Women have proven time and time again that they can make the impossible happen, regardless of the circumstances. Whether it’s birthing children or ideas or both, women continuously leave their marks in history.
Throughout history there have been women who refused to accept the limits that society placed on them. Some picked up a pen and wrote words that challenged entire systems of power. Others stood on the frontlines of resistance movements.
Their stories remind us that change rarely happens because the world suddenly becomes fair. It happens because someone decides to challenge what already exists.
Below are a few voices of women who refused to accept the world as it was and instead dared to shape it into something new.
- “To anyone who has ever had a dream and thought your dream wasn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t come true: I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like,” she continued. “This is what striving looks like. Don’t you ever, ever give up on you.” — Sheryl Lee Ralph
- “The greatest lesson I learned as a mathematician is that uncertainty is the key to growth.” — Katherine Johnson
- “I have a little framed document in my bathroom, a letter from, I think Texas Bureau of Corrections, saying that “Paradise” was banned from the prison because it might incite a riot. And I thought, how powerful is that? I could tear up the whole place!” — Toni Morrison
- “All battles are first won or lost in the mind.” — Joan of Arc
- “In places in the world where we don’t speak the same language, or even understand that we pray to the same God, we dance to the same beat, that is the ONE.” — Debbie Allen
- “Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women.” — Maya Angelou
- “That’s what art is for me. It helps you maintain hope by giving you the ability to either create outside your reality, or to describe your reality.” — Afeni Shakur
- “Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.” — Zora Neale Hurston
- “I get riled up by people saying you can’t do something or people placing limitations. I have always just wanted to push things a little bit further. I displayed that a lot when I was younger, pushing buttons and trying things.” —Doechii
- “We cannot always control our thoughts, but we can control our words, and repetition impresses the subconscious, and we are then master of the situation.” —Jane Fonda
- “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.” — bell hooks
- “Once I learned to like me more than others did, then I didn’t have to worry about being the funniest or the most popular or the prettiest. I was the best me and I only ever tried to be that.” — Issa Rae
- “Success isn’t about how much money you make. It’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” — Michelle Obama
- ““My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life. You can redefine it. You don’t have to live in the past. I found that not only did I have fight in me, I had love.”” — Viola Davis
- “Every woman’s success should be an inspiration to another.” — Serena Williams
- “When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.” — Beyoncé
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