Famous Women

You might think by making this category we're engaging in a chauvinistic view of history. This isn't the case at all: but because humans have a propensity for confusing what God has made clear, there are many women who shine out from different times and places simply because they've been able to rise above their society and culture to accomplish something great.

We don't applaud rebellion for the sake of rebellion, but we do applaud grit, integrity, courage, and virtue, especially if these are present in the face of opposition, fear, ignorance, and immorality. From Isobel Kuhn to Rosa Parks, from Marie Curie to Sacagawea, noble women have stepped in when no man was available to alter the course of history.

The Bible sets a remarkable precedent here. For all the accusations made against Christians that we suppress women and keep them at home (in the kitchen, specifically), it is in the Bible that we first see women treated as equal to men in terms of imaging God and of innate worth. Ancient Israel's pagan neighbors, as well as New Testament Greek and Roman culture, consistently mistreated women as second-class citizens, whereas Jewish and Christian doctrine honored them as co-imagers of God.

One of the most obvious instances in the Bible of a woman doing what the men wouldn't is Deborah, the judge of Israel who was the only one qualified to lead the nation at that time. Of course, a woman judge was the exception rather than the rule, but the fact that God put her in place reveals the nature of Christian gender roles: predicated on nature and God's will rather than on ability, worth, or strength.

If the Christian faith was dedicated on an ideological level to suppressing women, women would never be allowed or able to do anything but serve men. But women weren't created by God to be slaves, they were created to complement and complete what is lacking in men. This is a message of liberty, not subjugation.

Not all the biographies in this section are of women who were actually virtuous or did good things. Many of them were quite bad, but the category is "Famous Women," not necessarily "Good Women." We do, however, encourage you to read at least as much about good women as about bad women, to use them as examples, and to take heart that God useseveryone to His own purposes and for His own glory, not just good people, and certainly not just men.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he is a husband and father, teaches adult Sunday school in his Presbyterian congregation, and likes weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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50 Women Every Christian Should Know
by Michelle DeRusha
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Abigail Adams
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Amelia to Zora
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Amy Carmichael of Donhavur
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Anne Bradstreet
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Anne Bradstreet
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Anne Frank: Beyond the Diary
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Benazir Bhutto
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Beyond the Myth
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Captive Princess
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Cup of Cold Water
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Diary of a Young Girl
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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Girls Who Rocked the World
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Hallelujah Lass
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Harriet Tubman
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Helen Keller
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Helen Keller: The Story of My Life
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Isobel Kuhn
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Joan of Arc
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Joan of Arc
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Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
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Listening to Crickets
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Madam C. J. Walker: Entrepeneur
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Marie Curie
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Marie Curie's Search for Radium
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Meet Maya Angelou
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Outrageous Women of the American Frontier
Outrageous Women
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Patriots in Petticoats
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Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
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Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc
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Queen Victoria
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Remember the Ladies
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Remember the Ladies
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Road to Seneca Falls
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Sacajawea
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Scholastic Encyclopedia of Women in the United States
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Secret Soldier
by Ann McGovern
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Separate Battle
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by Ina Chang
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Separate Battle
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Shadow of His Hand
Daughters of the Faith
by Wendy G. Lawton
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Small Steps
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Story of Charlotte Mason
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Story of Joan of Arc
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Susanna, Mother of the Wesleys
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Tale of Beatrix Potter
by Margaret Lane
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They Led the Way
by Johanna Johnston
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Tinker's Daughter
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Uncommon Traveler
by Don Brown
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Voice of Her Own
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Voyager Out
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What Made Them Great: Anne Frank
What Made Them Great
by Laura Tyler, Illustrated by Gianna Renna
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Who Is Sonia Sotomayor?
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by Megan Stine, illustrated by Dede Putra
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Who Was Amelia Earhart?
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Who Was Anne Frank?
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Who Was Eleanor Roosevelt?
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Who Was Helen Keller?
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Who Was Joan of Arc?
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Who Was Laura Ingalls Wilder?
by Patricia Brennan Demuth
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Who Was Sacagawea?
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by Judith Bloom Fradin, Dennis Brindell Fradin
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With Open Hands
by Jeri Chase Ferris
from Beautiful Feet Books
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$12.95
You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?
by Jean Fritz
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Zlata's Diary
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