Narges Mohammadi: Iran’s Nobel Prize-Winning Voice of Resistance
Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her promotion of human rights. This incredible Iranian activist continues her fight from behind prison walls, where she’s been locked up for most of the past two decades. Speaking exclusively to CNN while on a three-week medical release from prison, Mohammadi said, “Not even the prison walls and all these convictions can ever stop me.” Mohammadi will soon be brought back to the notorious prison, where she is serving multiple sentences totaling 31 years, having been convicted of acting against national security and spreading propaganda. Earlier this month, Iranian authorities suspended her prison term for 21 days to allow her to recover from a surgery she had in November to remove part of a bone in her lower right leg, where doctors had discovered a lesion suspected of being cancerous.
Deborah Sampson: The Continental Soldier in Disguise
One of the best examples of a woman who disguised herself as a man to fight in the Continental Army was Deborah Sampson from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Amazingly, she also has a paper trail concerning her combat service in the army, where she fought under the alias of Robert Shurtliff, the name of her deceased brother, in the light infantry company of the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. She mustered into service in the spring of 1782 and saw action in Westchester County, New York just north of the City of New York where she was wounded in her thigh and forehead. Her identity was finally revealed during the summer of 1783 when she contracted a fever while on duty in Philadelphia. By the time she died in 1827, she was collecting minimal pensions for her service from Massachusetts and the federal government. In her memory a statue stands today outside the public library, in Sharon, honoring her Revolutionary War service and sacrifices.
Mercy Otis Warren: America’s Revolutionary Playwright and Patriot
Called a “real genius” and “the most accomplished woman in America” by her good friend John Adams, Mercy Otis Warren was born into an intellectual, political family in West Barnstable, Massachusetts in 1728. As an adult, she moved to Plymouth, raised five sons, and was by all accounts an elegant, genteel woman of impeccable manners and taste. But Warren was also a radical revolutionary. She called her home “One Liberty Square” and headed a salon of patriots fed up with oppressive British rule. She wrote hugely influential, pointed political plays and poems which were printed in Boston papers. What made Warren truly exceptional wasn’t just her words, but how she turned her drawing room into a revolutionary headquarters, right under the noses of British authorities.
Claire Lacombe: France’s Fearless Revolutionary Actress
For the next three years, Claire Lacombe, a struggling provincial actress, would become a star among the most extremist elements of the French Revolution. Known as “Red Rosa,” she danced atop the ruins of the Bastille, was shot in the arm during the storming of the Tuileries, and co-founded the radical, influential feminist “Republican Revolutionary Society” (also known as the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women). These “enraged” women of the maligned lower-class fought for equal rights and the destruction of all aristocrats. Militant and fierce, Lacombe and her “dragoons” terrified the men of the revolution. In 1794, Lacombe was thrown in jail, and women’s clubs were outlawed. When she was released 16 months later, “she mingled with the crowd outside,” Lacombe’s biographer Galina Sokolnikova wrote, “and vanished into obscurity.” Her theatrical background made her a master of public performance and political drama.
Margarita Neri: Mexico’s Forgotten Rebel Queen
In 1911, the Los Angeles Times breathlessly reported on revolutionary battles taking place in Guerrero, a southern coastal state in war-torn Mexico. “Petticoat leads band of Rebels,” the headline blared, in a story picked up all across North America. Margarita Neri, “La Neri” or “Pepita” to her 700-plus followers, was a young, wealthy convent girl who was incensed over outrageous taxes. So, she raised an army against the Mexican government. “The Rebel Queen of Morelos” was the daughter of a Mayan Indian and a former Mexican general who had rebelled against the strongman government of President Diaz over a decade before. Years after her father’s death, she took up his fight, and in the process became a legendary figure during her own short lifetime. Her story shows how revolutionary spirit could pass down through generations, inspiring new fighters against oppression.
Sophie Scholl: Germany’s White Rose Resistance Leader
German revolutionary Sophie Scholl was a founding member of the non-violent anti-Nazi resistance group The White Rose, which advocated for active resistance to Hitler’s regime through an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign. In February of 1943, she and other members were arrested for handing out leaflets at the University of Munich and sentenced to death by guillotine. Copies of the leaflet, retitled The Manifesto of the Students of Munich, were smuggled out of the country and millions were air-dropped over Germany by Allied forces later that year. At just 21 years old, Scholl proved that even in the face of certain death, one person’s courage could spark a movement that would outlive them and inspire resistance across an entire nation.
Blanca Canales: Puerto Rico’s Flag-Waving Revolutionary
Blanca Canales was a Puerto Rican Nationalist who helped organize the Daughters of Freedom, the women’s branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She was one of the few women in history to have led a revolt against the United States, known as the Jayuya Uprising. The uprising was a direct response to oppressive laws that restricted freedom of speech and assembly in Puerto Rico. Canales literally raised the Puerto Rican flag during the revolt, declaring the town’s independence from the United States. Though the uprising was quickly suppressed, her bold actions demonstrated that revolutionary fervor wasn’t limited to mainland struggles, but extended to territories fighting for their own independence and dignity.
Margaret Corbin: America’s First Female War Pensioner
On November 16, 1776, Margaret Cochran Corbin dressed as a man and joined her husband to fight in the Revolutionary War. They fought together in the Battle of Fort Washington, where she helped her husband fire cannons against the British. When her husband was killed during the battle, Corbin stepped into his role and continued to fire. However, Corbin didn’t make it out of the war unscathed—she was badly injured and permanently lost the use of her left arm. On July 6, 1779, the Continental Congress awarded Corbin a lifelong pension in recognition of her heroism and service. Corbin was the first woman to receive a war pension, although it was valued at half the pension a man would have received at the time. Her story reveals the gender inequality that persisted even when women proved their worth on the battlefield.
Qiu Jin: China’s Sword-Wielding Feminist Revolutionary
In 1904, Qiu Jin, a wealthy Chinese wife, mother, poet, and feminist, tired of the severe patriarchal restraints placed on her intellectual and political development, shocked Beijing society. Leaving her family behind, she sailed to Japan to enroll in college and meet with like-minded Chinese revolutionaries, who sought to overthrow their corrupt government. What made Qiu Jin particularly striking was her rejection of traditional feminine roles in favor of revolutionary action and education. She carried a sword, wore men’s clothes when it suited her, and wrote passionate poetry calling for women to rise up against oppression. Her sacrifices for the revolutionary cause eventually cost her life, but not before she had inspired countless other Chinese women to question the status quo.
Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad’s Fearless Conductor
Harriet Tubman, who was born a slave in 1820, fled Maryland for the free state of Pennsylvania. Over the years, she went on 19 missions to rescue more than 300 slaves on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she was the first woman to lead a military expedition, liberating more than 700 slaves. What many people don’t realize is that Tubman carried a gun during her rescue missions and wasn’t afraid to use it. She reportedly told frightened escapees that they would either make it to freedom or die trying, but they wouldn’t go back to slavery and endanger the entire operation. Her strategic mind and absolute fearlessness made her one of the most effective revolutionaries in American history.
Joan of Arc: France’s Divinely Inspired Military Leader
Spurred by dreams in which Christian saints would urge her to fight the English, Joan of Arc famously led the assault that lifted the English siege of the city of Orleans in 1429, turning the tide in favor of the French. At just 17 years old, this peasant girl convinced the French court that she had received divine visions telling her to drive the English out of France. What’s remarkable isn’t just that she succeeded in getting an audience with the future king, but that she actually delivered on her promises on the battlefield. Her military campaigns were so successful that she fundamentally changed the course of the Hundred Years’ War and French history.
Tawakul Karman: Yemen’s Democracy Activist and Nobel Laureate
Tawakul Karman, chair of Women Journalists Without Chains — a Yemeni group that defends human rights and freedom of expression — pressured former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down from power, which he held from 1978 to 2012. She was arrested several times during her peaceful protests. Karman became known as the “Mother of the Revolution” during the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen. Her courage in organizing protests against an authoritarian regime that had been in power for over three decades inspired thousands of young Yemenis to join the pro-democracy movement. Despite facing imprisonment and death threats, she never wavered in her commitment to peaceful resistance and democratic reform.
Mary Wollstonecraft: Britain’s Radical Women’s Rights Pioneer
In 18th century Britain, Mary Wollstonecraft made the unprecedented claim that the rights of women are equal to those of men. In her two most famous works, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791), she takes on Edmund Burke with her then-radical feminism. Living during an era when women had virtually no legal rights, Wollstonecraft argued that women deserved equal education and opportunities. Her ideas were so revolutionary for her time that she was widely ridiculed and called dangerous by her contemporaries. Yet her writings laid the groundwork for the feminist movements that would follow centuries later, proving that sometimes the most powerful revolution happens through words rather than weapons.
Two Kettles Together: The Oneida Nation’s Battlefield Warrior
Oneida women played a key role in their nation’s decision to ally themselves with the American Revolutionaries. Two Kettles Together, the wife of an Oneida war chief, participated in the violent Battle of Oriskany during the Saratoga Campaign. Tyonajanegen (Two Kettles Together), an Oneida woman who played a key role in their nation’s decision to ally themselves with the American Revolutionaries and participated in the violent Battle of Oriskany during the Saratoga Campaign. Her participation wasn’t just symbolic – she fought alongside male warriors in one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War. The Oneida Nation’s decision to side with the Americans was partly influenced by the counsel of women like Two Kettles Together, showing how indigenous women exercised real political power in ways that European-American women of the time could not.
Margaret Barry: South Carolina’s Revolutionary Scout
Known as the “Heroine of the Battle of Cowpens,” Margaret “Kate” Moore Barry volunteered as a scout for the American forces. Familiar with every trail and shortcut around her plantation in South Carolina and being an excellent horsewoman, Kate was crucial in warning the militia of the approaching British. Before the battle, Kate was instrumental in rounding up militia, including her husband Captain Andrew Barry, to support General Daniel Morgan and his troops. Thanks to the bravery of women like Margaret Barry, the Battle of Cowpens was a decisive victory by Continental army forces in the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War. Her intimate knowledge of the local terrain and her fearless horseback rides through dangerous territory made her an invaluable intelligence asset for the Continental Army.
The Revolutionary Legacy That Lives On
These women revolutionaries prove that courage and determination have no gender boundaries. At the current rate of progress, it will take 131 years to reach full gender parity, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023. Yet each of these remarkable women fought against seemingly impossible odds, changing the course of history through their individual acts of defiance. Women have always played vital roles in revolutionary uprisings, contrary to popular patriarchal narratives. Throughout history, thousands of women have fought against regimes they perceived as oppressive, either with the pen, the podium, or their own fists. Their stories remind us that revolution isn’t just about grand battles and famous speeches, but about ordinary people making extraordinary choices in the face of injustice.
From Narges Mohammadi continuing her fight from an Iranian prison cell to Joan of Arc convincing a king to let a teenage peasant girl lead his army, these women show us what happens when determination meets opportunity. Their legacy challenges us to ask ourselves: when faced with injustice, will we choose comfort or courage?
