March is Women’s History Month, and while there are so many women who have made contributions to a variety of industries, these are some of the most influential women in music, STEM, sports and literature, whom everyone can celebrate this month.
Music: Dolly Parton
Releasing music since 1959, Dolly Parton is one of the most influential musicians of her time. Her songs have been on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for seven decades, and she has had more number-one hits than any other female artist in history. Parton has also won 10 Grammy Awards and written over 3,000 songs.
Parton was one of 12 children who grew up in the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee. Although poor, she started her music career by playing for the church. She eventually signed with a small record label; the rest is history.
Today, Parton is not only a musician but also a businesswoman and philanthropist. She owns the Dollywood theme park, which employs 11,000 workers–all of whom are eligible for Parton’s education plan, Grow U. This plan pays 100% of tuition for employees who want to pursue a college degree. In 1988, Parton also established the Dollywood Foundation, whose mission is to decrease Tennessee’s high school dropout rates and gift books to 1 million children a month worldwide.
“I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister…The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world,” Parton said.
Dolly Parton is more than just a musician. She is an example of a woman who has used her success for good worldwide.
STEM: Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson was born in Virginia in 1918. She began attending high school at age 10 and graduated from West Virginia University with bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and French at age 18.
In 1953, Johnson began working at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now known as NASA) in the West Area Computing unit. This unit comprised African American women who manually performed complex calculations for the program’s engineers. The women’s work was essential to the success of the early U.S. space program.
Johnson played an important role in several programs, including Freedom 7, which sent the first astronaut into space and Apollo 11, which landed on the moon. She later worked on the Space Shuttle program and retired from NASA in 1986.
Johnson received numerous honors for her work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2016, NASA named a building after her, the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. A book and movie about the West Area Computing unit were created titled “Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race.”
Johnson contributed so much to NASA, especially as a Black woman in the 20th century. Her hard work and perseverance are admirable and motivational. Johnson passed away in February of 2020, but her memory will live on forever.
Sports: Simone Biles
Simone Arianne Biles Owens– better known as Simone Biles–was born on March 14, 1997. At 27 years old, Biles is the most decorated gymnast in the world, with 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals. Biles is the first gymnast to rank among the world’s highest-paid female athletes in at least a dozen years, and in July 2022, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Biles started gymnastics in 2003; in 2012, she switched to homeschooling to spend more hours per week to train for gymnastics. She had planned to attend the University of California, Los Angeles for college, but instead went professional before the Summer Olympics in 2016.
In 2013, at the age of 16, Biles became the seventh American woman and the first African American to win the World all-around title. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won gold in both the team and individual events and set an American record for the most gold medals in women’s gymnastics at a single Olympic Games–all at the age of 19.
As Biles has publicly mentioned, it has taken her a lot–physically and emotionally–to get to where she is today. Biles has talked about the hardship she experienced, the abuse she has gone through and the pressure she has felt. Her bravery and love for her sport is why she continues to do what she does.
“Always work hard and have fun in what you do because I think that’s when you’re more successful. You have to choose to do it,” Biles said.
Literature: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, born April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, was a writer, editor, essayist, playwright and poet. Aside from her writing, Angelou worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, as well as as an educator at Wake Forest University.
Angelou faced many hardships throughout her life. In her most famous work, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Angelou described how her mother’s boyfriend raped her when she was only seven years old. Her uncles murdered the man for his crime, and Angelou felt responsible; she went mute for five years but developed a love of language along the way.
Angelou went on to work in civil rights for many years and wrote countless works while also being a mother and grandmother. She served on two presidential committees: Gerald Ford’s in 1975 and Jimmy Carter’s in 1977. In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Angelou the National Medal of Arts; in 2010, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Angelou was awarded over 50 honorary degrees before her death in 2014 at the age of 86. Despite the trauma she faced in her life, she continued to be a strong and inspirational woman whose literary work will last for centuries.
