Born: 45 CE, China
Died: 116 CE
Country most active: China
Also known as: NA
Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician Ban Zhao lived in the first and second century of the Common Era. She is the earliest known female Chinese historian, and one of the earliest known worldwide, alongside Pamphile of Epidaurus. In addition to completing her brother’s Book of Han, she also had a range of other interests, studying astronomy and mathematics and writing poems, essays and other works, including the highly influential Lessons for Women. Although it’s quite unappealing from a modernist feminist perspective, emphasising submission and obedience to one’s husband and reflecting other sexist Confucian norms, it was very popular for centuries as a guide for ideal womanhood, and is considered a founding text of Confucian feminism. She was also an instructor of Taoist sexual practices for the imperial family, meaning part of her job was literally teaching royals how to have sex.
When she wasn’t busy with all that, Ban Zhao was also a librarian at court, which meant she was very influential both on other scholars and what was documented. She rearranged and enlarged the Biographies of Eminent Women by Liu Xiang, supervised a staff of assistants and trained other scholars.
She was also the grandniece of another awesome woman, Consort Ban Jieyu, who lived in the first century before the Common Era. A scholar and poet, Consort Ban saved her brother Ban Zhi (Ban Zhao’s grandfather) from a charge of treason, and also successfully argued her way out of an accusation of witchcraft in 18 BCE