founder of Creative Visions Foundation
Kathy Eldon, an accomplished editor and journalist, when tragedy struck her family. In 1993, her 22-year-old son Dan was stoned to death in Somalia while on assignment there for Reuters covering the conflict in Mogadishu.
To honor his memory and celebrate a life cut short, Eldon and her daughter Amy created the multimedia production company Creative Visions Foundation to help encourage others, like Dan, who are “creative activists” people committed to using the arts as a way to promote awareness of important world issues, such as humanitarian crises and environmental issues.
One project of Creative Visions is called One Global Tribe, which connects young social entrepreneurs with social service projects around the world.
Joanne Cronrath Bamberger is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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