This month, the world celebrates International Women’s Day on March 8th. We thought we would take you through history with a quick timeline on how women’s rights have developed over the years and give you an idea of some of the most influential women in history.
1911: The first ever International Women’s Day is celebrated
1913: Norwegian women are given the right to vote
1915: Women’s International League of for Peace and Freedom is established
1916: Jeanette Rankin is elected in Montana and becomes the first US congresswoman.
1918: Canadian and British women gain the right to vote.
1919: Lady Astor enters the British House of Commons.
1920: The United States of America gives women
the right to vote and the Treaty of Versailles guarantees women equal pay as males.
1925: The first female US govenor is elected, Nellie Tayloe Ross, in Wyoming.
1928: Women compete for the first time in the olympics.
1933: Franklin Roosevelt appoints Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor and she becomes the first ever female cabinet member of the United States.
1945: Eleanor Roosevelt becomes the US delegate
for the United Nations and makes significant contribution to the Declaration of Human Rights.
1946: Eleanor Roosevelt becomes Head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
1948: Women run and vote in the House of Representatives for the first time.
1949: French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir writes ‘The Second Sex’ which sparks the questioning of gender roles.
1955: Rosa Parks sparks the black civil rights movement in the US.
1964: The Civil Rights Act guarantees no discrimination on the basis of gender in employment.
1966: Indira Gandhi becomes India’s first female prime minister.
1972: Education amendments in American ban sex discrimination in schools.
1973: Billie Jean King beats Bobby Rings in the ‘Battle-of-the-sexes’ tennis match.
1975: The UN names 1975 the International Women’s Year
1979: Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
1981: Sandra Day O’Connor is the first woman to join the Supreme Court
1993: Jane Reno becomes the first female Attorney General of the United States.
1997: Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State for the US.