(This comes minus a significant lady for the fourteenth century because honestly I've been going of wikipedia's list of significant women for each century and choosing my own, and none of them really stuck out for the fourteenth: I invite you to do some research and choose your own! To compensate, there are two ladies for the nineteenth century!)
11. Akkadevi (1010-1064)
Akkadevi was a princess within the Chalukya dynasty, located in the South West Indian state of Karantaka. Akkadevi ruled the present day regions of Bidar, Bagalkot and Bijapur. Records at the time note Akkadevi’s ‘war-like’ nature; an inscription from 1022 refers to her courage in combat, and she is recorded as having attacked the fort of Gokak in response to a rebellion. However, Akkadevi is also noted for her patronage in expanding education throughout her region, giving grants to Brahmins, (a social group within Hinduism who acted as priests of spiritual learning), as well as Jaina and Hindu temples.
12. Yennega (Some time in the 1100s)
Yennega was the daughter of the King of Gambaga, a region situated in the present day Republic of Ghana, and by the time Yennega was born, her father had already succeeded in bringing many groups that surrounded the area under his leadership. Yennega was raised ‘as if she were a boy’ by the King, who took her regularly on hunting expeditions from a young age, teaching her to ride horses, use a bow and arrow, and wield a spear, spectacularly. She became known for her fearlessness in hunting, and when she was old enough, she joined her father’s army, where she carried the great respect of those she commanded. Eventually, however, having seen the maternal love showed by mothers within her region, she asked her father to find her a husband, so she could start a family. He refused, arguing she was too good a soldier to give up, and eventually Yennega ran far away from the region. In doing so, she met a man, Bitou, who had left his own people following the death of his father, and the two (predictably, but you still can’t help but feel warm and fuzzy about it), fell in love, and had their own child, Ouedraogo. When Ouedraogo was old enough, Yennega sent him back to Gambaga, where he introduced himself to the king as his grandson. The king, queen, and peoples of the region were so overjoyed to hear that Yennega was still alive, (it had been speculated that she had died during a siege, when her horse bolted), that they forgave her for having abandoned her position, and welcomed the family with open arms. Yennega and Bitou eventually returned back to the jungles where they had first met, but Ouedraogo stayed, and learnt to become just as powerful a soldier as his mother had been. Her son would go on to form the first Moose kingdoms, with the Mousse oral tradition being credited for keeping the story of Yennega alive today.
13. Altani (Genghis Khan praises her in 1206)
Altani is most well-known for being the daughter of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol empire. I first became aware of her from a history book which noted the tendency in weddings of Genghis Khan’s children, to declare equality between bride and groom. This did happen at Altani’s wedding, but more importantly, she was also given the title of bataar, a ‘hero of the mongols’, for her part in preventing the murder of her brother, by a rogue Tatar soldier, when she pursued the Tatar in question, and held onto him until Mongol guards were able to kill him. Genghis Khan made a lengthy speech in 1206, praising her for her actions.
15. Joan of Arc (1412-1431)
Honestly, I knew even before fully choosing the women on this list that Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, was going to be on it. We essentially all know her story, but it’s still a good’un to read. Joan was born to a peasant family in North East France on the 6th of January 1412; the area she lived in was still loyal to the crown of France, despite being surrounded by pro-Burgundian land, and as a result, Joan saw many raids on the land whilst growing up, with her village being set alight on one occasion. Joan testified that from the age of 13 onward, she would see angels, and saints, who urged her to fight back against the English within France at the time. At the age of sixteen, she petitioned the Garrison Commander of a nearby town to grant her an armed escort to the Royal Court in chinon, and though she was unsuccessful in gaining this at first, her ability to accumulate support from the Garrison Commander’s men, and a military prediction made by Joan coming true, meant that she would ultimately be granted the escort. She dressed as a boy, (because of course she did – remember Marina and Euphrosyne from part one of this article), and when she arrived at the Royal Court she somehow managed to convince everyone that she, a sixteen year old Peasant girl, should take charge of the French army. Joan lead several successful assaults against the Anglo-Burgundians. She became infamous across France, but as ever, what went up, had to come down. In an attack ordered by the King in Compiégne in 1430, Joan fell from her horse, and was captured by enemy forces, who imprisoned her, accusing her of witchcraft, heresy, and ‘cross-dressing’. The King of France, wanting to distance himself from these claims, did nothing to help Joan, who eventually, after a year in captivity, signed a confession denying that she had ever spoken with angels…. Only to immediately after this, start dressing in knight’s clothes again, and reasserting her claims that she had convened with saints. Thus, at the age of 19, she was burnt alive, at the stake. She was canonized in 1920, and remains a Patron Saint of France.
16. Bega Begum (1511-1582)
Bega Begum was an empress of the Mughal Empire. She’s well recognized mainly due to the mausoleum she had commissioned to honor her husband following his death. It was the first colossal monumental mausoleum in Islamic India, and had huge influence on the architecture of the Taj Mahal.
17. Mary Armine (Died 1676)
Mary Armine was an English philanthropist of the seventeenth century, married (and widowed) twice, and well-taught in subjects of history, Latin, French, and divinity. Her business knowledge, as well as her beauty, were commented upon frequently by contemporaries. She distributed money amongst several charitable institutions, including the founding of three hospitals in Yorkshire. Her will left enough money for it to be granted to charitable institutions yearly for the ninety nine years following her death.
18. Juana Azurduy de Padilla (1780 – 1862)
Juana was born in modern-day Bolivia, of both Spanish and indigenous ancestry, (she herself spoke Spanish as well as two separate South American languages), and her father was murdered when she was a young child, with the murderer going unpunished. Juana joined a convent at age twelve, but was expelled from the institution at seventeen, due to too frequent ‘rebellions’ against the nuns. Following this, she married and had four children. Both her and her husband joined the revolutionary forces when the Bolivian War of independence began in 1809, going on to lead a 2000 strong guerrilla force against the Spanish. From 1811-17, Azurduy – disguised in male uniform – fought in 23 battles. During this time Azurday became an effective fighter with swords, rifles, and cannons, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, as well as being specifically honored by General Manuel Belgrando. Azurday and her husband were so powerful in battle that their children were eventually kidnapped, and killed, as an attempt at stopping any further efforts on their parts. Azurday’s husband was killed in their efforts to try and recover the children, though she would go on to give birth his daughter shortly after. Bolivia declared independence in 1825, and Azurduy retired from the military. Her efforts within the wars would go on to be largel'y forgotten, and she died, in poverty in 1862. In recent times, she has become more recognized, gaining status as a national icon in Bolivia and Argentina.
19. Ishii Fudeko (1861-1944)
Ishii Fudeko is noted for her vast contributions to female education within Japan, and welfare availability for the ‘developmentally delayed’. Fudeko had herself previously attended Tokyo Jogakko, a national girls’ school, as well as studying within Europe, before returning to Japan and acting as a teacher at the Literary Girls’ School for the Nobles. She was well regarded by her pupils and their well-connected parents alike. Fudeko soon married the high-ranking government official Ogashima Minoru, and the couple had three children, one of whom died in infancy, and the remaining two being born with developmental difficulties. This, and Ishii’s own disabilities later in life as a result of a stroke, saw her campaign for better understanding of those with special educational needs.
19 1/2 Mary Seacole (1805-1881)
Mary Seacole is well known as the ‘other nurse’ within the Crimean War, (the first that most people jump to being the ‘lady with the lamp’, Florence Nightingale). Unlike Nightingale, Mary Seacole didn’t have the influential connections that would allow her to travel to the Crimean and nurse soldiers when she decided she wanted to help the war effort, and the war office refused to help the Jamaican nurse travel to the battlefields, so she pooled her own resources into doing so. She established the British Hotel behind lines, and this provided somewhere sick and injured soldiers could buy food, supplies, and medication. Ms Seacole also traveled to the battlefield when soldiers were fighting, to assist injured soldiers there. She was voted the greatest Black Briton in 2004.
20. Anne Frank (1929-1945)
I mulled for a very long time on who the ‘significant woman’ of the twentieth century should be, and settled on a few different individuals before this final decision, (special mentions, therefore, go to Claudette Coleman, Benazir Bhutto, and Norma McCorvey). Eventually, I decided that the title was deserved not by a woman, but by a girl. I’m not going to insult your intelligence and explain who the infamous diarist was, but I will say that in today’s current political climate, the following words, written by a teenage girl forced into hiding by fascist authority, before she was ultimately, cruelly, and senselessly placed in a death camp by the Nazis, seem especially poignant.
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
So ladies, gents, and lovely non-binaries, please please please go be the significant people of the twenty first century, and start to improve the world in any way you can.
