Of her life's work, cultural anthropologist, museum curator and feminist scholar Margaret Mead once said, "I have spent most of my life studying the lives of other peoples — faraway peoples — so that Americans might better understand themselves." Mead's professor and mentor Franz Boas is credited with the concept of cultural relativism in American anthropology, but it was Mead who truly eradicated the concept of the "savage" through her extensive fieldwork in the Pacific. Mead began taking notes on her observations of human behavior after her mother encouraged her interest in studying the development of her younger siblings. This ability to record breathtaking amounts of longitudinal data helped her garner a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1929 and become a curator of the American Museum of Natural History in 1934. Her seminal book, Coming of Age in Samoa, helped many Americans understand the universality of their own experiences for the first time.
１３．Golda Meir (1898-1978)
By Kayla Webley
Once called "the only man in the Cabinet," Golda Meir was a formidable figure in Israeli politics. Tall, blunt and determined, she fervently devoted her life to the service of the Jewish state she helped found. After an illustrious political career, including service as Israel's Labor Minister and Foreign Minister, she took the country's reins as Prime Minister in 1969, when Israel was prosperous and still euphoric over its victory in the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. But another war, just a few years later, would prove to be her downfall. Israel's lack of preparedness for the fourth Arab-Israeli war, called the Yom Kippur War, stunned the nation. Though Israel went on to win the war, with the U.S.'s assistance, the government was severely criticized. With much of the blame directed her way, Meir stepped down in 1974. Despite ending her life of public service under a cloud, there was never a question of Meir's faithfulness to her country. "There is a type of woman," Meir once said, "who does not let her husband narrow her horizon."
１４．Angela Merkel (1954-Present)
By Dan Fastenberg
Germans chose Angela Merkel as their first female Chancellor because they knew they could rely on her steady hand. Trained as a physicist, Merkel entered politics as a second career after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She worked her way up the ranks of the right-of-center Christian Democratic Union and became the protégé of famed Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who tapped Merkel to become Minister for the Environment. In 1999, she demonstrated she was beholden to nobody when she wrote an editorial criticizing Kohl for his involvement in a slush-fund scandal, becoming the first member of his Cabinet to break with him. When she became the country's first Chancellor from the former communist East Germany in 2005, she demonstrated her ability to get along with others while cobbling together a diverse parliamentary coalition. She always took in stride the way Kohl referred to her as "my girl," and her unassuming presence has been just right for Germany as it reasserts itself on the global stage. (She has quietly pushed for a German seat on the U.N. Security Council.) Five years into her chancellorship, Merkel's voice has become a global standard, whether it's advocating on the issue of climate change or speaking out in support of austerity amid the economic crisis.
