1. Despite Being a woman

2. Overview We belong to the 21 st Century but our mindsets are prehistoric. Patriarchal attitudes rule the roost in India. But the encouraging and supportive men are still to be found, albeit a few. A look at a few successful women who made it through ‘Despite being a woman’.

3. Aung San Suu Kyi Aung San Suu Kyi has fought audaciously for human rights and democracy. Suu Kyi has refused to accept freedom in exchange for banishment from her country. She has encouraged for nonviolent struggle in the belief of Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She is the leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, and has been imprisoned by the country’s military dictatorship off-and-on since July of 1989.

4. Christiane Amanpour Christiane Amanpour is currently working as CNN’s Chief International Consultant. She is most extensively known for her up-close coverage of the Middle East, beginning with the Gulf War in 1990. She is widely acknowledged as one of the most persuasive international correspondents in world, due partly to her inclination to report from unsafe circumstances in war-torn areas.

5. Irom Chanu Sharmila Irom Chanu Sharmila also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur“ is civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Manipur. On 2 November 2000, she initiated ‘fast- unto death’ against AFSPA which is still ongoing. She has refused to consume anything and it has been more than 500 weeks. She was titled to be on "the world's longest hunger striker". The Government forcefully fed her.

6. Saina Nehwal Saina Nehwal is an Indian badminton player who is at present graded No. 3 in the world by Badminton World Federation Women's Singles 2015. She is the first Indian to win a medal in Badminton at the Olympics. Besides these, she is the first Indian to win the World Junior Badminton Championships and was also the first Indian to win a Super Series tournament.

7. Amelia Mary Earhart Amelia Mary Earhart, first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and received the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross for this record. She also wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences and was contributed in the development of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. Earhart joined the faculty of Purdue University aviation department as a visiting faculty member to advice women on careers. She was also an associate of the National Woman's Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment.

8. Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha P. T. Usha, is an Indian track and field athlete from the state of Kerala. P. T. In 1976 the Kerala State Government also started a Sports School for women, and Usha was chosen to represent her district. She is considered as one of the paramount athletes from India who is known as the "queen of Indian track and field". Presently she runs the Usha School of Athletics at Koyilandy in Kerala..

9. Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom Mary Kom is a five-time World Amateur Boxing champion and the only woman boxer who earned medals in each one of the six world championships. Designated "Magnificent Mary", she is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, challenged in the flyweight (51 kg) category and won bronze medal. She has also been ranked as No. 4 AIBA World Women's Ranking Flyweight category. She became the first Indian woman boxer to get a Gold Medal in the Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, South Korea.

10. Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is recognized for human rights support for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan. The place where she fought for women rights is where the local Taliban had banned girls from attending school. Yousafzai's advocacy has since grown into an international movement.

11. Muriel Siebert Muriel "Mickie" Siebert, who is known as the "First Woman of Finance," She was the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in December 1967. The task was not at all easy for her to accomplish.

12. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) She was the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan and the first woman to head a Muslim state. During her leadership, she ended military dictatorship in her country and fought for women rights. She was assassinated in a suicide attack in 2007. She also asserted that "Democracy is the best revenge."

13. Conclusion Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at an event hosted by the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh, said in Hindi, “I am happy to say that the prime minister of Bangladesh, despite being a woman, is saying boldly that she has zero tolerance toward terrorism.” The declaration activated a flood of responses on Twitter, criticizing it as “sexist” and “chauvinistic,” accompanied by the hashtag #despitebeingawoman.