Back in 2023, the Ford Motor Company launched a pretty radical marketing campaign that shook things up a bit. They introduced a Men’s Only Edition of the Ford Explorer. It had no GPS, no rearview mirror, no turn signals, no brake lights, no heat, and more. Pretty ridiculous concept. Or was it?
The campaign ran during Women’s History Month … clever, bold and a little uncomfortable. And it made a powerful point. (When you get a chance, watch the commercial or check out the website.)
The campaign also highlighted some unexpected influencers, including actress Hedy Lamarr, automotive engineer Dorothy Levitt, and “Hidden Figures” mathematician Dr. Gladys West. And the campaign dedicated the message to “every woman who asks why not and challenges what is.”
So often, women’s contributions are built into our world but not built into our memory.
Yes, we know the names from our history books: Rosa Parks. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Amelia Earhart. Maya Angelou.
But they are only part of the story.
Here are four more women you may not have learned about in school, but their courage, brilliance, and determination ripple through your life today.
Constance Kopp: The First Female Sheriff in the US
In 1914, Constance Kopp’s life collided, quite literally, with a powerful silk factory owner in New Jersey. After he crashed into her family’s buggy, she demanded he pay for the damages. A reasonable request.
Instead, Kaufman began a campaign of intimidation, sending her threatening letters, having his shots at her house, and threatening to sell her daughter into prostitution. Can you even imagine?!
Most people would have run the other way. Not Constance.
Instead of backing down, Kopp asked for help from Sheriff Robert Heath, who saw something in her: Grit. Determination. Nerve.
He trained her, her daughter and her sister on how to use handguns, and the four of them hatched a plan to bring down Kaufman. With the help of a handwriting specialist, they finally brought him to justice.
Heath was so impressed with Kopp that he appointed her as an undersheriff. Just like that, she became the first female sheriff in the US. She later opened a detective agency with her sister and daughter, continuing to pursue justice in an era when women were rarely allowed near a badge.
Permission sometimes looks like persistence in the face of intimidation.
Katherine Switzer: The First Woman to Officially Run the Boston Marathon
In 1967, no rule explicitly barred women from registering for the Boston Marathon, but no woman had been officially permitted to run it (Bobbi Gibb ran that year and the year before, but unofficially).
Registered as KV Switzer, this intrepid runner completed the marathon in approximately four hours and twenty minutes.
Mid-race, an official tried to physically remove her. She kept running.
In her book Marathon Runner, she explained, “I knew if I quit, nobody would ever believe that women had the capability to run 26-plus miles. If I quit, everybody would say it was a publicity stunt. If I quit, it would set women’s sports back, way back, instead of forward.”
The following year, the Amateur Athletic Union banned women from competing in races with men; it wasn’t until 1972 that women were officially allowed in the Boston Marathon. Switzer came in third that year and won first place two years later. Her awards include Female Runner of the Decade, an Emmy Award for her Olympic marathon commentating, and induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Switzer didn’t just finish a race.
She helped open a starting line.
Permission, sometimes, is endurance.
Jane Cook Wright: The Mother of Chemotherapy
Cancer treatment today relies heavily on chemotherapy. But decades ago, the idea was controversial and even frightening. Dr. Jane Cooke Wright saw possibilities where others saw risk. She was a trailblazing oncologist who transformed cancer treatment. She pioneered techniques to test drugs on specific human tumor cells, laying the groundwork for what we now call targeted therapy.
The only woman in a group of seven physicians, she cofounded the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and she was the first woman president of the New York Cancer Society. By 1967, Dr. Wright was the highest-ranking Black woman in US medicine as chemotherapy department dean, professor of surgery, and New York Medical College associate dean. Later, she served on the board of directors for the American Cancer Society.
More than 100 research papers.
Decades of leadership.
Millions of lives impacted and counting.
Permission can look like innovation in a lab: unseen, uncelebrated, but revolutionary.
Margaret Hamilton: The Woman Who Helped Us Get to the Moon
We all know the names Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins. But we rarely hear about the woman who helped write the software that made the Apollo moon landing possible, Margaret Hamilton.
As the head of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory’s Software Engineering Division, Hamilton and her team developed the first computers to guide a human anywhere. In fact, Hamilton helped coin the term “software engineering.” When alarms started going off during the Apollo 11 landing, it was her software that prioritized essential tasks, preventing mission failure.
She later founded two software companies, has been involved in over sixty projects, six major programs and published over 130 reports, proceedings, and papers. For her work developing the NASA Apollo Moon missions on-board flight software, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. She was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2022.
And, if you have seen the Women of NASA LEGO set, you’ll spot her there, too, alongside Mae Jemison and Sally Ride (astronauts) and Nancy Grace Roman (NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy).
Permission can look like writing the code that changes history.
History is not a straight line of famous names
It is layered. Complicated. Often incomplete.
For every woman we recognize, there are countless others whose fingerprints are on the tools we use, the rights we exercise, and the paths we walk.
National Women’s Month is not just about celebration; it is about awareness.
It’s about asking whose stories still need telling. It’s about realizing that progress rarely begins with permission granted; it begins with permission taken.
So here’s the real question: Where in your life are you still waiting for permission?
The women who shape history don’t wait for perfect conditions.
They ask why not.
They challenge what is.
They persist when it would be easier to step back.
Those are the shoulders we stand on, and that’s the legacy we’re meant to carry
