It should come as no surprise to anyone by now that women contribute to every last facet of society, every last nook and cranny of every business, every last piece of the world in interesting and invaluable ways. They run businesses, they’re inventors, they’re teachers and mothers and scientists and literally everything in between.
And without these 10 women, we’d be without some pretty essential things we take for granted every single day.
10. LGBTQ rights.
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Marsha P. Johnson was a gender non-conforming drag queen who helped found the Gay Liberation Front and played a central role in the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
She continued to advocate until her death in 1992. If you want to know more about the way she paved a path for LGBTQ rights, there are more than a few documentaries you could nab.
9. Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies.
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Ruth Graves Wakefield ran the Toll House Inn with her husband in the 1930s, and noticed that her customers really loved her butterscotch nut cookie.
She set about experimenting with something different, originally figuring to work with melted chocolate in a dough. Ruth ran out of time, though, and ended up crushing a Nestle bar with an ice pick and using the “chips” in the dough instead.
Props to Ruth and whoever pissed her off enough that day that she felt the need to go at a chocolate bar with an ice pick.
8. Monopoly.
Love it or hate it, Monopoly has played a role in most of our lives. Lizzie Magie was an American writer and game designer who invented a game called The Landlord’s Game back in 1904.
It involved players creating wealth and forming monopolies, and was a direct inspiration for the family game night staple we all love to hate.
7. Coffee filters.
If you really enjoy your morning (and mid-morning and afternoon) cups of coffee without grounds floating in them, thank Melitta Bentz. She was a German housewife who hated grounds in her coffee, and didn’t stop trying until she figured out the perfect way to filter them out.
It was a page from her son’s school book, and she filed for the patent in 1908.
6. CCTV.
Criminals around the world probably don’t love Marie Van Brittan, but the rest of us should – in the 1960s, she was frustrated at how long it took police to respond to complaints in her neighborhood and took matters into her own hands.
Wanting to feel safe, Marie created a closed-circuit security unit that monitored visitors through a camera and projection system, and received a patent in 1969.
5. Sanitary napkins.
Around 1926, an African-American woman named Mary Kenner figured there had to be a better way to deal with period flow than a rag in her underwear. She developed an adjustable belt with a built-in pocket.
Her genius invention was pretty much ignored since Mary was black, and wasn’t patented until 1056.
4. Edible ice cream cones.
Can you imagine ice cream without cones? Well, thanks to Agnes “Queen of Ices” Marshall you’ve never had to – she founded a popular central London cookery in the mid-19th century, and in her 1888 cookbook, shared a recipe for “cornets with cones.”
It’s the first publication of its type, and obviously, genius.
3. WiFi.
In 1940, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr worked with composer George Antheil to develop a device that would allow radio transmissions to go undetected by the Nazis during the war, thereby preventing attacks.
She received no recognition or cash at the time, and doesn’t hold the resulting patent. The invention led to the WiFi and Bluetooth technology we use today.
2. Windshield wipers.
Do you enjoy being able to see while you drive on a rainy day? So did Mary Anderson, a NYC real estate developer in the early 20th century.
She noticed how hard it was to see while driving in the snow and developed a hand-operated tool to keep the windshield clear. She patented the idea in 1903.
1. Central heating.
In 1919, natural gas was used for industrial heating purposes, but it hadn’t been considered for use in residential homes. Alice Parker was an African American woman from New Jersey, and she had the idea of using a centrally located heat source and pipes to spread heat through homes.
I, for one, would like to raise a glass to this woman.
We definitely need more lists like this one in the world – let’s feed them to our kids while we’re in charge of educating them for the foreseeable future, no?
What’s your favorite invention by a woman? Book? Film? Let’s grow our list in the comments!