Women of Strength: Biographies of 106 Who Have Excelled in Traditionally Male Fields, A.D. 61 to the Present

In A.D. 61 Boadicea led the Britons in a fierce uprising against their Roman occupiers. In 1966, Barbara Jordan was elected to the Texas State Senate, the body’s first black member in 83 years, and six years later she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. On December 23, 1986, Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan became the first people to fly nonstop around the world. These women and 103 others are profiled here. They come from a wide variety of careers—military leaders, entrepreneurs, politicians, journalists, pilots, scientists, and others—but all were leaders in fields dominated by men. The focus of the profiles is rightly on the women’s accomplishments, but also examined are the obstacles they overcame in reaching their leadership positions.