This is a list of women's firsts noting the first time that a woman or women achieved a given historical feat. A shorthand phrase for this development is "breaking the gender barrier" or "breaking the glass ceiling." Other terms related to the glass ceiling can be used for specific fields related to those terms, such as "breaking the brass ceiling" for women in the military and "breaking the stained glass ceiling" for women clergy. Inclusion on the list is reserved for achievements by women that have significant historical impact.
General business
1500s: Philippine Welser, first European female billionaire. 1889: Anna Bissell, first female CEO in the United States of America. 1903: Maggie L. Walker, first African-American woman to charter a bank. 1915: Helena Rubinstein, first woman to found a cosmetics company. 1945: Ruth Handler, first female president of a major toy company. 1961: Katherine Graham, first female to lead a Fortune 500 company. 1992: Alice Walton, first female decabillionaire. 1999: Andrea Jung, first female CEO of a MLM company. 1999: Carly Fiorina, first female head of a Fortune 20 company. 2000: Martha Stewart, first self-made female American billionaire. 2003: Oprah Winfrey, first female African-American billionaire. 2013: Mary Barra, first female CEO of a major car manufacturer. 2019: Kylie Jenner, first female billionaire under 30. 2020: Rania Llewellyn, first female bank CEO in Canada. 2021: Kathryn Farmer, first female CEO of a major railroad.
Aviation and aerospace
Computing
Dentistry
1866: Lucy Hobbs Taylor, first American woman to earn a doctorate in dentistry.
Born Lucy Hobbs on March 14, 1833, in Constable, New York. She was initially denied admission to dental school, then began private study with a professor from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. In November 1865, she entered the Ohio College of Dental Surgery, where in 1866 she earned her doctorate in dentistry, becoming the first woman in the United States to do so. She married James Taylor and he followed her into the practice of dentistry. The two moved to Lawrence, Kansas, where they practiced together until her husband's death in 1886. She retired and became active in women's rights, and died in 1910.
Education
History
1st century AD: Ban Zhao and Pamphile of Epidaurus – first female historians in Han China and the Roman Empire respectively.
International bodies
1950: Geronima Pécson – first Filipino and first woman elected to the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 1981: Jeane Kirkpatrick – First woman to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations. 2021: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first female Director-General of the World Trade Organization.
Journalism
1946: Katharine Graham – first female publisher of a major United States newspaper, The Washington Post. 1973: Linda Carter Brinson – first female assistant national editor at The Baltimore Sun. 2002: Linda Carter Brinson – first female editorial page editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. 2004: Catherine Pepinster – first woman to be editor of British newspaper The Tablet in its 175-year history.
Library science
Mathematics
Military
Nobel Prizes
1903: Marie Sklodowska-Curie, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics; she shared the prize with Antoine Henri Becquerel and Pierre Curie. First woman to win a Nobel Prize. 1905: Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Peace. 1909: Selma Lagerlöf, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 1911: Marie Sklodowska-Curie, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. First person (and only woman to date) to win two Nobel Prizes. Only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. 1947: Gerty Cori, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine; she shared the prize with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Bernardo Alberto Houssay. Although born in Prague, Gerty Cori is considered the first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in medicine. She had become a U.S. citizen in 1928. 1983: Barbara McClintock, first woman to win an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. 2009: Elinor Ostrom, first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, and the first American woman to do so; she shared the prize with Oliver E. Williamson.
Politics
Historic firsts for women as heads of state or government:
