Three Women Who Changed the World

Who can regret the importance of women in our life? They have reached a high place comparable to that of men in all fields: politics, business, sport, art, literature, etc. Below you will read about three women who made history.

1. Mother Theresa

Mother Theresa was a Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, in 1950. For over 45 years she helped the poor, sick, orphaned and dying while guiding the Missionaries of Charity’s expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries. She was internationally renowned as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and the helpless. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1980 for her humanitarian work.

2. Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the US Congress called ‘the first lady of civil rights’ and ‘the mother of the freedom movement’. On 1 December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, while Parks was sitting on her seat in a bus, the bus driver, James Blake, ordered her to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks refused to give up her seat, and this act of resistance became an important symbol of the modern Civil Rights Movement. As a result, Parks became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation. She organised and collaborated with civil rights leaders, including boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr., helping to launch him to national prominence in the civil rights movement.

3. Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir was a French philosopher, public intellectual and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes and monographs on philosophy, politics and social issues. She is now best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, and for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women’s oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.