WE RECENTLY celebrated Women’s Equality Day: a date marking the anniversary of the moment that women were officially granted the right to vote in the US – August 26, 1920.

Women now have the right to vote in virtually every country in the world, but there is still work to do before women everywhere enjoy the full benefits of equal representation, education and employment opportunities.

Nonetheless, we’ve come a long way. Even as recently as 1920, women weren’t allowed to graduate from the University of Oxford. And even after the first colleges began opening their doors to female staff and students, women still faced enormous social and cultural barriers to pursuing an education and career.

This was particularly the case for maths and science: subjects that were traditionally considered men’s domain. And yet, history is replete with examples of women who overcame prejudice to make vital contributions to research and discovery.

For instance, Gertrude Bell, the great archaeologist and explorer who came to Oxford in the 1890s to study history: one of the few subjects women were allowed to pursue at the time.

Although Bell was not officially allowed to graduate, she went on to travel the world, helping to shape British policy in the Middle East. A colleague of Lawrence of Arabia, Bell spoke numerous languages and was instrumental in the formation of the self-governing state of Iraq. Bell’s first love was archaeology and she made vital contributions to the field, eventually forming the National Museum of Iraq.

While Bell was exploring archaeology and the Middle East, Dorothy Hodgkin, a student at Oxford’s Somerville College, was beginning a career that would fundamentally reshape our understanding of biology and the atomic structures that govern human life.

In 1932, Hodgkin became the third ever woman to get a first class honours degree from Oxford. Her groundbreaking work on penicillin and insulin would go on to support the development of antibiotics and treatments for diabetes: for this, she will be remembered as one of the greatest scientists of the 20th Century.

Working alongside Hodgkin at Oxford in the 1960s, a young scientist named Louise Johnson began an illustrious career in biophysics. A physicist by training, Johnson had spent time working on neutron diffraction at the Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell before pursuing the PhD in biophysics that eventually led her to Oxford.

In a career spanning decades, Johnson went on to unravel the complexities that allowed enzymes and proteins to function. She also nurtured a generation of Oxford scientists as a professor of molecular biophysics and fellow at Somerville.

In the latter part of her life, Johnson became director of life sciences at Diamond and a fellow of the Royal Society – she was even made a Dame of the British Empire in 2003 for her contributions to biophysics.

Oxford has produced many illustrious female scientists, and this is something to be proud of. Despite the odds stacked against them, these amazing women furthered the cause of science and helped to change lives.

Governments, charities and scientists themselves are working to improve opportunities for women in STEM, and we’re making good progress. And yet, even now, we’re still far from seeing real gender balance in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). As of 2015, Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) data suggests that less than 15 per cent of people working in STEM are women.

As we move towards a more equitable world, it’s vital that we remember history’s female scientists. Their pioneering spirit and perseverance helped to advance science, and their work demonstrates just how much humanity can achieve when we nurture the talents of all individuals and work together towards a greater good.