Mira Szászy emerged from a humble upbringing to become one of the greatest Māori leaders and proponents of mana wāhine in the twentieth century. Throughout her life, Mira pushed for education, health and social reforms, and helped shape twentieth-century cultural and gender politics and forge new pathways for Māori women. She dedicated her life to te ao Māori, Māori women, and upholding the principles of humanity, social justice and equality.
Dorothea Beale studied at Queen’s College, London where she became the first female mathematics tutor. She became Principal of Cheltenham Ladies’ College and a founder of St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
Hertha Ayrton was an engineer and mathematician. She was awarded the Royal Society’s Hughes Medal, and is well known as a suffragette.
Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919), an American suffragist leader, minister and physician.
Immensely popular English novelist.
While she may not always have achieved her aims, through her persistence she not only stood for Parliament but maintained on her own a Māori-language newspaper. Well known and respected among Māori and Pākehā, she was rightly remembered as ‘a busy wheel’.
Her letters to her mother, later published, give an invaluable picture – sensitive, sharp, witty – of the challenges, discomforts and pleasures of life in the very early days of the colonial settlement in New Zealand.
Cherry Raymond was a broadcaster, journalist and opinion-leader, and a household name during the 1960s and 1970s when few women achieved such prominence in the media. Although she particularly campaigned on women’s issues, and often on topics which were controversial or taboo, her interests were broad, and she played an important role in raising the profile of mental illness in New Zealand.
The distinguished writer and journalist Christine Cole Catley was one of New Zealand’s leading independent publishers of the late twentieth century. She was co-founder of the Parents Centre movement in the 1950s, and an influential teacher and shaper of broadcasting policy.
Eve Mahlab is an influential Australian lawyer and businesswoman who has successfully advocated for women’s advancement in society and the workplace, through her achievements in business leadership, lobbying and philanthropy.