Quick list: the most iconic women of the 20th century. By which I mean women you’d expect just about everybody in the Western World to recognize by sight.
You don’t have to list five: I think there are only four on my own list.
(I will explain anon)
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Comics I Don't Understand 
Margaret Thatcher, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, Marie Curie, Marilyn Monroe
I think the list will be heavily weighted to politics and entertainment simply cause those are the sort of jobs you’d want people to recognize you by sight.
Monroe is probably the most iconic, Queen Elizabeth 2, Snow White, Rosie the Riveter, and Oprah
Jane Goodall, Mother Teresa, Anne Frank, Madonna, Princess Diana
“recognize by sight”? Not Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, or Anne Frank, more likely Kate Hepburn and Mary Tyler Moore.
I <3 Lucy
Right. My list started with Eleanor Roosevelt before I noticed “by sight”. It’s gonna be actresses all the way down.
I doubt I could pick Marie Curie out of a photo array, and I was a Physics major.
I agree with the others about Marie Curie, but I’d disagree with Billybob about Anne Frank: virtually every copy of her diary ever printed shows the same picture of her on the cover.
P.S. Even though I think I would recognize Jane Goodall, I would agree with Billybob that this would not be true for the majority of the population.
Wow. I picked my selections on facial recognition. As Kilby said, Ms. Frank’s picture is on nearly every cover of every one of her diaries in publication, and as FBS said, “I think the list will be heavily weighted to politics and entertainment”. Entertainment wise, Jane Goodall’s been on numerous talk shows and documentaries over the years, and as for politics, she is the figurehead for many forms of animal activism the world over. Both bases covered.
I’m surprised people think her gaunt face and long stringy hair wouldn’t be widely recognised.
Arthur, are you saying Eleanor Roosevelt WOULDN’T be recognized by sight? She’d definitely be in my list.
M. Monroe
V. Tereshkova
M. Thatcher
T. Queen (UK)
I. Gandhi
These came to mind at first, though after some consideration I expect in reality Princess Di and doubtless several actresses would score higher than some of these, esp Gandhi and Tereshkova.
I think FBS hit the list just about perfectly. If you disqualify Snow White and Rosie the Riveter for not being real people, then Lucille Ball and Madonna would be my replacements. Maybe Hillary Clinton over Lucy. Eleanor Roosevelt is very important, but I doubt that many people (especially outside the US) would recognize her. Unless she’s in her cosmonaut gear, I couldn’t pick Tereshkova out of a lineup, and I hang out at the Galactic Journey, where it’s always 55 years ago.
I was thinking about Hillary Clinton too, but the question is about iconic women of the 20th Century. I think she has risen to prominence more in the last decade, so I left her off of my list.
Lucy (notice that only one name is needed); Marilyn Monroe, Mother Theresa, Eleanor Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth II.
Lucille Ball, Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Grace of Monaco, Teresa of Calcutta, Oprah Winfrey
You could make a strong argument for Diana, Princess of Wales, over Grace Kelly.
This list is probably skewed by the requirement for on-sight recognition.
@ignatzz: “Lucy (notice that only one name is needed)”
My first throught when I saw your “one name” Lucy was that yes, she’s famous, but she’s not really “20th century” and I’m afraid I couldn’t pick her image out from that of any other Australopithecus skeleton.
And then I said “Oh.” So I guess you don’t have any ‘splaining to do after all.
Jackie Kennedy. Marilyn Monroe. Princess Diana. Those were off the top of my head. After looking at other’s choices, I’ll concur with Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Anne Frank.
Without having read any of the previous comments:
Carmen Miranda, with the fruit on her head
Madonna, with the conical bra
Marylin Monroe, in the Warhol print
Statue of Liberty (does it not count if they predate the 20th century?)
Vivien Leigh with Atlanta burning behind her and/or Judy Garland with Toto and/or Fay Wray in a giant ape hand
People wouldn’t necessarily be able to name them, but would recognize them.
I did have Eleanor Roosevelt impinge upon my awareness as I scrolled by to the comment box, but I’m reading a book on about her (fictionalized, but still), and I don’t think I’d recognize her on sight, so that may have skewed my thinking to the truly iconic. (Is the next list going to be the top five ironic women? Does Alanis get on that list?)
Marilyn Monroe, Lucy Van Pelt, Billie Jean King, Raquel Welch, Zha Zha Gabor.
If it’s a matter of being recognized throughout the western world, my list would be all film actors.
Assuming that ISN’T what was actually meant:
Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Diana, Nadia Commaneci, Marie Curie.
If being recognized isn’t important, but contribution to humanity does, the Admiral Grace Hopper. If being instantly recognizable matters and contribution doesn’t, then the fifth entry is Kim Kardashian.
Admiral Grace Hopper was a big hit on the lecture circuit. I recall she showed us a ruler that was the length of a light-nanosecond.
For some reason I’ve had the Al Green song Ride Sally Ride in my head all morning. Therefore, it’s clear: Sally needs to be on this list.
Depends on conditions, including these two: Recognizable to people today, or during the last century? And recognizable by face alone, or in their usual garb/most common photos?
if during the 20th century and in context: Jackie Kennedy, Mother Teresa, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Frank, QE II. Runners-up: Raquel Welch, Princess Diana, Maggie Thatcher, Sophia Loren, Hillary Clinton. By name but not face: Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, Mata Hari, The Singing Nun, Agatha Christie
Margaret Thatcher, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mother Teresa, Mae West, Queen Elizabeth II
SMB: Sally Ride, or Christa McAuliffe? Or is Sigourney Weaver the obvious astronaut choice?
Eleanor Roosevelt, Angela Merkel, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Marie Curie, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O’Connor. i just realized that three of those are actually 21st century women.
JP: Ride Christa McAuliffe? Nope. sorry, it’s Sally Ride.
I pretty much agree with Fuzzmaster. I believe the list has to start with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. I’d go with Marilyn Monroe next on the basis of being more recognizable than Mother T.
I have this thought:
The top 5 most recognizable female icons in the Western world: Sophia Loren, and then we skip way… way down to the next actress. (We may trip over a few more Italian actresses on the way; very good public relations in Italy.)
Outside the US, I imagine Marilyn Monroe is mostly known by the photo still of her in the scene from “The Seven Year Itch” where her skirt is flying up over a subway grate.
I’m wondering if you had to see a movie of her to actually recognize her away from that one static shot.
I thought of Jacqueline Kennedy because she was such a fashion icon. Outside of the USA, I’m thinking it may have been only women who knew her.
I’ve now looked at the previous comments. I think Sally Ride is much more recognizable than Christa McAuliffe. Go look at Christa’s picture and see if you remember her face. I’ve been quite a space fanatic since the mid-60s.
(We may trip over a few more Italian actresses on the way; very good public relations in Italy.)
Well if that’s where you’re going, I have to say — Monica Vitti!
” I think Sally Ride is much more recognizable than Christa McAuliffe. Go look at Christa’s picture and see if you remember her face.”
Yeah. Now wonder if Ms. Ride still looks anything like her publicity photos from NASA. Ms. McAuliffe always will.
Marilyn Monroe
Bettie Page
Lucille Ball
Amelia Earhart
Eva Braun (Not for the best of reasons, yet who wouldn’t recognize her in a photo?)
I want to say Shirley Temple, but her iconic image was when she was a little girl rather than after she grew up into a woman.
Definitely Judy Garland if you use a screenshot from “The Wizard of Oz.”
“Eva Braun (Not for the best of reasons, yet who wouldn’t recognize her in a photo?)”
/raises hand
Me, neither, and I read a book with her in in a few months ago.
How ’bout Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor . . .
OK. So I guess not everyone has watched the same History Channel programs I have.
Elizabeth Taylor, and yes, Shirley Temple,
Farrah Fawcett
Too many of you are way too optimistic about “just about everybody”. Remember frequent reports about frightening percentages of citizens who can’t name the vice president (I said “can’t”, not “won’t”!) and so forth.
Actresses/celebrities pretty well all the way down. *Maybe* Princess Di. But Jackie Kennedy? Only if you’re over 40, I fear.
This is depressing me on a Sunday evening. Stop that!
Problem is we remember more from the late part of the century than from the early part (people live to 100, but who can remember this far?): see Sofia Loren vs Sarah Bernhardt.
Mother Teresa, Lady Di, Marilyn Monroe.
What about the running naked little girl in the picture from the Vietnam war?
The only “maybe, but probably not” name that comes to my mind that hasn’t already been suggested is Betty Crocker. (Well, maybe also Aunt Jemima.) I think we need a ruling on whether images of fictional women (or essentially fictional) qualify or not.
If not, I’d say Marilyn Monroe is a shoo-in, but I can’t settle on a plausible #2 through 5. (And I’m sure when ‘the’ answers are revealed that we will mostly be flabbergasted for one reason (or for five reasons) or another.)d
Bettie Page… yeah, maybe. But the faux-morality police have been trying to eradicate her pictures from public awareness. What about places where they have more power than they do in the “free” United States?
… and then there’s Maude.
Still waiting for that explanation.
I’d never heard of Bettie Page, so I did an image search. Still don’t recognize her, although she could be Pauley Perrette’s twin.
I’m finding it rather depressing that so many people have lists consisting only of entertainers. A list of ‘iconic men’ would be different, methinks.
Debbie Harry. Carrie Fisher. Eva Perón.
Chak: Iconic men would include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, so it’s not all bad being mostly entertainers, you know.
Okay, the promised (or threatened) backstory:
My cousin wrote a joint children’s biography of Martin Luther King and Anne Frank, the genesis of which (she says) was likely the Fun Fact I sent to her a few years ago that King and Frank were born in the same year.
Over the weekend, I wrote to her “I’m not saying you should write another book about it, but did you know Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth II were born just about a month apart?”
“It’s not as if there’s any common thread tying them together, though.”
“I don’t know… I’d say they’re two of the most iconic and recognizable women of the 20th century, that should count for something. I bet they’d both be in the top five, at least.”
Then I thought “Wouldn’t it be cool if I knew a pool of really clever people who could help me create such a list?”
I think when I turn the responses over to PricewaterhouseCoopers for tallying, we’ll see that Marilyn and Liz are in fact the top two (or close to it).
PricewaterhouseCoopers? They might accidentally announce La La Gabor as the winner.
Some who (I think) haven’t already been mentioned:
I would include Frida Kahlo in the list. Her fame has increased in recent years, and her face is very recognizable due to the number of self-portraits she painted.
Golda Meir was once very recognizable, but I think younger people today wouldn’t know her from a photograph.
Elizabeth Taylor used to be one of the most famous, recognizable people in the world. Now, almost eight years after her death, a lot of people have forgotten about her.
More odd than Marilyn M being born in the same year as the Queen, at least for this UK-person, is that Jimmy Savile was also born the same year. He was a big long-hairy eccentric DJ on pop radio and telly (Top of the Pops) and live road shows in the 60s and 70s and later had popular TV shows like Jim’ll Fix It, where he made dreams come true for various children; he was a high-profile fundraiser for various charities; was the public face of adverts encouraging people to buckle up in cars; and politically well-connected with the Thatcher government. Wackily dressed most of the time, he seemed like a generation younger than Her Maj, or indeed than my mother, who was born about 2 weeks before him. And then when he died in 2011 he was revealed as a long-standing serial child-abuser with rumours going back to 1963.
Another disconnect between apparent ages occurred to me while listening to the eminent now-72-yo former army officer and military historian Sir Anthony Beevor (Stalingrad, for instance) talking about his favourite 8 records on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. One of them was a track by 70s glampunks Blondie/ Debbie Harry… in my mind these people are a generation apart and I imagined Beevor was casting well outside his natural generation… turns out Debbie Harry is actually 18 months older than Beevor! (and she’s also a year older than Donald T).
Recognize the name, or the face? Because I think people know, for instance, Marie Curie’s name, not her face. With that in mind, my list is by sight only.
Without reading other people’s suggestions, my list is: Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Queen Elizabeth, Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Ellen DeGeneres. Okay, that’s 6, not five. I suspect when I read everyone else’s, I’ll want to add a few, anyway.
the ones I want to add after reading everyone’s list (and Bill’s explanation) are Lucille Ball, Anne Frank, Jackie Kennedy and Betty White, which makes mine a top 10, not top 5 list. But yes, it looks like Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth are featuring prominently in the responses.
For the record, the reason Queen Elizabeth II was on my list is because she’s got her face on all the money, in several countries.
Bill explained the backstory to his question, but I don’t think he explained “anon” as he’d promised. :-P
“Rosie The Riveter” was mentioned earlier in the comments. If you’re picturing a woman in a blue outfit against a yellow background baring her foreground arm, that’s someone else. That poster, with WE CAN DO IT! emblazoned across the top was from an unrelated WWII campaign. (In-house motivational posters for Westinghouse employees)
FYI
“Bill explained the backstory to his question, but I don’t think he explained “anon” as he’d promised”
Comment I Don’t Understand
You said, “I will explain anon”. You didn’t explain “anon”.
Unfortunately it would depend on the person. I started with Jackie Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II, and Marilyn Monroe. But then I stopped It is all too subjective. People I know such as SIL would not know the last two (but she would know the women in “The Godfather” movies. She would know Lucy, but she is very self-centered and would not know anyone political or who had not lived in her lifetime.
People who are older – would not necessarily know more recent people by sight or even by name such as current celebrities.
People who are younger might not know people like Eleanor Roosevelt – not only by sight, but might not even know the name.
Different people are too different in their interests to know the same people by sight any longer. There is too large an age spectrum and an interest spectrum to know.
I’m still depressed. The two most iconic women of an entire century was one known for being a sexpot and another noted for being born (into the right family) and not dying yet?
It’s OK, Chak. Things are getting better. One of THIS century’s most iconic women is Malala Yousefzai”… who’s known for daring to suggest that educating women was worth the effort… and coming back to repeat it after being shot in the head for the temerity of it all.
How about FFLOTUS Michelle Obama?
@James Pollock: “One of THIS century’s most iconic women is Malala Yousefzai”
I admire and honor her, but I don’t know that I could identify a photo of her within a group (and I’m almost certain that I couldn’t spell her name), so that’s a stretch.
Michael Jackson being older than President Obama was a shock.
“I doubt I could pick Marie Curie out of a photo array”
She’s the one glowing.
(Too soon?)
Absolutely. Read ‘The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women”.
Or just this . . .
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/06/the-radium-girls-still-glowing-in-their-coffins/
“The Dark Story of America’s Shining Woman”?
I guess they can’t complain about what *I* wrote.
@James Pollock, yeah, I have a great admiration for Malala. She’s tough and sweet at the same time.
Thanks for the reminder. :-)
Well, one is a ‘joke’; another is a title to make a point.
In no special order..
Eleanor Roosevelt
Margaret Thatcher
Marilyn Monroe
Amelia Earhart
Queen Elizabeth II
(almost added Lucy from peanuts)
Probably too late to matter, but
Queen Elizabeth, yes; but I personally would recognize Queen Victoria before Hillary Clinton. but that might be mostly the clothes and crown.
Iconic.
Even as few as 20 years ago I would have said Betty Grable and Farrah Fawcett from the iconic pin-up and poster respectively.
So, of real people – Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diane, Shirley Temple (the child/moppet as few would recognize the adult) Betty Grable and Anne Frank.
But, if I am permitted non-real people, then, for instant recognition, nobody is going to beat Minnie Mouse and that mermaid on the Starbucks logo.
Never too late!
I think that most people today know a lot of the names mentioned, but not the faces. I don’t think they know what Eleanor Roosevelt looks like – or Anne Frank – for example, while they might know the names. Eleanor Roosevelt’s face probably would not even be known by most people my age (mid 60s) and there was an overlapping time that we were both alive.
https://www.jigidi.com/jigsaw-puzzle/4GUSVFRQ/368-iconographic-art-images
All of the “real” women that came to my mind have already been mentioned, so I think I’ll stick to “comic” characters:
Minnie Mouse
Blondie Bumstead
Nancy Ritz
Lucy Van Pelt
Marge Simpson
OK – if you want iconic comic/cartoon characters:
Betty Boop
Olive Oyl
Wonder Woman
Betty and Veronica
Little Orphan Annie