Inspiring Women
The Story of 5 Women and Their Incredible Inventions
Their amazing stories …and the men who stole all the credit.
We all know names like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, but what about all the women inventors whose creations we use every day? Women invented windshield wipers, the first computer program, life rafts, the paper bag, Kevlar, fire escapes and, mind you, chocolate chip cookies. If good ideas had only come from people who looked like the founding fathers, then a wealth of advances and joys might have been delayed or missed entirely.
Hedy Lamarr: goddess and genius
The following women, whose inventions changed the world, rarely got credit. The sad truth is that we live in a world where men are respected for their accomplishments and women are routinely taken advantage of. In fact, in most cases men they knew stole their credit and fame. That’s why it’s all the more important that we share this article and give these amazing, yet underappreciated, women the credit they’re due.
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr, once dubbed “the most beautiful woman in the world”, was a lonely movie star who fled Austria to the US during the war. She was so lonely, in fact, that she spent her evenings alone, surrounded by engineering books, inventing everything from a better tissue box to a new traffic signal.
But it was her system of frequency hopping that she invented during World War II to assist the US Navy, that is still used today in wireless communications technology like Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi.
Her frequency hopping system helped win America the war, but when she first approached the US Government with her ideas, she was scoffed at and told to stop her ‘silly inventing’ and instead use her beauty to raise money for the war. She signed over her patent to the government for no money at all. Right after she did so, others took her ideas and ran with them, taking full credit.
It took 50 years for her to finally get the credit she deserved, and yet all her obituaries talked about was her beauty, with only a passing mention of her invention.
Cindy Frazier
Maria Beasley is a life saver. Thanks to you, you saved a lot of lives!
Karla Alvarez
I will let my daughter read this. This should be at school too. A lot of people doesn’t have any idea who these women are, and men are underestimating women. This is a proof that women are not that easy.
Kelly Osborne
Informative article. Keep posting articles like this because we learn a lot from this. Some of these can’t be taught at school.
Myron Stephens
Women of Ancient Mesopotamia?? They are the inventors of the beer?!! Hail to them!!
Jodi Thornton
Those men should’ve known better! They took a big piece of those women’s lives! Let’s all be aware on who invented these amazing things. Thank you to those women who shared their ideas to the world. They could have improved their lives and lived it easy if those men didn’t steal their inventions.
Marsha Reed
There should be more originality in people. They need to stop stealing ideas.
Maggie Lawrence
I didn’t know this until today. Honesty is the best policy.
Lydia Erickson
At least we all know now that those ideas weren’t from those men.
Patricia Mann
They just oppressed these women because of their lack in decency!
Maxine Hanson
It’s so hard to be original nowadays as other people may have had that idea already. But then directly stealing other people’s ideas whilst fully aware that you are about to steal them is a different story.?
Catherine Lewis
Those men just ranaway with the money those women deserved. Sometimes it’s not even just because of money, it’s the act itself that’s disappointing!
Bernadette Garza
Wow, that’s a lame move. Women are so creative that men had to steal their ideas.
Pam Reyes
Isn’t it easier to be nice? And just acknowledge good deeds and not steal people’s ideas? I don’t get it.
Michele Adkins
Their ideas were awesome in general, which is why those men felt the need to steal their inventions.
Tara Norman
Now we know what they did and that’s even funnier.
Myra Sullivan
Informative stuff! Some of us need to be aware that this still happens nowadays.
Terri Ferguson
It does and it’s really sad that we keep on going back to the roots of evil. Just sad.