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On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, Rosa Parks boards a city bus to go home.

Tired as she is, Mrs. Parks walks past the first few — mostly empty — rows of seats marked "Whites Only." It's against the law for an African American like her to sit in these seats. She finally settles for a spot in the middle of the bus. Black people are allowed to sit in this section as long as no white person is standing. Though Rosa Parks hates the segregation laws, and has been fighting for civil rights at the NAACP for more than 10 years, until today she has never been one to break rules.

The bus continues along its route. After several more stops the bus is full. The driver notices that all the seats in the "Whites Only" section are now taken, and that more white people have just climbed aboard. He orders the people in Mrs. Parks's row to move to the back of the bus, where there are no open seats. No one budges at first. But when the driver barks at the black passengers a second time, they all get up. . . except for Rosa Parks.

QUESTIONS FOR ROSA PARKS
Was Rosa Parks nervous standing her ground? Find out from Mrs. Parks herself! She explains how she felt on the bus that day in her interview.

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Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat | How Rosa Parks Fought for Civil Rights | Scholastic.com

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On Thursday evening December 1, 1955, after a long day of work as a seamstress for a Montgomery, Alabama, department store, Rosa Parks boards a city bus to go home. Tired as she is, Mrs. Parks walks past the first few - mostly empty - rows of seats marked "Whites Only."

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Big Decisions for Melba Pattillo and Integration | The Melba Pattillo Story | Scholastic.com

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Read about Melba Pattillo's decision to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, after the Supreme Court rules that separate public schools are illegal. Students have the opportunity to share their feelings and explore links to related resources.

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As a doctor, engineer, and NASA astronaut, Mae Jemison has always reached for the stars. In 1992, Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space. She has also written several books and appeared on many television programs including an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In addition to her many awards, Jemison has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of Fame.

Mae Carol Jemison was born on October 17, 1956 in Decatur, Alabama. The youngest of three children, her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father was a maintenance supervisor. A few years after she was born, Jemison and her family moved to Chicago, Illinois. In addition to her love for dance, Jemison knew that she wanted to study science at a very young age. Jemison grew up watching the Apollo airings on TV, but she was often upset that there were no female astronauts. However, Jemison was inspired by African American actress Nichelle Nichols who played Lieutenant Uhura on the Star Trek television show. Jemison was determined to one day travel in space. In 1973, she graduated from Morgan Park High School when she was 16 years old. Once she graduated, Jemison left Chicago to attend Stanford University in California.

As one of the only African American students in her class, Jemison experienced racial discrimination in school. She later served as president of the Black Student Union and choreographed a performing arts production called Out of the Shadows about the African American experience. Jemison graduated in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and African-American studies. After graduating from Stanford University, Jemison attended Cornell Medical School. While in medical school, she traveled to Cuba to lead a study for the American Medical Student Association. She also worked at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand. Jemison graduated from Cornell with a Doctorate in Medicine in 1981. Shortly after her graduation, she became an intern at the Los Angeles County Medical Center, and then went on to practice general medicine. Fluent in Russian, Japanese and Swahili, Jemison joined the Peace Corps in 1983 and served as a medical officer for two years in Africa.

After working with the Peace Corps, Jemison opened a private practice as a doctor. However, once Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983, Jemison decided to apply to the astronaut program at NASA. She applied in 1985, but after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, NASA took a break from accepting new people. However, Jemison applied again in 1987 and was one of the 15 people chosen out of over 2,000 applications. She was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 12, which was the first group chosen after the Challenger explosion. After being selected, Jemison trained with NASA and worked on projects at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory. She received her first mission on September 28, 1989 when she was selected to join the STS-47 crew as a Mission Specialist. On September 12, 1992 Jemison and six other astronauts went into space on the space shuttle Endeavor. This voyage made Jemison the first African American woman in space. The team made 127 orbits around the Earth and returned to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on September 20, 1992.

Jemison left NASA in 1993 after serving as an astronaut for six years in total. She started The Jemison Group, a consulting company that encourages science, technology, and social change. She also began teaching environmental studies at Dartmouth College and directed the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries. After hearing that she was a fan of the Star Trek television show, actor LeVar Burton asked Jemison to appear in an episode. Jemison agreed and became the first real astronaut to be on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. She played Lieutenant Palmer in the episode, "Second Chances." In 1994, Jemison created an international space camp for students 12-16 years old called The Earth We Share (TEWS). She also created a nonprofit organization called the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence. Jemison later accepted a position as the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University in 1999. She went on to write her first book in 2001, Find Where the Wind Goes, which was a children's book about her life.

Currently, Jemison is leading the 100 Year Starship project through the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This project works to make sure human space travel to another star is possible within the next 100 years. She also serves on the Board of Directors for many organizations including; the Kimberly-Clark Corp., Scholastic, Inc., Valspar Corp., Morehouse College, Texas Medical Center, Texas State Product Development and Small Business Incubator, Greater Houston Partnership Disaster Planning and Recovery Task Force, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Jemison is a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, and has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, National Medical Association Hall of Fame and Texas Science Hall of Fame. She has received multiple awards and honorary degrees including the National Organization for Women's Intrepid Award and the Kilby Science Award. She currently lives in Houston, Texas.

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Astronaut Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space. Discover more at womenshistory.org.

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Sally Ride became the first American woman to go to space.

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13 Women in STEM Who Changed the World

Who are the Women in STEM who changed the world through science, technology, engineering and mathematics? We asked this question of women at Ayogo, adding "who are the women in STEM you wish you knew?"

Here's our list of 13 amazingly cool women in STEM who we wish we knew.

Katherine Johnson, NASA Space Scientist

Born in 1918, Katherine Johnson, graduated from university at 18. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for a lifetime of work as a pioneering physicist, mathematician and space scientist. She and her colleagues, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson did the calculations that guided NASA's 1962 Friendship 7 Mission. A teacher and research mathematician, she co-authored over 25 scientific papers. Can you imagine how rare this brainy young teen was, entering West Virginia State College in 1932? About as unique as an African American woman scientist at NASA in the 1950s. She was both-making her the rarest of the rare!

Shauna Gammon, Ayogo's Lead Product Designer:

"I am so grateful that Katherine Johnson helped pave the way for women like me to pursue careers in mathematics and technology. Katherine's accomplishments are astounding, as was her graceful self-assurance that she belonged wherever her abilities carried her."

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace & Mathematician

Ayogo UX Designer, Kelsey Hemphill did the beautiful portraits for this blog. She chose to honour Augusta Ada King, who is best known for writing the first computer algorithmduring her collaboration with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine.

Kelsey on Countess King:

"Ada's mother prioritized her mathematical education, hoping to steer Ada away from the ' mad, bad and dangerous ' poetic tendencies of her father, Lord Byron. It's funny, but it also speaks to what ladies can do when they have the support and the resources!"

Radia Perlman, Internet Pioneer

Radia Perlman disapproves when people call her The Mother of the Internet. But as an early computer scientist and student of MIT in the 60's she became an internet pioneer, developing the algorithm behind the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), an innovation that made today's Internet possible. She also invented TRILL to correct limitations of STP. A wildly creative thinker, Dr. Perlman even developed a child-friendly programming language used by children as young as 3. She authored a textbook on networking and network security, and holds more than 100 issued patents.

Mala Srivatsa, Ayogo's Director of Client Services on Radia as her inspiration:

"Radia is a shining example of how hard work and determination can lead to technical breakthroughs and success in a fast-paced and changing industry. She's pragmatic about gender in the workplace; her quote about "picking the wrong battles" in this article really resonated with me-so many women don't necessarily want to raise a pink flag and wave it around, it's more about the subtle imbalances and levelling of the playing field for equality across all diversity factors. And as a bonus story, one of my former colleagues sat next to her on a plane ride and they got to chat about her personal stories and first-hand experiences during those history-making years!"

Rebecca Cole, MD

Rebecca Cole graduated from medical school in 1867 and became a public health advocate, physician and hygiene reformer in the US. An evidence-based researcher, she took issue with the biased data used to conclude that a lack of hygiene was the cause of inner city families' high death rate from consumption. Although few records remain, we know she opened the Women's Directory Center with Charlotte Abbey, providing medical and legal services to destitute women, was appointed Superintendent of a Home and was the esteemed colleague of the first US-educated female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell.

Ayogo number cruncher, Kristel Co So shares her admiration of Dr. Cole:

"Dr. Cole finished medical school in 1867, the second black woman to do so. For 50 years, she worked hard as a doctor and public health educator while raising 5 kids. She called people on dangerous misinformation, using her own data to back her opinions up. This woman's legacy is huge. Her peers said her cheerful optimism created an atmosphere of sunshine that made everyone happy. I wish I knew her."

Joan Clarke, Code Breaker & Cryptanalyst

Joan Clarke was born in 1917 and gained a First in mathematics from Cambridge but was denied a Full Degree as Cambridge did not award them to women at the time. She was the only woman to work in the nerve centre of the quest to crack German Enigma ciphers. Because of the secrecy that still surrounds events at Bletchley Park, the full extent of Clarke's achievements and those of her colleagues Margaret Rock, Mavis Lever and Ruth Briggs, remains unknown.

Avi van Haren, Ayogo's Director of Product Management, chose to celebrate Joan:

"Watching The Imitation Game, I was introduced to Joan, a brilliant woman who was part of saving so many lives and deserves her place in history."

Susan Kare, Iconographer

We don't often think about the people who make our screen experiences work so well. But there is one iconic (ahem) designer that Ayogo's Maddy Bazett chose as an inspirational woman in technology. Susan Kare is a digital designer's designer. If you have used the fonts Chicago, Geneva or Monaco, you have benefited from Kare's excellent eye. Her most well known icons include the Macintosh trash can, the scissors, the pointing "paste" hand, and the formatting paintbrush. What a legacy.

"She is a pioneering and influential computer iconographer. Since 1983, Kare has designed thousands of icons for the world's leading software companies. Utilizing a minimalist grid of pixels and constructed with mosaic-like precision, her icons communicate their function immediately and memorably, with wit and style," wrote the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, Inventor & Computer Scientist

An American computer scientist, and a Rear Admiral in the US Navy, Grace Hopper invented the first programming language to use english words. She is seen as a key inventor of the language COBOL (an acronym for COmmon Business- Oriented L anguage) a widely used programming language. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vassar in 1928 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics and earned her master's degree at Yale University in 1930. Even though she was only 105 pounds, well under the minimum weight for joining the navy, she got an exemption and enlisted in WWII. After the war, still working for the navy, her associates discovered a moth mucking up the Mark II Computer. It was removed and she coined the term "debugging". She then joined the UNIVAC team where she pioneered using computers for more than arithmetic. By 1952 she had invented an operational compiler, the first she knew of.

Ayogo software developer Stacey Vachon found a few famous quotes by Admiral Hopper:

"If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It's much easier to apologize than it is to get permission."

"Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, "We've always done it this way." I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise."

Florence Nightingale, Social Reformer & Statistician

Florence Nightingale gained fame as "the Lady with the Lamp" for her heroic nursing in the Crimean War. There, she was credited for reducing the death rate from 42% to 2%. She was a visionary designer of hospital systems and pioneered the improvement of sanitation in working-class homes. She is known as the inventor of modern nursing. Her students and trainees became matrons at many hospitals and opened nursing schools of their own. She had a genius for presenting statistical data in graphic form. She developed a proportional pie chart still used today - see the Diagram of the Causes of Mortality. She used these skills to champion better health care at home and abroad.

Ellena Lawrence, Ayogo's Interaction Designer, shares some additional thoughts on Nightingale:
"What inspires me, is the lesser known work she did as a statistician and information designer. She understood that to get people to accept change, you have to make information accessible and understandable. She created new ways to visualize the magnitude of preventable deaths during the Crimean War so that members of parliament and civil servants could easily understand the problem and act."

Adriana Ocampo, Planetary Geologist

Adriana Ocampo is a planetary geologist and the Science Program Manager at NASA Headquarters.

Dr. Ocampo, a Columbian-born scientist, has worked on a number of NASA planetary science projects, including the Juno mission to Jupiter and the New Horizons mission to Pluto. Born in 1955, Dr. Ocampo was named one of the 50 Most Important Women in Science.
NASA Released this image of Pluto after the New Horizon Mission to Pluto.
Ayogo's UI Intern Camila Serrano tells why she chose Adriana Ocampo:

"I remember the day that the beautiful picture of Pluto was shown to the world not only because the image was stunning, but also because the Horizons Mission was lead by a latin woman."

Irene Au, Human Computer Interaction Designer

Irene Au created her own program of study in human-computer interaction. She built exceptional design teams for Google and Yahoo before joining Khosla Ventures as an Operating Partner.

Stacey Hagel, an artist and UX designer explains why Irene Au is an influence on her work:

"Irene's passion was to build technology inspired by people's needs directed at solving real problems. She went on to be among the first designers with such a background in the consumer Internet space and began her career as an interaction designer. AND she teaches yoga!!!"

Roberta Bondar, Astronaut Neurologist

Canada's first female astronaut and the world's first astronaut-neurologist. Roberta Bondar has received many honours including the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, the NASA Space Medal, over 22 honorary degrees, and induction into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. After her astronaut career she spent the next decade leading an international research team at NASA studying the effects on astronauts of spaceflight and re-adaptation back to Earth's gravity

Nicole Moisey, Ayogo's Employee Experience Manager admires Dr. Bondar:

"Growing up, Dr. Bondar was my hero and inspired me to go after my dreams. If she could reach her dreams then so could I!"

Ginni Rometty, CEO IBM

Ginni Rometty CEO IBM. An early compsci graduate in the 70's, Rometty joined IBM as a systems engineer. When she became SVP Marketing & Strategy in 2009, she led IBM into cloud computing, analytics, and the commercialisation of IBM Watson. She has been IBM's CEO since 2012.

Janice Fairley who handles Ayogo's business development on Ginni:

"Rometty has incredible marketing savvy. She put IBM Watson on Jeopardy! She gets the big calls right. Her next call: Cognitive technology as a business model."

Barbara McClintock, Geneticist

Barbara McClintock is the only woman to have received, by herself, a Nobel Prize for Medicine. She won the Nobel in 1983 for work that began with her discovery 40 years earlier, that genetic material is not fixed but instead is fluid. James Watson credited her genetic insights as part of his discovery of DNA. In her biography, A Feeling for the Organism, she connected new scientific and feminist perspectives. Her students adopted her mindset that science is open ended and unresolved. Dr. McClintock felt it was important to put in the caveat "this is what we know" in scientific assertions, implicitly reminding us that so much is not yet known.

Mavis Dixon, Ayogo's Manager Projects and Engagement on why she thought of Dr. McClintock:

"She comes to mind when I read the latest research on inspiration and creativity. She was cool because she kept distractions out of her life. She mused on things she knew deeply and made unusual connections. In her case, between physics and biology. I read her biography a while ago and it stayed with me."

Women in STEM at Ayogo

Ayogo strives for gender parity and a culture of mutual inspiration and inclusion. We are mathematicians, product designers, coders, and inventors, designers, accountants and engagement specialists-and women.

This blog celebrating historic Women in STEM was written with a nod to International Women's Day, Women in History Month, and #STEMinism are all inspiration for this post.

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Who are some of the key women in STEM who have made major contributions to changing the world?

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Any list of revolutionary women in music can't help but fall spectacularly short, so take this one - published to celebrate International Women's Day - as just a suggestion, or an argument, and please tell us who you think we've missed. Nina Simone and Dolly Parton, perhaps? Taylor Swift? We'd love to hear your choices, and your reasons why.

Our criteria was not to collate a list of the most successful female musicians in history, although many here were/are extremely successful, but to think of women who have had a profound effect on the history of music - even if, in the case of the top two on this list, it's taken musicologists hundreds of years to realise it.

1. Kassia of Constantinople

Correctly or not, Kassia - born around 805 - is often called "the first female composer of the Occident" (the Western world) and her place in Byzantine folkore was sealed even before we knew of her music. She was from a wealthy family and dissed Emperor Theophilos at a "bride show" after he used the story of Eve from the Book of Genesis to suggest that women were responsible for much evil.

"And through a woman [came forth] the better [things]," she replied, annoyed. The Emperor decided to marry Theodora, who became empress, and Kassia adopted the monastic life. About 50 of her magical hymns survive, although authorship of some has been debated, as well as hundreds of her non-liturgical verses, including this zinging epigram: "I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor."

In his book The Story of Music, Howard Goodall credits Kassia with "mixing the parallel organum style with the drone style", adding that her music "gracefully refutes the assumption that the development of early music is exclusively the handiwork of men".

2. Hildegard of Bingen

In 2014, Howard Goodall and Suzy Klein made a case for Hildegard of Bingen's Ave, generosa being one of 50 pieces that changed the course of music history. In an In Our Time episode broadcast in the same year, Melvyn Bragg said: "Little known until 30 years ago, the music of Hildegard is now regarded among the best of the Middle Ages, but remarkably her music is only a small aspect of her overall achievement. Hildegard was a 12th century nun and a scholar of impressive breadth. Sometimes known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, she wrote a series of works documenting prophetic visions she had experienced, she was an accomplished theologian and also wrote about science, medicine and the natural world."

Hildegard has become a feminist icon with champions in the non-classical world, too, including Canadian art-pop artist Grimes, American singer-songwriter Julia Holter, and Cerys Matthews, who said she felt that "she could hear the tumble weed rolling through the listeners' houses" when she played Hildegard's music on her 6 Music show. Listen to Cerys discussing Hildegard of Bingen on Radio 4's Great Lives:

3. Clara Schumann

We're now moving on 700 years to the great German pianist and composer Clara Schumann - a jump that says much about the pressures on women not to compose music throughout history, as Schumann knew all too well. "I once believed that I had creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not wish to compose - there never was one able to do it," she said later in her life. "Am I to be the one? It would be arrogant to believe that."

But her achievements were huge. She had a distinguished 61-year career as a concert pianist, during which time she normalised playing from memory, rewrote the rule book on what kinds of pieces could and should be played at recitals (thereby changing the public's tastes) and was an influential teacher. She was also instrumental in drawing attention to the equally huge talents of her husband, Robert, as well as their friend Brahms, whose music she was the first to play. And her own compositions are finally getting the recognition they deserve too, particularly her 1846 Piano Trio in G minor, different recordings of which are discussed above.

4. Sister Rosetta Tharpe

We have in Sister Rosetta Tharpe a singer, songwriter and guitarist who had a considerable influence on spiritual and popular music in her hey-days of the 1930s and 1940s, and also left a lasting legacy. Often called 'The Godmother of Rock 'n' Roll', she inspired Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Chuck Berry and is perhaps more revered now, 44 years after her death, than she was in her lifetime.

"Nobody - not Chuck Berry, not Scotty Moore, not James Burton, not Keith Richards - played wilder or more primal rock 'n' roll guitar than this woman who gave her life to God and would have celebrated her 100th birthday on 20 March," wrote Richard Williams in the Guardian in 2015. "With a Gibson SG in her hands, Sister Rosetta could raise the dead. And that was before she started to sing."

Here's her 1948 self-penned hit, Up Above My Head:

5. Delia Derbyshire

Above, former BBC Radiophonic Workshop employee Brian Hodgson explains how the bare bones of the Doctor Who theme were written by Australian composer Ron Grainer and taken to the Workshop to be reimagined in a structures sonore ('sonorous sculptures') style. The job was handed to Delia Derbyshire, who worked with sound engineer Dick Mills. Grainer was so surprised by the final track he said, "Jeez Delia, did I write that!?"

The 1963 song is one of the most recognisable pieces of music ever written: a legendary TV signature tune, but also an historically significant recording - perhaps the most influential electronic music track ever composed. But there was far more to Derbyshire's work than the Doctor Who theme. Two years after it was completed, Tomorrow's World visited her at the Workshop (below) to discover how she made such seemingly alien music. She demonstrated a process that was surprisingly human and organic, but also revolutionary. Did Derbyshire inadvertently invent British techno music in the course of her work at the BBC? Some of her once-lost recordings certainly sound astonishingly modern.

6. Carole King

The 1960s and 70s witnessed a boom in female singer-songwriters, from Joni Mitchell, to Dolly Parton and Carly Simon, and they all owe much to Carole King, the most successful female songwriter of the second half of the 20th century in both the US and UK.

King started out in the very late 1950s as a performer and writer and made her name with Will You Love Me Tomorrow in 1960, which she wrote for The Shirelles with lyricist Gerry Goffin, her first husband. It became the first No. 1 in history for an African-American girl group and kick-started King's extraordinary career. By the 70s, she broke out as a recording and performing star in her own right, particularly with her smash 1971 album Tapestry, and in 2013 became the first ever female recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

7. Aretha Franklin

In this clip from BBC Radio Scotland's The Jazz House, which starts with Aretha singing (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman - a Carole King/Gerry Goffin song - presenter Stephen Duffy says: "Aretha Franklin has one of the most individual voices in all of music and I don't mean that in a purely vocal sense; she is a complete musician."

And she didn't budge an inch on her journey to become perhaps the most fêted soul singer of all time - female or male. She had a string of crossover hits on Atlantic Records between 1967 and 1980 without ever diluting her sound or message. She was the spirit of the age and with her reimagining of Otis Redding's Respect, in particular, she laid down an anthem for civil and gender rights that's as potent today as it was 50 years ago.

Aretha's 1985 album Who's Zoomin' Who? was her first to go platinum and two years later she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her soul, sass and mastery of music live on in contemporary superstars like Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige and Adele.

8. Patti Smith

With Patti Smith, as with every artist on this list, it helps to think what came before, and what happened after. There were of course female rock stars before Smith - Suzi Quatro, especially - but she was a new kind of artist in music, and in her wake came punk, grunge, riot grrrl, alternative rock and indie. So many of the key figures of those genres - from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Kurt Cobain, Bikini Kill, R.E.M., The Smiths - cite Smith as an influence and, in turn, their music has fed back into hers.

Smith's 1975 debut album Horses, which she once called "three-chord rock merged with the power of the word" was ahead of its time, foreseeing an explosion in DIY music-making and also the targeting of songs to the disenfranchised. Horses, Smith also said, was an attempt "to make a record that would make a certain type of person not feel alone. People who were like me, different..."

As well as being a musician, Smith is a poet, writer, visual artist, photographer and activist. Who else was going to introduce, and sing happy birthday to, the Dalai Lama at Glastonbury in 2015?

9. Sylvia Robinson

Sylvia Robinson was a true pioneer. The first hip hop hit - 1979's Rapper's Delight - was recorded by a group, The Sugarhill Gang, put together by Robinson and released on Sugar Hill Records, the label she founded with her husband, Joe. She went on to sign Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who released The Message in 1982, a legendary track that introduced social commentary to hip hop, paving the way for groups like Public Enemy and N.W.A.

But there was far more to Robinson than just hip hop. Long before Rapper's Delight - in the late 60s - she was one of the few women producing records, and she was a killer songwriter, singer and performer herself. Check out Pillow Talk from 1973, a track Robinson penned for Al Green. He turned it down because it was too steamy, so she recorded it and had a hit - in the US, where it went to No. 3, and here. A Hollywood biopic is coming soon.

10. Björk

It felt like the announcement that Björk had won best International Female Solo Artist at the 2016 Brits was almost met with a shrug, like, "Of course Björk is the best, and she always has been." And we're finishing our list with her and not someone like Madonna or Taylor Swift - revolutionary in their own ways - because Björk is the consummate modern musician; the artist that, more than anyone else working in the pop field, sees the giant changes in technology and commerce over the last 20 or so years as an artistic opportunity, not a hindrance.

People now listen to music through tiny, computer speakers? Great, thought Björk, I'll make an album (2001's Vespertine) that sounds perfect at those sound frequencies. And after Wired magazine claimed in 2010 that The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet (predicting a future of "getting", not "searching" - apps, in short), she rose to the challenge again with her so-called 'app' album Biophilia, but it was far more than a gimmick. Conceived during the Icelandic financial crisis, it was a statement - of music and art, but also politics and economics. Here's an example of how Iceland could be run from now on, she was saying - by investing in small companies based around local cooperation, which is exactly what she did to make Biophilia.

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Are these the 10 most revolutionary women in music?

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Any list of revolutionary women in music can't help but fall spectacularly short, so take this one - published to celebrate International Women's Day - as just a suggestion, or an argument, and please tell us who you think we've missed. Nina Simone and Dolly Parton, perhaps? Taylor Swift?

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"Sports are integral to American national identity whether as metaphor, cultural past time,
or economic driver. Though Americans take sports seriously, women and men have had very different
experiences with sports participation. Competition-the core element of the
national obsession with sports-has been problematic for America to accept
when applied towards women.

This exhibit explores the cultural, economic, social, and
political barriers women have overcome to play sports and the challenges remaining
today."

Outdoor recreation and organized sports rose in popularity following the Civil War. The movement from a farm towards an industrial economy created new opportunities for leisure, even among the working class. Both men and women embraced organized sports as participants and spectators.

""The
bicycle will inspire women with more courage, self-respect, and self-reliance."

~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton"

Bicycles came to symbolize the quintessential "New Woman" of the late 19th century. The new woman was young, college educated, active in sports, interested in pursuing a career, and looking for a marriage based on equality.

"What does it mean to be an athlete?"

Elite, eastern women's colleges readily adopted sports programs in the last quarter of the 19th century. Vassar had three baseball teams by 1875: the Sure-Pops, Daisy-Clippers, and Royals. Students also joined archery, rowing, tennis, and track as well as basketball teams.

Smith College started a basketball team in 1891, only a few months after the game's invention. Though the rules were adapted to prevent young women's over-exertion, students enthusiastically embraced the game.

Public attitudes towards collegiate women's sports were conflicted. While elements of popular culture embraced the new confident, athletic woman, many were disturbed by the sight of women sweating, running, and competing.

The first intercollegiate women's basketball game was played in Berkeley between the University of California and Stanford, April 4, 1896. Male spectators were banned.

Attitudes towards socially elite women and sports changed in the 1920s and 1930s. While their masculine contemporaries were actively encouraged to vigorously pursue sports competition as a training ground for business success, women were discouraged and even blocked from competition for fear that it would make them less feminine.

Helen Wills Moody won eight Wimbledon women's singles championship titles between 1927 and 1938. America's premier champion did not lose a set in singles from 1926 to 1932. Praised for her poise and ability, she achieved national acclaim as a talented sportswoman. However, many fans and sports writers were put off by her on-court intensity. Criticized as merciless towards lesser opponents, Moody--nicknamed "Little Miss Poker Face" by the media--retired as a respected but not beloved athlete.

Many girls were admonished to avoid "unladylike" competitive and contact sports. Instead they were directed towards healthful exercise activities, like calisthenics.

Working-class women and women of color were not held to the same social standard as socially elite, white women. Businesses and factories formed employee club teams to play in highly competitive amateur leagues, which included both women's and men's teams. Teams wore the sponsor's name on their uniforms. While the teams existed to market company products and brands, they nevertheless afforded many working class women unprecedented access to sports participation.

Dallas-based Employers Casualty Company hired star, high school athlete Mildred "Babe" Didrickson in 1930 as a $75 per month clerical worker. Her real role with the insurance company was as a forward on the company's basketball team, which she led to a national championship. After winning two track gold medals at the 1932 Olympics, with ECC's sponsorship, Didrickson switched to golf where she dominated as a major star.

Dikrickson was criticized for appearing too masculine. She changed her appearance to mollify critics, wearing more feminine clothing.

"What does equality look like?"

African-American communities were more supportive of black women and competitive sports. Many African-American colleges and universities encouraged athletics as a pathway to improve community health and build leadership. A 1939 survey reported that only 25% of black colleges objected to intercollegiate women's sports, compared to a survey of predominately white institutions that reported 83% opposed women's varsity athletics.

Wilma Rudolph won a bronze medal at the 1956 Olympic games. But it was at the 1960 Rome games that she emerged as an international, sports superstar. Her inspiring personal story as a little girl who overcame polio to win the gold touched people around the world. Rudolph's Olympics were the first to be broadcast on television, leading to new perceptions of women and sports.

Ed Temple, Rudolph's track coach at Tennessee State University, produced forty Olympians over his 43-year career. They won twenty six medals, seventeen gold.

On June 23, 1972, Congress enacted Title IX of the Education Amendments. The statute prohibits sex discrimination in any educational program or activity receiving any type of federal financial aid. Since then, high school girls' participation in organized sports has increased ten times, and women's involvement in collegiate sports has increased six-fold. However, girls still face challenges, because passage of Title IX alone did not immediately create access to sports for girls. Many had to fight to ensure its implementation.

Dr. Bonnie Morris, Mariah Burton Nelson, and Jill Agostino discuss the history of Title IX and the fight for its implementation.

Female role models have inspired young women to pursue sports equity.

Billie Jean King was a fierce competitor. She lobbied for equal prize money, helped to start the women's tennis tour, and defeated a former male champion in the Battle of the Sexes. She inspired women in many sports, not just tennis, to pursue competition.

Mariah Burton Nelson shares how Billie Jean King's win in the "Battle of the Sexes" influenced her.

Title IX was a watershed moment in American history that opened the doors to women's participation in school-sponsored, competitive sports. Suddenly, women's athletic programs sprang up, providing opportunities to join teams, travel, and compete, with all the corresponding benefits. The law ensured that girls and women would have uniforms and equipment, facilities, and skilled coaches.

Title IX and increased girl's athletic participation led to:

* 20% of the rise of female educational attainment for the generation that followed the new law.

* 10% increase in the number of women working full time.

* 12% spike in female participation in previously male-dominated occupations, particularly high skill occupations.

~ Findings by Dr. Betsey Stevenson, University of Michigan, via Women in Sports Foundation

Although women and girls have made enormous achievements in breaking down social, political, and cultural barriers to equality and full participation in sports, work remains. According to the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, in addition to having fewer participation opportunities, girls often endure inferior treatment in areas such as equipment, facilities, coaching, scheduling, and publicity. American society continues to struggle with what it means to be an athlete and how to apply that definition to women and girls.

Recommended Readings

Cahn, S. K. 1994. Coming on strong: Gender and sexuality in twentieth-century women's sport. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Gorn, Elliott J., and Warren Goldstein. 2004. A brief history of American sports. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Guttmann, Allen. 1991. Women's sports: a history. New York: Columbia University Press.

Hargreaves, Jennifer . 2002. Sporting Females: Critical Issues in the History and Sociology of Women's Sport. Routledge.

Hogshead-Makar, Nancy and Andrew Zimbalist. 2007. Equal Play: Title IX and Social Change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Messner, Michael A. 2003. Taking the field: women, men, and sports. Minneapolis [u.a.]: Univ. of Minnesota Pr.

Smith, Lissa. 2001. Nike is a goddess: the history of women in sports. New York: Grove Atlantic.

Women in Sports Foundation, web site, https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org

Stories from these collections

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"Sports are integral to American national identity whether as metaphor, cultural past time,or economic driver. Though Americans take sports seriously, women and men have had very differentexperiences with sports participation. Competition-the core element of thenational obsession with sports-has been problematic for America to acceptwhen applied towards women.

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The Nobel Prize and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel have been awarded to women 61 times between 1901 and 2022. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911. This means that 60 women in total have been awarded the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2022.

The Nobel Prize in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018
Donna Strickland
"for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics"
"for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses."

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Nobel Prize awarded women 1901-2022

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The Nobel Prize and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel have been awarded to women 61 times between 1901 and 2022. Only one woman, Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911.

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The United States Supreme Court is the highest level of the judiciary branch. Out of 115 justices that have served on the court, only six have been women. Four are currently serving: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Did you know? There is a long history of women being considered for the Supreme Court. Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court (2020) outlines the history of nine women who were considered, dating back to the 1930s.
Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
In 1981, President Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor to replace Potter Stewart as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Although her nomination was originally opposed by pro-life and religious groups, who worried she should not rule in favor of overturning Roe vs. Wade (1973), she was eventually confirmed by a 99-0 vote in the Senate. While she was a conservative jurist, siding with the conservative justices in the majority of cases before her, many of her decisions were praised for being both narrow and moderate. She retired in 2006.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Supreme Court in 1993, and she was then confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 96-3 vote. Before joining the court, Ginsburg worked as a professor, as an attorney (arguing in front of the Supreme Court multiple times on mostly gender-related cases), and as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In her 27 years on the Supreme Court, Ginsburg established herself as a champion of women's rights and gender equality. Although thought of as a moderate when confirmed, Justice Ginsburg consistently voted with the liberal bloc of the court. She served until her passing in 2020.
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor
The U.S. Senate confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice in 2009 to replace retiring Justice David Souter. Previously, Sotomayor served as a district court judge in New York and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican parents. She was the third woman and first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court. Justice Sotomayor has made waves by standing up for civil rights and rights of defendants, including a scathing dissent in Utah v. Edward Joseph Strieff, Jr. in 2016.
Associate Justice Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice in 2010, replacing John Paul Stevens. Before her confirmation, Kagan served as the first female U.S. Solicitor General. Kagan also served as the dean of her alma mater, Harvard Law School, from 2003 to 2009. In 1995, President Clinton asked Kagan to work at the White House as associate counsel, which led to her appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and then Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council. She is the only current Supreme Court justice with no prior judicial experience.
Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett
Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice in 2020, replacing Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Before her confirmation, Barrett served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2017-2020. During her tenure, she ruled consistently in favor of conservative policies, which included rulings against abortion. Barrett also taught law at her alma mater, Notre Dame Law School, from 2002 to 2017.
Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
On April 7, 2022, Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed as the first African-American woman to serve on the Supreme Court, replacing Justice Stephen Breyer. Before her confirmation, Judge Jackson served as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. District Court. As a judge, Jackson has been known for her detailed and methodical work. Judge Jackson is also the first former public defender to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

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The United States Supreme Court is the highest level of the judiciary branch. Out of 115 justices that have served on the court, only six have been women. Four are currently serving: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Did you know?

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Some 350,000 women served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II, both at home and abroad. Women on the home front were critical to the war effort: Between 1940 and 1945, the era of "Rosie the Riveter," the female percentage of the U.S. workforce increased from 27 percent to nearly 37 percent, and by 1945, nearly one out of every four married women worked outside the home. World War II opened the door for women to work in more types of jobs than ever before, but with the return of male soldiers at war's end, women, especially married women, were once again pressured to return to a life at home-a prospect that, for thousands of American women, had dimmed thanks to their wartime service.
WATCH: Women Combat Pilots: The Right Stuff on HISTORY Vault
Women in World War II Military

In addition to factory work and other home front jobs, approximately 350,000 women joined the Armed Services, serving at home and abroad. At the urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and women's groups, and impressed by the British use of women in service, General George Marshall supported the idea of introducing a women's service branch into the Army.

In May 1942, Congress instituted the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, later upgraded to the Women's Army Corps, which had full military status. Its members, known as WACs, worked in more than 200 non-combatant jobs stateside and in every theater of the war. By 1945, there were more than 100,000 WACs and 6,000 female officers.
WATCH VIDEO: The Hidden Army of Women That Helped Defeat Hitler
In the Navy, members of Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) held the same status as naval reservists and provided support stateside. The Coast Guard and Marine Corps soon followed suit, though in smaller numbers.

One of the lesser-known roles women played in the war effort was provided by the Women's Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs. These women, each of whom had already obtained their pilot's license prior to service, became the first women to fly American military aircraft.

They ferried planes from factories to bases, transporting cargo and participating in simulation strafing and target missions, accumulating more than 60 million miles in flight distances and freeing thousands of male U.S. pilots for active duty in World War II.

Did you know? On March 10, 2010, at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol, the WASPs received the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest civilian honors. More than 200 former pilots attended the event, many wearing their World War II-era uniforms.

More than 1,000 WASPs served, and 38 of them lost their lives during the war. Considered civil service employees and without official military status, these fallen WASPs were granted no military honors or benefits, and it wasn't until 1977 that the WASPs received full military status.

Rosie the Riveter

Though women had been joining the work force in greater numbers since the hardships of the Great Depression, the entry of the United States into World War II completely transformed the types of jobs open to women.

Before the war, most working women were in traditionally female fields like nursing and teaching. Post- Pearl Harbor, women worked in a variety of positions previously closed to them, though the aviation industry saw the greatest increase in female workers. More than 310,000 women worked in the U.S. aircraft industry in 1943, representing 65 percent of the industry's total workforce (compared to just 1 percent in the pre-war years).

The munitions industry also heavily recruited women workers, as represented by the U.S. government's "Rosie the Riveter" propaganda campaign. Based in small part on a real-life munitions worker, but primarily a fictitious character, the strong, bandana-clad Rosie became one of the most successful recruitment tools in American history, and the most iconic image of working women during World War II.

In movies, newspapers, posters, photographs, articles and even a Norman Rockwell-painted Saturday Evening Postcover, the Rosie the Riveter campaign stressed the patriotic need for women to enter the work force-and they did, in huge numbers. Though women were crucial to the war effort, their pay continued to lag far behind their male counterparts: Female workers rarely earned more than 50 percent of male wages.
READ MORE: The Asian American Women Who Fought to Make Their Mark in WWII
Working Conditions For Women

With many fathers abroad fighting, mothers were faced with the burden of balancing childcare and work, and absenteeism became the symptom that caused factory owners-and the United States government-to finally acknowledge the issue.

The Lanham Act of 1940 gave war-related government grants for childcare services in communities where defense production was a major industry. In 1942, Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in, encouraging her husband, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to pass the Community Facilities Act, which led to the creation of the first U.S. government-sponsored childcare center.

Roosevelt also urged for reforms like staggered working hours at factories to allow working mothers to go to grocery stores-stores that were often either closed or out of stock by the time women clocked out of work.

Not all women were treated equally in the workplace. Black women found that white women were not always welcoming at work-if they were even granted the same job opportunities in the first place-and were paid less than their white peers. Japanese American women fared even worse, as they were sent off to Japanese internment camps under Executive Order 9066.

Though women, as a whole, had access to more jobs than ever before, they were paid far less than men, and most found themselves pressured to relinquish jobs to the male soldiers returning home at war's end. But something had permanently shifted: World War II empowered women to seek new opportunities and fight for equal pay in the decades to come.

Photo Gallery

Sources

Women in the Work Force during World War II. National Archives.
Women in the Military - WWII: Overview. Minnesota Historical Society Library.
These 5 Heroic Women of World War II Should Be Household Names. USO.
History At a Glance: Women in World War II. The National WWII Museum.

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American Women in World War II: WACs WAVES & WASPS - HISTORY

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American women served in World War II in many roles: as pilots, nurses, civil service employees, and in many home-front jobs that were formerly denied to them.