ThinkHer

I had heard of Bertha Lutz before—as a women’s rights activist, a leader in Brazil’s suffragist movement, and one of the four women who signed the UN Charter in 1945, the document that officially established the United Nations. That’s how she’s usually remembered: a fierce feminist, a diplomat, someone who stood her ground at the world’s most important political tables. But what surprised me was where else her name shows up—not in laws, monuments or even street names, but in frogs and lizards!! It turns out Bertha Lutz was not only a political force, but also a trained biologist and naturalist. Before her name became tied to international diplomacy, she was studying amphibians at the Sorbonne and working as a researcher at Brazil’s National Museum. Her background in biology wasn’t a footnote—it shaped the way she thought, worked, and fought. She approached activism with the same discipline and curiosity she applied to science. I’m often struck, in conversations with fellow researchers,...

I recently read ' What Stars Are Made Of ' , Donovan Moore’s biography of Cecilia Payne, and right from the prologue, I found myself pulled into the quiet intensity of her life. Moore describes Payne working late into the winter nights of 1924 in a cramped office at the Harvard College Observatory. The image is stark: a small desk, a full ashtray, mounting exhaustion, and the creeping anxiety of financial strain.  Reading this, I was reminded of a time when I was working in a lab with an uncertain finances, when everyday concerns like rent and groceries lingered in my mind, quietly pulling focus from the work at hand. Someone once told me, almost casually, that " science is the cure for all such issues ". I remember how that comment unsettled me. How was I supposed to lose myself in scientific curiosity when practical worries kept pressing in?  Reading about Payne didn’t just stir that anger again, instead it added something else: a deep, conflicted respect. She perse...

Microfeminist actions often emerge as responses to daily frictions—small slights, subtle exclusions, and invisible burdens that compound over time. Take the workplace, for instance. A recent study shows that 40% of women reported experiencing microaggressions, harassment, or both at work in the past year [1]. Paired with the unequal load of domestic responsibilities, these experiences create a constant undercurrent of inequality. For many, microfeminist acts are a way to push back against these imbalances, to claim space, and to foster dignity in places that rarely offer it freely [2].  We tried to understand why our respondents chose these acts of microfeminism, hence we asked the question "   What motivates you to do these acts ?" Made in Canva We came to realise that for many, microfeminist acts arise from a deep frustration with how society continues to downplay women's authority, intelligence, and autonomy.   “It’s normalized for men to give their opinions ...

Some people change the world not with loud declarations or sweeping movements, but through quiet, persistent dedication to what they love. They follow their curiosity with discipline, shaping the future in ways that feel almost invisible—until history looks back and realizes the magnitude of their work. Maryam Mirzakhani was one such person. Through her deep engagement with mathematics, she transformed the field. In doing so, she broke multiple barriers: becoming the first woman, the first Iranian, and the first Muslim to win the Fields Medal, mathematics' highest honor. Her legacy lies not only in the concepts she explored, but in the glass ceilings she shattered by relentlessly following what she was curious about.  Maryam Mirzakhani  © Courtesy Stanford News Service Born in Tehran in 1977, Maryam Mirzakhani grew up during a turbulent period in Iran’s history, yet found solace in stories and books. As a child, she imagined herself becoming a writer, not a mathematician....

I remember how, during my years of higher education, students in the sciences were seen as the most apolitical. Unlike universities, India’s scientific research institutions actively discouraged student politics.  When we had a few protests organized on campus, and there were professors who told students that if they were absent from the lab to participate in the protests, they should not come back to work.  This was all justified by the belief that science 'should not be politicized.' But I often felt the discomfort of being asked to detach my intellect from the political realities around me.  I knew that this so-called objectivity wasn’t objective at all, but a quiet reinforcement of the status quo. Wangari Maathai through protests and recognitions Reading about Wangari Maathai brought this tension into sharper focus. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a Ph.D. in Biology—and she refused the apolitical ideal so often pushed in scientific instituti...

In the end, whether by questioning inherited norms, affirming long-held values, or embracing their children’s evolving beliefs, raising daughters prompted many parents to revisit their understandings of gender. To deepen our understanding, we asked parents a more personal question: What is something valuable your daughter(s) has/have taught you that you hadn’t considered before? The answers to this question revealed something quite profound: parenting is both a mirror and a threshold, a place where old certainties are gently undone. Raising a child in today’s world becomes an intimate intergenerational dialogue, one that is especially catalyzed by daughters who are often more vocal and determined in challenging the world as it is. In this space, both voices shape the conversation, with parents discovering that, at times, they absorb as much as they hope to impart. What stood out most was the sheer breadth of what daughters are teaching their parents today. From values to language, ...