You wake up on Sunday to bright sunshine, saturating your room. It’s a pleasant surprise after all the rain lately, so you practically bolt out of bed. You head straight to the kitchen and pull your favourite mug out of the dishwasher, then grind your coffee and press ‘Brew’.
The birds collecting outside your window are singing and the sheer joy of their jibber-jabber inspires you to do something you haven’t done in a while: Take a road trip.
So you program your GPS for a beautiful Botanical Garden just about an hour away. Remembering their allowance for picnics, you decide to stop at a grocery store en route to pick up a sandwich and a drink, but you forgot your cloth tote, so you have to buy a paper bag at the register. No big deal, it can double as a trash bag for the ride home!
You arrive at the Garden to gorgeous blooms and paved pathways that allow you easy access to see the entire display. After you enjoy the lunch you packed at a nearby picnic table, while watching butterflies soar and land amongst the bushes, you decide to finish your journey with a stop at the local ice cream shop. Two scoops—one chocolate; one mint chocolate chip, and you’re on your way!
Just as you begin to head home, the rain returns. You get your windshield wipers going and say a silent “thank you” to Mother Nature for holding off this downpour while you enjoyed your day.
Sounds lovely, right?
It certainly does … but did you know that without women, most of that day wouldn’t have gone so smoothly?
Let us explain …
- The dishwasher that cleaned your mug was invented by a woman.
- The coffee filters that helped brew your perfect cup were invented by a woman.
- The technology that enabled your GPS was invented by a woman.
- The paper bag at the grocery that helped transport your lunch was invented by a woman.
- The ice cream you enjoyed was made possible by technology, invented by a woman.
- The windshield wipers that enabled you to drive home with better visibility were invented by a woman.
During this Women’s History Month, we want to emphasise the importance of women’s contributions to society in light of the continued challenges women face for equality; celebrate those who have made such important contributions; and provide actionable ways that you can help lift women up in your community and worldwide.
Credit Where Credit is Due
Josephine Cochran was an American socialite, tired of her fine China getting chipped as her dishes were hand-washed. She imagined a machine with water jets and a rotating wheel that sat beneath secure dish racks to do the job more gently—and efficiently. She got a patent for this design in 1886 and began Cochran’s Crescent Washing Machine Company. By 1893, after many successful sales to hotels and restaurants, she won a design award at the Chicago World’s Fair. She passed away in 1913.
Her manufacturing company? It later became KitchenAid, and in 1949 the first home dishwasher based on her original design was put on the market—soon to become a standard appliance across the world.
Melitta Bentz was a German homemaker and mother of three who didn’t enjoy the bitter taste or the sludge that was left behind when she would brew her morning coffee. She also hated cleaning out the wet grounds. So one day, she spontaneously took a page of her son’s notebook and used that to filter the grounds through.
Realising she had just made an exceptional cup of coffee, she knew she should protect her invention. She registered for the patent in 1908 and saw immediate success the following year when she went to market. Despite supply chain issues during the war that slowed sales, her company Melitta still thrives, producing 50 million coffee filters per day. She passed away in 1950 (her children carry on the family business).
Dr. Gladys West was an African American mathematician who was a respected member of the Naval Surface Warfare Center for several decades. In addition to being a key programmer for early IBM computers, her work regarding satellite geodesy was instrumental in the creation of our modern-day GPS.
Despite many hardships she encountered due to racism and sexism, she was inducted into the United States Air Force Hall of Fame in 2018 and in 2021 earned the Prince Philip Medal from the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering. She died at the age of 95 earlier this year.
Margaret E. Knight was an American girl, raised primarily by her single mother after her father’s sudden death during her childhood. As a result she worked many jobs in her younger years—everything from furniture upholstery to home repair. At 29, she was hired by the Columbia Paper Bag Company and soon realized the flat design of their bags was not efficient for groceries like the handmade, flat-bottomed varieties that were already available.
She went to work building a prototype for the machine she envisioned would be able to mass-produce this better type of bag. A male machinist who visited the shop where she was working stole her idea and patented it. When she challenged his patent, he argued a woman couldn’t possibly understand how to build such a machine. But … as they say: She had the receipts! She produced her original blueprints, drawings and plans, then took him to court. She won(!), received her paper bag machine patent in 1871 and to honour her victory, was decorated by Queen Victoria later that same year. She continued to create inventions until her death in 1914.
Nancy Johnson was a housewife in Philadelphia when she developed a way to make ice cream that all classes of people could afford. She took a wooden tub and surrounded it with crushed ice and salt, then attached paddles and a hand crank to make it churn while it cooled. She called this invention her ‘Artificial Freezer’ and filed for a patent in 1843.
The basic principles of her solution remain today, even in the most sophisticated industrial ice cream-making machines. After her success as an inventor, she became part of the Port Royal Experiment and helped educate freed slaves in South Carolina. She died at the age of 95.
Mary Anderson was a rancher from Alabama, on holiday in New York City in 1902, when the conductor of the trolley she was riding in had trouble clearing snow off of the windshield. She watched him struggle and even stop the streetcar to get out and clear the view, and had an idea of a contraption that could be activated from the inside of the vehicle to clear the snow without such effort.
A year later, she was granted a patent for a hand-cranked “windshield cleaning device”, but as an independent, single woman, couldn’t sell it anywhere. She never made a dime from her invention, but it did inspire the development of more sophisticated wipers that Cadillac introduced as a standard feature soon thereafter. She died in 1953—58 years before she would be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Women's Rights in 2026
Child Marriage
As difficult as it is to fathom, child marriages are still incredibly prevalent throughout the world, though it’s gender disproportionate because the boys/men are historically older than the girls, often at least 18, if not far beyond that when they select their bride. In Niger, the country with the highest rates of child marriage on record, ¾ of all girls under age 18 are married and 30% of them were younger than 15 when they wed.
Poverty is a huge factor in this vicious cycle—with parents often taking money for ‘selling’ their girls into marriage and to lessen the amount of mouths to feed in the home. A lack of education can also lead to the spreading of sexually transmitted diseases or the death of the bride during pregnancy (as some girls are old enough to conceive, but physically incapable of giving birth).
Human Trafficking
Though anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, women make up approximately 90% of those captured for prostitution, forced marriage and slavery. Only 1% of those taken typically return to their former lives.
The survivors who do return, arrive with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental (and sometimes physical) health conditions that can impact them for the rest of their lives.
Barriers to Education
In South Sudan, because of the violence and displacement of families, an estimated 75% of female children don’t make it to elementary school. In Afghanistan, girls are fully banned from attending secondary school. In Mali, only 38% of girls finish primary school due to poverty and the responsibilities in the home that fall primarily on the female members of the family (such as domestic chores).
Several other countries follow similar patterns, assigning work such as collecting water or washing clothing that occupies the hours when girls would typically attend school. 119 million girls worldwide remain out of school for one reason or another.
Reproductive Freedom
Women can still face jail time for having abortions (even those classified as miscarriages) in over 100 countries. El Salvador, Malta and Nicaragua are a few examples where there are no exceptions (even if the mother’s life is at risk); others such as Barbados, Jamaica, The Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates have lesser sentences, but will still place the mother behind bars for having the procedure.
13 states in America also now have strict bans on abortions, but the criminal penalties are directed more toward the healthcare providers than the mothers in most scenarios.
How to Help
There are many organisations devoted specifically to women’s rights that cover each of the issues we mentioned above. Here are just a few ways to take action:
- Join a campaign with UN Women to spread the word about various women’s issues.
- Educate yourself on current issues through Equality Now, which works to end sexual violence and exploitation worldwide.
- Take action with Girls Not Brides, which aims to end child marriage across the globe.
- Be a voice for Ending Human Trafficking, a group that produces podcasts that spotlights key truths about every aspect of the issue .
- Donate to The Cynthia Lennon Scholarship for Girls, which provides educational opportunities to underprivileged students.
Please don’t forget to lift up the women in your lives—the everyday heroes and extraordinary changemakers alike.
And always give them a seat at the table…
“Woman, 2014” by Julian Lennon is available for purchase through the Fremin Gallery.
Very nice article . Thank you for all of the great info. I enjoyed reading it. Also I will use the links you provided.
Thank you, Julian. I was not aware of all of these facts or your mother’s Scholarship for Girls. We can all do better.
A great revelation knowing so many women included in this wonderful essay have contributed so much to the world. And the names and facts are rarely shared anywhere. I’m grateful to be able to take action for women’s rights through some of the organizations listed in the essay. I have donated a number of times to the Cynthia Lennon Scholarship Fund and after reading the essay, I am inspired to make another. Thank you 💓