Not given to making any great effort to promote women, it might become an interesting thread - depending on what means by great.
Anyway, Victor Hugo reckoned that George Sand was a great woman. Her life style would have been breathe taking in this day and age and must have truly rocked society in her time.

Whether her novels have stood the test of time I do not know... I like - or rather was amused by  -a remark of the time  that her  literary critics were obviously intellectually substandard.

The list of her affairs does not make  her a great woman - more like 'Gosh, what a woman' but her stand on many issues must have made an impact at the time.

I wonder also why her affair with Chopin ended in such rancour....... however during his failing health stint in Mallorca with her he did write some good stuff........ MM may like to make comment about this..... me feeling a tad intellectually substandard in this and quite a few other areas.

Anyone any opinions of George Sands?.... A great woman? Eh? Wot? Oh where is nord when you need him? Gorn but not forgotten!

Could not edit the mis spelled title to Great Women heigh ho.

We have a plaque on our house to George Eliot as she wrote some of Middlemarch while staying in Eldersley Towers in Redhill.  The house was later demolished but our house was built on some of the land, I still come across foundations in the garden.  

Tim

I think the greatest NZ woman was probably Kate Sheppard. In 1893 she petitioned Parliament for suffrage for women. The Electoral Act allowing women to vote was passed that year, giving New Zealand the privilege of being the first country in the world to have truly universal suffrage. Other great women have been Helen Clark, described as  "the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and former UNDP Administrator. She is a highly respected figure in the fields of sustainable development, gender equality, and international co-operation. Helen Clark is a dedicated advocate for positive change on the global stage and an active member of various international organisations". 
We are also proud of Georgina Beyer the first openly transgender Mayor and MP in the world. 

Caro.

Lady Mary Barker – a Remarkable Lady of the British Empire
Lady Mary Barker seems in her eighty years to have experienced just about every facet of the nineteenth century British Empire. 
Mary Stewart was born in 1831 in the then slave planation colony of Jamaica.  In 1833 the emancipation act was passed, but she would have still grown up in a society where the vast majority of the population were black ex-slaves.
Mary was schooled in England and returned to Jamaica when she finished her schooling.  In 1852 she married a British Royal Artillery officer Captain George Barker who distinguished himself in the Crimean War (1854-56) and in the defeat of Indian Munity (1857-58), being knighted.  She lived at the Old Rectory, Chiddingstone.
In 1860 she moved to India, having to leave her children behind to live with her husband in a colony where a very small number of Britons, with the help of many more Indians, ruled over a vast Indian population. 
In 1861 George died and Mary returned to England and again lived at the Old Rectory.  In 1865 she married again, this time to Frederick Broome who had been born to missionary parents in Canada (then British North America), but had later gone to farm sheep in New Zealand.  In 1866 they moved to run a large sheep farm in the South Island.
In 1869 they returned to England and both of them embarked on successful writing career including Mary publishing a book on her time in New Zealand under the penname Lady Barker, which was so successful that it was translated into French and German.
In 1875 Frederick was appointed Colonial Secretary for the British Colony of Natal where, unlike New Zealand, the white settlers were outnumbered by the native population. 
In 1877 they moved to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean which originally had been uninhabited.  It was first discovered and colonised by the Portuguese, captured by the Dutch, then the French and finally by the British who imported Indian labour to work on sugar plantations.
From 1880 to 1890 Frederick became the last Governor of Western Australia.  Mary actively supported him in his bid to develop the colony and win representative government for it, which was granted by Great Britain in 1890.  Frederick was knighted during this period meaning that Mary was now Lady Broome as well as Lady Barker.
From 1891 to 1895 Mary returned to her West Indian roots as Frederick was appointed first governor of Barbados and then Trinidad.  They returned to England and Frederick died in 1896.  Mary continued her writing career with various articles and books being published.  She died aged 79 in 1911 having lived in Jamaica, England, India, New Zealand, Natal, Mauritius, Western Australia, Barbados and Trinidad.  She is buried in Highgate cemetery.

As I'm somewhat restricted in what I can do presently I have been looking at YouTube videos on my phone. I came across the story of Rani Laksmi Bai.  I don't know if she's been mentioned before.  In the 19th century after her husband's death she led an army from her till then independent state of Jhansi against the then British powers-that-be who claimed suzerainety over the State.  She died in the battle and had given orders for her cremation so her body couldn't be captured.  Even though she was unsuccessful she strikes me as a woman of courage.   Although their lives were far apart in time and space her story reminds me of Boudicca.  She was only about 30 when she died.

Cleopatra is one of the few widely recognised women from ancient history and one can compare how she is depicted in the cinema and by Plutarch.  

The 1963 film Cleopatra is probably the best known cinematic version of her life and the Greek writer Plutarch (c46–120CE) is considered the ‘principal ancient source’ for Cleopatra.   Plutarch, though, is writing primarily about Antony and for a very different audience from that of Cleopatra.  However, despite this, one can still look at how Cleopatra’s beauty, sexual attraction and activity, lifestyle, and treatment of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony compare. 

Plutarch refers to her beauty as ‘not of that incomparable kind which instantly captivates the beholder’.  However, the presumption of the film, if not explicitly stated, by having Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra, is that her beauty is of ‘that incomparable kind’.  What both media agree on is the sexual attraction of Cleopatra with the film calling her the ‘Siren of the Nile’.  Plutarch describes Antony’s love for Cleopatra as exciting ‘to the point of madness many passions which had hitherto lain dormant’ and of Caesar that ‘he was overcome by her charm’.   However, there is a difference in that in Cleopatra she is described as employing 'her own sexual talents, which are said to be considerable'.  The attitude of the Romans in Cleopatra would appear approving, a reflection of the 1960s Hollywood outlook rather than of ancient time.  In Plutarch there is no implication that Cleopatra was promiscuous and such behaviour would have been condemned by Plutarch.  

Both agree on the luxurious lifestyle of Cleopatra and her talent for creating exotic spectacles.  This is best illustrated in the film clip of her entry into Rome.  Plutarch describes her arrival at Tarsus as being ‘in a barge with a poop of gold’ while Cleopatra ‘reclined beneath a canopy of gold, dressed in the character of Venus’.   Cleopatra’s first meeting with Caesar was somewhat less spectacular, being smuggled ‘inside a sleeping bag’.  Plutarch views this as ‘being the first thing about her that captivated Caesar’.   Both Cleopatra and Plutarch show a significant difference in Cleopatra’s treatment of the two men.  In Cleopatra she winks at Caesar, having upstaged him by the manner of her entry into Rome.  However, in a later scene she tells Antony to kneel before her and when he is shocked by this, declares 'I asked it of Julius Caesar, I demand it of you!' Plutarch refers to her treating Antony ‘with such disdain’ and that her appearing before him was ‘in mockery of his orders’.   Plutarch’s attitude towards Cleopatra reflects Rome’s hostile view of powerful women, whereas her treatment in Cleopatra is supportive.  A modern audience might appreciate Cleopatra winking at Caesar, as an equal, while being able to reduce Antony to bewilderment.  

The depiction of Cleopatra in the film clips and in Plutarch includes differences and similarities.  Given that the film set out to be a broadly historical epic film and that Plutarch was a primary written source – and despite the separation in media, time and audience - the similarities are not surprising.  The differences can be attributed to 1960s Hollywood being more approving of powerful women than was the case with Plutarch who reflects Roman/Greek expectations of the subservience of women.  

One historian commented that there were only two people who really worried Rome - Hannibal Barca and Cleopatra.

Tim