Both Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day take place in March - a celebration of the achievements and contributions of women throughout history.
The campaign theme for International Women's Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion, with 8 March 2024 a day for belonging, relevance, and empowerment.
UCL was the first University to admit women on equal terms as men in 1878. Eliza Orme graduated from UCL in 1888 as the first woman with a law degree. You can find a huge list of women University of London alumni over on their website, but here are a few notable UCL graduates chosen for UCL's 2018 Female Firsts exhibition:
- Rachel Whiteread, internationally renowned contemporary artist, UCL Slade School alumna and the first female winner of the Turner Prize.
- Crystallography specialist Dame Professor Kathleen Lonsdale, the first woman to be elected a fellow of the Royal Society and UCL's first female Professor.
- Dame Clare Marx, a UCL alumna and the first female President of the Royal College of Surgeons.
- Professor Uta Frith, the celebrated cognitive neuroscientist who was the first woman at UCL to receive both a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the British Academy, as well as being the first UCL psychologist to receive a DBE.
- Mavis Batey, a UCL alumna and Bletchley Park code-breaker whose Enigma breakthrough was crucial to the success of D-Day;
- Dame Bernice Lake QC, a UCL alumna and the first woman from the Eastern Caribbean to be appointed Queen's Counsel.
- Clare Hollingworth, a UCL alumna who was the first correspondent to report the outbreak of WWII.
- Ebony-Jewel Rainford Brent, a UCL Chemistry graduate and the first black woman to play for the England Women's Cricket team.
- Professor Dame Mary Douglas, one of the most influential social anthropologists of the 20th century, credited with establishing anthropology as a discipline at UCL.
- Gertrude Leverkus, the first woman to enrol on the undergraduate Architecture programme at UCL. In 1919 Gertrude was the only woman to take her finals alongside 500 men.
- Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who became the first female doctor to qualify in Britain. The hospital she founded, the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, is now a wing at University College London Hospitals.
- Professor Ann Oakley, the distinguished British sociologist and feminist who set up the Social Science Research Unit at the UCL Institute of Education.
Keen to get involved with empowering women all year round? Join the Women's Network, and explore volunteering opportunities with women's groups. Also, make sure to vote for next year's Womens Officer and Womens Network representatives next week...
