Women who have sacrificed their lives

April 18, 2015 3:44 PM

I'd like examples of women who have sacrificed their lives.

Not metaphorically, literally (as in, they die at the end), but the chain of causation can be of larger cardinality than one. So Joan of Arc obviously counts, even though she didn't die on a battlefield, the chain of causation behind her death is obviously because of her convictions. But Rosa Parks, who died of old age, does not.

posted by curuinor to Society & Culture (30 answers total)

Marie Curie comes to mind.
From Wikipedia:

Curie died in 1934 at the sanatorium of Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France, due to aplastic anemia brought on by exposure to radiation – including carrying test tubes of radium in her pockets during research and her service during World War I in mobile X-ray units created by her.

posted by Thorzdad at 3:49 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

The suffragette Emily Davison.
posted by sobarel at 4:01 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto
posted by sweetkid at 4:02 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Rachel Corrie.
posted by sweetkid at 4:10 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sophie Scholl of the anti-Nazi White Rose group.
posted by sobarel at 4:17 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Edith Cavell
posted by Ideefixe at 4:25 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Hannah Szenes

Viola Liuzzo is one of the lesser-known martyrs of the US civil rights movement.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:26 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

Rosa Luxemburg.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:33 PM on April 18, 2015

Wangchen Dolma as well as many other nuns have self-immolated in protest of China's involvement in Tibet.
posted by TwoStride at 4:38 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

It wasn't just Romero who was martyred in El Salvador.
posted by blue suede stockings at 4:44 PM on April 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

Boudica
posted by effluvia at 4:59 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

A number of woman journalists have been murdered due to their investigative work, including Veronica Guerin and Anna Politkovskaya.
posted by selfnoise at 5:03 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Barolina Sisa and Micaela Bastides, who were married to the two main leaders of the 1780-81 Andean indigenous uprisings against Spanish colonial rule, and both military leaders in their own right. Both were executed after the defeat of the uprisings.
posted by drlith at 5:04 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

All successful female suicide bombers. That list on Wikipedia mentions almost entirely Muslim women from the last few decades but IIRC this was also a tactic used against American forces during the American invasion of Vietnam. Diana Oughton and other members of the Weather Underground were killed while assembling a nail bomb in the 1970 Greenwich Village townhouse explosion.

Karen Wetterhahn was a chemistry professor specializing in studying metal toxicity at Dartmouth College who died as the result of a laboratory accident. Safety practices were revised throughout academia and the chemical industry as a result of studies of the accident and academic awards were established in her name.
posted by XMLicious at 5:04 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

The Souliote women.

Katarzyna Weiglowa

Any number of Catholic saints
posted by BWA at 5:11 PM on April 18, 2015

Carthaginian Saints Perpetua and Felicity, in particular, figure largely in hagiography.
posted by XMLicious at 5:22 PM on April 18, 2015 [3 favorites]

Princess Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan was an Indian/American Sufi children's book author who was trained in Britain as a radio operator and dropped into France to work for the Resistance.
posted by Grumpy old geek at 5:29 PM on April 18, 2015 [7 favorites]

Women were among the civilians who committed suicide en masse during the WWII invasion of Okinawa, though this has recently been removed from Japanese history textbooks.
posted by XMLicious at 5:36 PM on April 18, 2015

Dian Fossey
posted by fingersandtoes at 6:00 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sophie Scholl of the White Rose movement in Nazi Germany.

There was also Violette Szabo, an Allied spy in WWII and Hannie Schaft the Dutch Resistance fighter.
posted by gudrun at 6:01 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

A Train in Winter tells the stories of numerous women who were members of the French Resistance and were imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis.
posted by BibiRose at 6:22 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Marguerite Perey and Sonia Cotelle.
posted by BibiRose at 6:26 PM on April 18, 2015

Dr. Ameyo Stella Shade Adadevoh, the brave Nigerian physician who isolated Patrick Sawyer, aka Patient Zero in July 2014 at the start of the Ebola crisis.

From the Telegraph: It was Dr Adadevoh, 57, who first suspected he was lying – and, crucially, then stood her ground when he began screaming to be let out of hospital and threatening staff. At one point, he had to be physically restrained after pulling out his medical drips and splashing blood around his room.
posted by invisible ink at 6:47 PM on April 18, 2015 [5 favorites]

Kayla Mueller, the aid worker captured by ISIS and killed.
posted by celtalitha at 8:36 PM on April 18, 2015

Karen Silkwood tried to uncover safety issues in the US nuclear industry and was likely subsequently poisoned and murdered by same.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:31 PM on April 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

Dutch communist member of the resistance against the Nazi regime Hannie Schaft. And Mata Hari.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:46 AM on April 19, 2015

Any woman who died in childbirth. Naturally, Wikipedia has a list.
posted by corvine at 3:18 AM on April 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

María Cristina Gómez
Digna Ochoa
Sister Dorothy Mae Stang
Jean Donovan
Sister Maureen Courtney and Sister Teresa Rosales
posted by hydrophonic at 8:31 AM on April 19, 2015

I suppose Amelia Earhart would qualify, too.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:14 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Mary Dyer, hanged for holding to her Quaker beliefs in Puritan New England.
posted by alms at 8:27 AM on April 20, 2015