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The Eucharist as Breastfeeding: Medieval Women Mystics and the Body of Christ
Julian of Norwich and Mechthild of Magdeburg used motherhood to describe divine power, from Christ feeding believers to a woman nourishing him.
Women worth knowing
All Stories
Extraordinary women, overlooked stories, and a more complete history. Explore the lives, ideas, and achievements that changed the world.
Women Writers
Women who shaped stories, shared knowledge, and challenged ideas.
Explore women writers in history through their poetry, fiction, journalism, memoir, and nonfiction. Discover the writing they created, the lives behind it, and the barriers they faced in getting their words read and their ideas heard.
Where to begin
Poetry & fiction
Poems and imagined worlds gave women ways to explore desire, belief, and independence. Follow the work and lives behind the words.
- Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — a poet and scholar who defended women’s right to learning.
- Constance Fenimore Woolson — a novelist and short-story writer whose literary success deserves attention on its own terms.
News & reform
Writing could expose injustice and make a case for change. These stories follow women using newspapers and investigative reporting to challenge power.
- Amelia Bloomer — an editor who used The Lily to argue for women’s rights and dress reform.
- Ida B. Wells — a journalist whose investigative writing challenged lynching and the claims used to justify it.
Ideas & learning
Writing also carried knowledge beyond a classroom or laboratory. Explore women explaining discoveries, sharing practical knowledge, and developing new ideas.
- Ada Lovelace — a mathematician whose translation and original notes explored the possibilities of the Analytical Engine.
- Indra Devi — a yoga teacher and author who brought her teaching to readers through books.
All writing stories
Florbela Espanca, Portuguese Poet of Love and Longing
Florbela Espanca fought to get her poems into print. Her sonnets won praise for their skill, and condemnation for giving voice to women’s desire.
Meerabai the Poet: The Mystical Princess Who Defied Empire and Expectation
She chose spiritual devotion over royal expectations, expressing independence through poetry and song that challenged social hierarchies and carried her voice far beyond the palace.
Johanna van Gogh-Bonger: The Woman Behind Van Gogh
Her determination to preserve and promote an artist’s work helped turn a neglected legacy into worldwide recognition, changing which paintings found their place in art history.
Amelia Bloomer: Temperance, Suffrage, and Rational Dress Advocate
She used journalism to argue for political rights and practical clothing, linking women’s ability to move freely with their right to participate in public life.
4 Famous Black Women Of the Harlem Renaissance
Black women’s writing and art helped drive a cultural movement, bringing new voices into public life and influencing how communities understood and represented themselves.
5 Famous Women Atheists In History
Women’s convictions about religion shaped lives of achievement in science, literature, and philosophy, connecting intellectual independence with debates over belief and freedom of thought.
Simone de Beauvoir: Her Life and Significance
Her analysis of women’s place in society challenged assumptions about femininity, helping reshape feminist thought and establish women’s experiences as a central philosophical concern.
Women of the California Gold Rush
A rush for gold created unusual opportunities for women to earn money, own businesses, and shape frontier communities through enterprise that extended well beyond mining.
Julia Ward Howe: Abolitionist, Social Activist, Poet
A celebrated wartime anthem made her famous, but her poetry and activism also carried demands for abolition, women’s rights, and a broader role in public life.
Constance Fenimore Woolson, Successful American Novelist
Her fiction won readers and critics on its own merits, establishing a successful literary career too often overshadowed by her friendship with a more famous male author.
Drowned in History: Malay’s Earliest Known Feminist Writer
Her fiction imagined women resisting unwanted marriages and restrictive roles, giving literary form to a demand for independence that challenged the expectations of her society.
Fannie Farmer, the mother of level measurements
She helped make recipes reliable by championing precise measurements, bringing a scientific approach to everyday cooking and making successful results easier for home cooks to reproduce.
5 Surprising Facts About the Mughal Princess Jahanara That History Forgot
Royal women could shape an empire through commerce, architecture, and spiritual writing, exercising influence that reaches far beyond the familiar image of life inside a palace.
Lady Mary Montagu, Brilliant Autodidact Aristocrat
She championed knowledge of smallpox inoculation learned abroad, using her influence to challenge medical resistance and bring a different approach to preventing disease into public view.
Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Famous Abolitionist and Pioneering Publisher
She built schools and a newspaper to advance Black freedom and opportunity, using education and publishing to challenge slavery and support communities across national borders.
Ada Lovelace: World’s First Programmer
She saw that computers could work with more than numbers, envisioning creative applications long before modern machines and helping establish the foundations of programming.
6 Brilliant Women Philosophers of Ancient Greece
Women taught, debated, and developed philosophical ideas in the ancient world, contributing to intellectual life despite restrictions on their education and participation in public affairs.
Hypatia of Alexandria, female philosopher, astronomer and mathematician
Her teaching and scholarship earned respect in mathematics and philosophy, making an ancient woman’s intellectual independence a source of inspiration long after her death.
Ida B. Wells: Fierce Anti-Lynching Activist and Abolitionist
She used investigative writing to expose lynching and the lies used to justify it, carrying the fight against racial violence to audiences across national borders.