Women Who Have Made History and Achieved Firsts This Year

Vice President Kamala Harris became the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States in January.

Vice President Harris is the first Black and South Asian-American woman to serve as vice president in American history. Her husband, Doug Emhoff, is also the first-ever second gentleman.

When she was elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris became the second African-American woman and first South Asian-American senator in history. Since she left her role in the Senate to serve as vice president, there are currently no Black women serving as senators.

Two other women have run for vice president on a major party ticket: Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Sarah Palin in 2008.

Amanda Gorman also made history as the youngest known inaugural poet.

Gorman, then 22, stole the show at Biden and Harris’ inauguration with her poem, “The Hill We Climb.”

Biden, only the fourth American president to have a poet read at his inauguration, and Gorman both have speech impediments. Gorman said poetry helped her overcome hers.

Sarah McBride was sworn in as the first openly transgender state senator.

Upon taking office, Delaware state senator Sarah McBride became the highest-ranking transgender elected official in the US.

“As I reflect on the journey till today I am reminded of the change that it reflects: that we are a community and a country that has continuously opened our hearts and changed our minds and increasingly judged people on their skills and talents not on their identities,” she said at her swearing-in ceremony in Claymont, Delaware.

Avril Haines became the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence.

Haines was nominated to serve as director of national intelligence by President Biden and became his first Cabinet member when she was confirmed by the Senate on Inauguration Day in 2021.

She previously served as deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and deputy national security advisor during the Obama administration, and she was the first woman to hold both of those roles.

Economist Janet Yellen became the first woman to head the Treasury Department since it was founded in 1789.

President Joe Biden chose Janet Yellen to head the Treasury Department, and she was sworn in by Vice President Harris in January.

Yellen was also the first woman to serve as chair of the

Federal Reserve
. In addition to being the first woman to serve as treasury secretary, Yellen would also be the first person of any gender to have led the Federal Reserve, the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and the Treasury Department.

At Super Bowl LV in February, Sarah Thomas was the NFL’s first-ever female referee to officiate a Super Bowl.

Thomas is the first full-time female referee in the NFL’s 100-year history. She was also the first woman to referee at an NFL playoff game in 2019, and the first woman to work a major college football game.

“I’ve always said that if you do something because you love it and not try to prove somebody wrong or get recognition for it, the recognition probably just is going to happen,” Thomas told CBS News in 2019.

Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for best director.

Zhao won the best director award for “Nomadland,” a film starring Frances McDormand about a widow who decides to live out of her van. She is the second woman ever to win a Golden Globe for directing — the first was Barbra Streisand for “Yentl” in 1983 — and the first Asian woman to win.

Also a first: More than one woman was nominated in the best director category at the 2021 awards. Regina King was nominated for the period drama “One Night in Miami” and Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman.”

Zhao made history again when she and Emerald Fennell were nominated for best director at the Oscars, marking the first time two women have been nominated.

Fennell directed “Promising Young Woman,” which centers around a medical school drop-out dedicated to catching predatory men.

Zhao ended up taking home the Oscar, becoming only the second woman ever and the first Asian woman to win the directing award.

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman ever to win best director in 2010 for “The Hurt Locker.”

In her acceptance speech, Zhao spoke about growing up in China and memorizing Chinese poems with her father.

“There’s one that I remember so dearly, it’s called the Three Character Classics,” she said. “The first phrase goes … ‘People at birth are inherently good.’ Those six letters had such a great impact on me when I was a kid, and I still truly believe them today.

“Even though sometimes it might seem like the opposite is true, I have always found goodness in the people I met, everywhere I went in the world.

“So this is for anyone who had the faith, and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that.”

In March, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first woman and first African to lead the World Trade Organization since it was founded in 1995.

Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian-American economist, previously served as Nigeria’s finance minister and foreign minister, and she was the first woman to hold both of those positions.

Beyoncé picked up her 28th award at the 2021 Grammys, giving her more Grammy wins than any woman in history.

Beyoncé won best music video for “Brown Skin Girl” and best R&B performance for “Black Parade.” She also received two trophies — best rap performance and best rap song— for her feature on Megan Thee Stallion’s “Savage.”

She was the most-nominated artist at the 63rd annual ceremony and won four of her nine nominations, bringing her lifetime total to 28. Country singer Alison Krauss previously held the record with 27 wins.

Youn Yuh-Jung broke records when she won acting awards for her role in “Minari” at the SAG Awards and the Oscars in April.

Youn became the first Asian woman to win any individual motion picture category at the SAG Awards when she won best supporting actress for her performance in “Minari” on April 4. The film is about a Korean grandmother who visits her family in Arkansas in the 1980s.

Sandra Oh, who has won SAG Awards for her roles in the TV shows “Killing Eve” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” is the only other Asian woman to win an individual SAG Award in a television category.

Then on April 25, Youn accepted the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in “Minari,” becoming the first South Korean actor to do so. She is the second Asian woman to win best supporting actress at the Oscars: The first was Japanese-born Miyoshi Umeki, who won for “Sayonara” at the 1958 ceremony.

Viola Davis became the most-nominated Black actress in Oscars history and the only Black woman to be nominated twice for best actress, with a total of four nominations.

Davis was nominated for best actress for her role in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Frances McDormand won the award for “Nomadland.”

Davis had previously been nominated for best supporting actress in “Doubt” in 2008 and best actress in “The Help” in 2011, and won best supporting actress for “Fences” in 2016.

“For me, it’s a reflection of the lack of opportunities and access to opportunities people of color have had in this business. If me, going back to the Oscars four times in 2021, makes me the most nominated Black actress in history, that’s a testament to the sheer lack of material there has been out there for artists of color,” said Davis in a February 2021 interview with Variety.

Jamika Wilson and Mia Neal became the first Black women to win the Oscar for best makeup and hairstyling for their work on “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

Wilson and Neal won the Oscar along with Sergio Lopez-Rivera.

“I stand here as Jamika and I break this glass ceiling with so much excitement for the future,” Neal said in her acceptance speech. “Because I can picture Black trans women standing up here, our Asian sisters, our Latina sisters and Indigenous women. And I know one day it won’t be unusual or groundbreaking — it will just be normal.”

In May, Simone Biles became the only woman to ever attempt — and complete — a Yurchenko double pike vault in competition at the US Classic.

Regarded as one of the most dominant athletes in the world, Biles raised the bar again with a move so complex and dangerous that no woman had ever attempted it in competition before.

The Yurchenko double pike, which Biles has spent months mastering in training, requires a gymnast to complete a roundoff-back-handspring entry into the vaulting table and then execute two full backward rotations with legs extended before, ideally, sticking the landing.

“It’s very, very challenging,” one of Biles’ coaches, Laurent Landi, said during a “60 Minutes” segment that aired in February. “And what’s scary, it’s that people can get hurt. You do a short landing, you can hurt your ankles … it’s a very dangerous vault.”

Biles successfully stuck the landing and took home the gold medal at the US Classic. She will compete in the Tokyo Olympics this summer.

At 82 years old, Wally Funk became the oldest person to fly to space when she joined Jeff Bezos on his Blue Origin rocket on July 20.

Funk was part of NASA’s Mercury 13 program that trained female astronauts in the 1960s, but the program was shut down and none of them ever went to space.

Funk finally got her chance to blast into orbit with Bezos on his New Shepard rocket’s first passenger flight, which launched to the edge of space and successfully landed back on Earth on July 20.

She broke the record for oldest person to fly to space, overtaking NASA astronaut John Glenn, who was 77 years old on his last mission.

In October, Dr. Rachel Levine became the first female and first openly transgender four-star officer in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

Levine, who serves as the assistant secretary for health in the Biden administration, is the highest-ranked openly transgender official in the US. She was also the first openly transgender official to be confirmed by the Senate. She previously served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health.

“I am humbled to serve as the first female four-star officer of the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and first openly transgender four-star officer across any of the eight uniformed services,” Levine said in a statement released by the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is a momentous occasion and I am pleased to take this role for the impact I can make, and for the historic nature of what it symbolizes. May this appointment be the first of many like it as we create a more inclusive future.”