LONDON: Pakistan’s martyred politician Benazir Bhutto and 17-year-old girls’ education activist Malala Yousafzai has made the list of 40 women who changed the world with their influence.
The list was topped by pioneering Polish chemist Marie Curie, who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize – and won it twice. British nurse Florence Nightingale came second and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was third. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst and Mother Teresa completed the top five. Royals fared well, with the Queen, Princess Diana, Queen Victoria, the Queen Mother and Elizabeth I all in the top 20.
The most admired quality of women in the list, which was compiled after a poll of 2,000 British adults by Sky Arts, was that they were not afraid to challenge the beliefs of their time. But two thirds of those polled said young women today lack inspirational figures and eight in ten felt youngsters idolise modern celebrities too much.
The poll was conducted to coincide with the launch of the second series of Sky Arts’ Psychobitches, a sketch show with an all-star cast which will see women including The Mitford sisters and Florence Nightingale examined on the psychologist’s couch.
The series will again see a number of iconic women from history played by a core cast, as well as guest stars including Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Meera Syal and Jack Whitehall.
A spokeswoman for Sky Arts said, ‘There’s no doubt that the women on this list changed the world and continue to inspire people today. ‘These characters – and all the women in the series – offer us a light-hearted look at what these incredible women might have confessed on the psychiatrist’s couch, given the chance.
‘In Psychobitches we get to see another side of some of them the Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth I you see on the show present themselves very differently to how they are depicted in history books.’
FROM BENAZIR BHUTTO TO COCO CHANEL: THE GREATEST ROLE MODELS
- Marie Curie
- Florence Nightingale
- Margaret Thatcher
- Emmeline Pankhurst
- Mother Teresa
- Princess Diana
- Queen Victoria
- Anne Frank
- Joan of Arc
- Queen Elizabeth I
- Rosa Parks
- Queen Elizabeth II
- Indira Gandhi
- Amelia Earhart
- Amy Johnson
- J.K. Rowling
- Marilyn Monroe
- Jane Austen
- Mary, Queen of Scots
- Queen Mother
- Coco Chanel
- Benazir Bhutto
- Enid Blyton
- Marie Antoinette
- Helen Keller
- Oprah Winfrey
- Germaine Greer
- Eva Peron
- Hilary Clinton
- Malala Yousafzai
- Linda McCartney
- Audrey Hepburn
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- Maya Angelou
- Michelle Obama
- Kate Middleton Duchess of Cambridge
- Billie Jean King
- Katharine Hepburn
- Ingrid Bergman
- Simone de Beauvoir
