The first-century Roman writer Gaius Julius Hyginus relates the story of Agnodice, a young Athenian woman who traveled to Alexandria to study medicine. On her return to Athens she disguised herself as a man in order to practice, and was brought before the court of the Areopagus. “You men are not spouses but enemies,” Agnodice’s patients protested, “since you are condemning the woman who discovered health for us.” Around 500 bc, the law forbidding women to study medicine was repealed.

After witnessing a man beating his wife in rural Uttar Pradesh in 2006, Sampat Pal Devi declared, “Unless we start sending our girls to schools, we will continue having this problem.” She set up a school and wrote a song to persuade women not to send their daughters to work in the fields: “My husband has learnt English, but I only know Hindi / One day he asked for water, but I got him tomatoes. He slashed me with his belt.”