Crystal Lee Sutton
Wilma Mankiller
Traditionally, the tribal leadership of the Cherokee people has been solely the province of males. But Wilma Mankiller was no ordinary Cherokee. The Oklahoma-born mother of two became involved in tribal affairs in 1969 when a group of Native Americans occupied Alcatraz in protest of the U.S. government depriving them of their land. Mankiller led numerous community development projects in San Francisco and Oklahoma, and in 1983 she ran for Deputy Chief of the Cherokee nation. The campaign was a hard one, with death threats and other shady tactics, but she refused to quit and won the election and the respect of her tribe. In 1985, she succeeded Ross Swimmer to become the very first female Chief of the Cherokee.
Sherry Hunt
The financial sector is one of the most male-dominated industries in the world, but a few brave women have managed to find success there. But when Sherry Hunt, a lifelong banker, discovered that her new employer Citigroup was allegedly ignoring her research reports and demanding that she fraudulently classify loans as safe, she put her whole career in jeopardy by refusing to lie for them. Instead, she publicized the demands and took Citigroup to court. Her chances of winning were slim—Citi could afford the best lawyers in the world—but with the help of the U.S. Justice Department, she won, and Citi was forced to pay a $158.3 million settlement.
Aung San Suu Kyi
When Aung San Suu Kyi returned to her native Burma after attending college abroad to care for her mother, she found her beloved nation crippled under the rule of dictator U Ne Win. Suu Kyi, the daughter of the man who liberated Burma from the British, spoke out against his rule and was immediately arrested and sentenced to house arrest with no communication with the outside world. The regime said that she would be freed if she agreed to leave the country and never return, but she refused and spent 15 of the next 21 years imprisoned. Through those years, she worked tirelessly to establish an alternative political party and in 2012 she won a seat in the country’s parliament.
Dr. Hawa Abdi
The work of a doctor in war-torn Somalia is a difficult one, especially for a woman and mother. Dr. Hawa Abdi had her first child in 1975 and a few years later opened the Rural Health Development Organization in the Lower Shebelle region, providing free obstetrics services to rural women. The clinic grew into a 400-room hospital over the years, but when the Islamist insurgents overran southern Somalia, many urged Abdi to flee. She stood her ground in the hospital, rebuking the gun-toting thugs who tried to make her abandon her patients. Amazingly, Muslim women refugees risked their lives to stand with her, and powerful clan leaders moved in to defend her. The insurgents backed down and Abdi continued to save lives.
Emmeline Pankhurst
The fight for women’s suffrage was one of the most important struggles of the feminist movement – without the ability to vote, women could make no permanent meaningful change in society. Emmeline Pankhurst was a British mother of five children who, after her husband died, threw herself into the suffrage movement with feverish intensity. Pankhurst was arrested and jailed multiple times while protesting for the right to vote, and while imprisoned went on hunger strike to draw more attention to injustice. Before she died in 1928, all British women were given equal voting rights as men.
Lois Jenson
As the equal rights movement spread throughout the country, women began taking jobs that were typically dominated by men. Unfortunately, those working environments weren’t always so receptive. When Lois Jenson, a 27 year old single mother, began working in the Eveleth Mines Ford Fairlane plant in northern Minnesota in 1975, the formerly all-male iron mine exploded with sexual harassment. Jenson and other women were subjected to pornography, catcalling and unwelcome physical advances until 1984, when a co-worker broke into her home. She filed the first sexual harassment class-action lawsuit in the United States and won, requiring the company to institute mandatory harassment training and pay a $3.5 million settlement to the victims. Her 14-year battle inspired the film North Country with Charlize Theron.
