The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually to those who make outstanding contributions in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. They are bestowed by The Nobel Foundation, a private institution established in 1900 based on the will of Alfred Nobel – the great Swedish industrialist – and are revered worldwide, having grown in stature and significance over the course of the century. In fact, it was only a mere two years after their inception that the first woman was honoured – the pioneering Marie Curie with the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Women have been winning Nobel Prizes ever since, but in noticeably smaller numbers than their male counterparts. Records show that the Nobel Prize has been awarded 765 times to men, and just 41 times to women, while there have also been 23 awards to organisations. And Marie Curie is the only woman ever to have been honoured twice, with a 1911 prize in Chemistry following her 1903 award.

To honour the outstanding achievements of female Nobel winners, both past and present, we detail the lives of some notable Prize recipients.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has become a worldwide icon of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression, is the leader of the nonviolent movement for human rights and democracy in Burma. Her mother was ambassador to India and her father, the martyred General Aung San, a Burmese hero – who lead his country’s fight for independence in the 1940s and was killed for his beliefs in 1947. In the 1990 elections, Suu Kyi was elected Prime Minister as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but her subsequent detention by the military barred her from taking office. She has since spent more than 11 of the past 19 years in some form of detention under Burma’s oppressive regime, but her call to people around the world to join the struggle for freedom in Burma, saying “Please use your liberty to promote ours” has ensured that the plight of the Burmese people has not slipped from the international consciousness. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

Doris Lessing

Lessing was born in Persia in 1919 and raised in Africa, before settling in the UK. An extremely prolific writer, she has written countless novels, short stories and essays, and her themes largely look at modern life and social injustice. Now in her late eighties, Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007 – the older person ever to be honoured with the award.

Mother Teresa

Born Agnes Bojaxhiu in Macedonia in 1910, Mother Teresa decided early in life that she had a vocation to serve the poor. As a Catholic nun, this calling led to her founding of the religious order, ‘The Missionaries of Charity’ in Calcutta, India, in 1950. The order still provides food for the needy and operates hospitals, schools, orphanages, youth centres, and shelters for the dying and the poor. Since her death in 1997, it has continued to expand its international presence, and is now established in 131 countries. Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.

Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is an American author and professor who published her first novel in 1970. She went on to win the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature as an author who “in novels, characterised by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.” Morrison, whose books include Beloved, The Bluest Eye and Jazz, predominantly highlights the experience of black Americans searching for identity in times of inequality in her writing.

Herta Müller

Romanian-born German novelist, essayist and poet Herta Müller was named winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature for her novels, which portray her experience of the oppression and horrors of Ceausescu’s Romania. The judges praised Müller for illustrating the “landscape of the dispossessed” with “the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose.” Little known outside the German-speaking world before the announcement, the award is helping to bring her work to the attention of the rest of the world.

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a physicist and chemist from Poland, who later took French citizenship, and is considered one of the most famous female scientists. She was the only woman ever to win two Nobel Prizes – in 1903, her discovery of radioactivity earned her the Nobel Prize in physics, alongside her husband Pierre, and in 1911 she won chemistry’s equivalent. Her death in 1934 was from aplastic anemia, probably contracted from her repeated exposure to radiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were then not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed without any safety measures.

Irene Curie

The daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935 after continuing her mother’s pioneering work in radioactivity. Curie’s recognition followed her discovery that radioactivity could be artificially produced. Although her interest and talent was nurtured by her mother, Irene Curie’s accomplishments and scientific brilliance see her stand among the most highly regarded scientists of all time.

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan were awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize for their work to end the bloodshed and violence during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Corrigan was the aunt of three children who were hit by a getaway car, after its driver had been shot by a soldier. Their tragic deaths prompted a series of marches, organised by Williams and Corrigan, throughout Northern Ireland and further afield, all demanding an end to the violence. They went on to found The Community of Peace People, an organisation committed to promoting a peaceful resolution to The Troubles and, several decades on, both women continue to work for peaceful causes both at home and abroad.

“The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded for what one has done, but hopefully what one will do”. – Betty Williams.