30 Aussie Women We Look Up To

Gender equality is a hot issue all over the world so we always give the biggest applause to those women who come out at the top in their chosen fields.

Today we have compiled a list of the most awesome Aussie women who we should look up to. These women have made their names in various fields: politics, sports and entertainment, humanitarian efforts and many more.

1. Rosie Batty

She is a campaigner against domestic violence and founder of The Luke Batty Foundation. She is named Australian of the Year for 2015.

Rosie went through a tragic ordeal that left her scarred for life, but that did not stop her from helping other people by actively campaigning against family violence. She believes that one of the best ways to educate people is to alarm them with family violence statistics that shows that one woman is killed by her partner or former partner every week and one out of three women experience violence. Apart from that she is also pushing for early education on respectful relationships to help completely eradicate family violence.

Rosie’s son was murdered by her former partner after cricket practice. When he asked to spend a few minutes with his dad, Rosie did not hesitate because it was in a public place and in broad daylight. But the quick turn of event changed Rosie’s life forever.

2. Carrie Bickmore

She is a three-time Gold Logie Awardee. She received the 2010 Logie Award for the Most Popular New Talent, followed by Most Popular Presenter and Most Popular Personality on Australian Television both in 2015.

Her career in the media has spun over a decade starting out with a stint as a newsreader for a radio station in Perth and later on landing a more coveted position on television as presenter for The Project. Carrie is well-loved for her candid character. She is naturally humorous and witty a style that can only be distinctively Carrie Brickmore.

One of her most important contributions is her campaign to bring more awareness to brain cancer. Carrie lost her first husband, Greg Lange, in 2010 to brain cancer after a 10-year battle. Since then she has been actively campaigning to raise awareness on the disease. Carrie wants to change the notion that brain cancer is a rare disease and wants people to understand how debilitating it is and that it can happen to them and the people they love.

She wore a blue beanie on her acceptance speech at the Logies and talked about the prevalence of brain tumours. Carrie had also at one occasion called on to everyone through her show to wear a blue beanie to help raise awareness.

Besides a flourishing career, Carrie is an ambassador for UNICEF, L’Oreal, Garnier and Cadbury Easter, a project dedicate to promoting Foodbank Australia.

3. Melissa Doyle

She is an award-winning journalist and Senior News Presenter with Seven News hosting the Sunday Night.  She devotes herself to many charities like the Alannah and Madeline Foundation,Adopt Change, Westmead Children’s Hospital, the National Breast Cancer Foundation Children’s Cancer Institute. She is also an Ambassador for World Vision.

Melissa has won the Australian Commercial Radio award in 2014 for Best Newcomer. She was a three-time recipient of the Edward R. Awards for her coverage of the Lindt Café Siege which also won her and her team a Silver Logie for the Most Outstanding News Coverage.

She wrote Alphabet Soup which one of the highest selling Australian Memoir after being in the market for only a few months. Another book, The Working Mothers Survival, which she co-wrote with Jo Scard, sold over 10,000 after the first print run.

4. Anna Meares

Anna is a Gold medalist in the Olympic Games for competitive cycling in 2004 who set the world record for the Women’s 500m time trail of 33.95 seconds. She got started in competitive cycling at the age of 11 after being inspired by Kathy Watt winning a cycling gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1994.

She was awarded Athlete of the Year in 2007 and 2011 by the Australian Institute of Sports which also added her to the Best of the Best in 2011. She has won ten-time world champion for four different events and has won five times in Commonwealth Games.

Anna is the Ambassador of the Little Heroes Foundation which is focused on kids who have undefeatable diseases, as well as for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. She has competed in the Olympics three times having won two golds, two silvers and two bronzes.

5. Julie Goodwin

She became a superstar chef when she joined MasterChef Australia where she defeated Poh Ling Yeow in the finals in 2009. She is the Campaign Ambassador for Oxfam which is an organization that tries to find solutions to poverty and what it considers injustice around the world.

Although evicted early on in the show “I’m a Celebrity”¦Get Me Out Of Here” Australia, she really wanted to leave the jungle with the prize money for a noble reason. Julie was hoping to win so she could support the Cure for MND Foundation. The thrust of the foundation is to search a cure for Motor Neurone Disease, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. She also sponsors a child through ChildFund in Uganda.

Julie has written a cook book called “Our Family Table” after she won the MasterChef and was given the opportunity to publish two other cook books, “Gather” and “The Heart of the Home” after that. She has appeared on The 7PM Project, a program where a winning family would enjoy no less than Judy cooking for them at their home.

She writes a weekly cooking segment on the Today program.

6. Chrissie Swan

She is a radio and television personality who was a co-host on Network Ten’s morning show, The Circle. She was the Presenter of Mix 1011’s program Chrissie & Jane. Chrissie has hosted the second and third series of Can of Worms, a show that addressed issues that affected people’s everyday lives.

It was her stint in the reality TV series Big Brother Australia in 2003 that made her an instant super star. She also became the spokesperson for Jenny Craig in 2010 and continues to appears on both national print and television advertisements.

Among her important contributions is being the Ambassador for CARE Australia, an organization that works to help families and individuals in the poorest communities in the world. She has won the Most Popular New Female Talent, the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television and the TV Week Logie Award all in 2011. She has been nominated several times while hosting both The Circle and Can of Worms in both 2012 and 2013.

7. Julie Bishop

Bishop holds a significant position in the government being the Minster for Foreign Affairs and more importantly, being, the first female Foreign Minister for Australia. She was sworn in on September 2013.

She is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and a Member for Curtin in the House of Representatives. Prior to that, she was the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues, Minister for Ageing, and Cabinet Minister in the Howard Government as Minister for Education, Science and Training.

The minister was placed in the WA Women Hall of Fame in 2011. She is the current Deputy Chair of the Western Australian Museum Foundation and a Board Member of His Majesty’s Theatre Foundation.

Minister Julie Bishop graduated with a Bachelor of Law from the University of Adelaide in 1978 and later on completed her Advanced Management Program for Senior Managers in 1996 at Harvard Business School in Boston. In 1983, she held the position as commercial litigation lawyer in Perth and went on to become a partner at Clayton Utz. It was in 1994 when she became the managing partner of the said top-tier Australian firm.

8. Turia Pitt

She moved to Australia when she was only three. She was born in the beautiful Island of Tahiti to an Aussie father and a Tahitian mother. She was named Australia’s Most Inspirational Woman after braving an ordeal in her life. The world was never the same again for the former model.

Turia was caught in a grass fire during an ultra marathon that she joined with her friends through the Kimberly region of Western Australia.  She suffered burns over 65% of her body and had to suffer the amputation of her four fingers from her left hand and the thumb on her right hand.

But despite the tragedy, Turia went on to inspire people, did a lot of humanitarian work and gave countless inspirational speeches in several different countries. Turia was NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year and she was a finalist for Young Australian of the Year.

Her biography ‘Everything to Live For’ written by Libby Harkness was published in 2013.

Turia and her long-time boyfriend, Michael Hoskin, recently announced their engagement. Michael bought the ring for Turia when she was in the hospital

9. Jessica Mauboy

She is an R&B singer and actress. Her road to stardom began when she became a runner-up in the fourth season of Australian Idol in 2006. She released her two-disk live album ‘Journey’ in 2007 under Sony Music Australia and it debuted at number four on the ARIA Albums Chart. The album was certified gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association.

Jessica signed on to the Australian Government’s In2Oz program in March 2008, a program designed to promote a better relationship between Australia and Indonesia.  She went on a three-day trip to Indonesia and performed around the country. As part of the program, she also performed in Indonesian Idol.

Since her breakthrough in the music industry, Jessica has collaborated with huge names in the international music industry like Snoop Dogg and Sean Kingston. She has also performed all over the world with a number of her platinum tracks including “Burn” and “Running Back”.

Jessica has been nominated in ARIA Music Awards countless times, but amidst all the success, she has maintained a positive image and is a role model to the Australian youth. She is also an ambassador for the Sony Foundation which focuses on raising money for youth-related causes.

10. Quentin Bryce

Quentin, the 25th Governor-General of Australia and the first woman to hold such position was a lawyer, educator and politician. Dame Quentin Alice Louise Bryce AD, CVO is a human rights advocate and has spent her years fighting for the rights of women and children and family welfare. Her commitment and passion to her advocacy was recognized when she was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988. She was later appointed as Companion of the Order of Australia in 2003.

Her professional and community services include being a member of the Australian delegation for the United Nations Human rights Commission in Geneva, director for Young Women’s Christian Association in Sydney, Vice President for Queensland’s Council for Civil Liberties, Chair for National Breast Cancer Centre Advisory Network and so much more.

11. Mary Elizabeth Donaldson

The Queen of Denmark is Tasmanian-born whose love story with Crowned Prince of Denmark Fredrick André Hendrik Christian that happened in the 2000 Olympics won the hearts of Aussies and Europeans. She finally married her prince in 2004 and the royal couple had four children since.

Queen Mary is the founder of the Mary Foundation which aims to improve lives compromised by environment, hereditary, illness, or any other circumstances which can isolate or exclude people from society. The Queen was made Honorary Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador to Australia in the Utzon Room of the Sydney Opera House in 2005.

She is a humanitarian who supports fundraising for refugees in Africa as well as trying to help with immigration issues in Denmark. She has been voted Woman of the Year in 2008 by Alt for Damerne. Queen Mary is a patron of many things some of which are the Danish fashion industry, humanitarian aid, sports, and research and science.  Due to her large patronages to the fashion industry she has been named one of the world’s most fashionable people in Vanity Fair’s annual International Best-Dressed List.

12. Tessa James

She hit the spotlight when she played Nicole Franklin in the Australian soap-opera Home and Away, but what captured the attention of many was her inimitable way of beating cancer.

She was a model and an aspiring actress ready to break into the Hollywood scene when in 2014, Tessa was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in which cancer originates from a specific type of white blood cells called lymphocytes.

It was a huge turning point in her life since she and her husband professional Rugby footballer, Nate Miles were also planning to have children. They decided to hold off the fertility treatment  to pave way for her cancer treatment which included radiation and chemotherapy.

Since then, she has been a symbol of strength and fearlessness. After half a year of treatment, Tessa James has slowly regained her health and career. Overcoming the adversities, she has become a stronger individual and very inspiring woman with a wonderful story to tell.

13. Naomi Simson

Naomi is an award-winning blogger, entrepreneur, motivational speaker and a proud mother. She is also the world-famous RedBalloon Founding Director; an online experience gift retailer which allows a person to give experience – like a spa treatment, outdoor adventure, wine tasting and the like – as a gift to their special someone.

In 2008, she was awarded the Nokia Business Award for Innovation and in 2011, she was the awardee for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Award. Naomi was also named as one of the top 30 tech influencers on Twitter by the Business Insider.

She has a very colourful career filled with recognition and awards, but probably one of the best she’s done was to play the role of the ‘Secret Millionaire’ in the 2009 season of the Secret Millionaire Australia which was a reality show on TV. Naomi volunteered to visit different depressed communities in Australia for 10 days. At the end of the show, she revealed her identity and donated a lot of money to the people who she volunteered for. She was reportedly one of the benefactors who gave more than $750,000 to different individuals and organizations to help improve lives of the people in those communities

14. Jessica Watson

Jessica is known the world over to be the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the globe. She was given the Medal of the Order of Australia which is Australia’s highest recognition for outstanding achievement and service.

As an ambassador for UN’s world food program, she is focused on helping abolish hunger around the world, and has sailed to Lebanon and Jordan to visit and aid Syrian refugees who were living in camps because of the conflicts happening in Syria.

She wrote the Best-selling book -True Spirit: The Aussie Girl who took on the world which now has a film franchise in the making. Through her book and her advocacy in ending world hunger, she has inspired the youth around the world to pursue their dream and has shown them true example of courage. She was the recipient of the Young Australian Award in 2011.

Since her arrival in the shores of Sydney, she has represented a lot of brands from Mobile Travel Agents to the Japanese Clothing brand, Uniqlo.

15. Megan Washington

Megan, more commonly known as Washington, was a jazz singer who later turned indie pop/alternative rock artist. She won the inaugural Vanda & Young Songwriting competition for her song “How to Tame Lions”. She received a platinum certificate by ARIA for shipping 70,000 copies of her album “I Believe You Liar”. The album also won her the Best Female Artist and Breakthrough Artist while also getting her nominated for Album of the Year, Best Adult Alternative Album and Best Engineer at the ARIA Music Awards in 2010.

One of her memorable performances was when she played a part in the musical thriller film “The Boy Castaways” in January 2013 which was shown at the Adelaide Film Festival.

The one thing that people don’t know about Megan is that since childhood she has suffered from stuttering, which would mysteriously disappear when she starts singing. She revelaed this to her TEDx Talk audience in 2014.

16. Dr. Catherine Hamlin

Dr. Hamlin is an obstetrician and gynecologist who co-founded the non-profit organization, Hamlin Fistula. She has been recognized by the United Nations due to her development of techniques and procedures for treating obstetric fistula which is a hole that develops between the vagina and the rectum or bladder after severe or failed childbirth with no adequate medical care.

She and her husband Dr. Reg Hamlin are the co-founders of Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital that is dedicated exclusively to free obstetric fistula repair surgery for poor women and has won the United Nations Population Award and The Best Humanitarian and Social Service in Ethiopia.  She has been nominated for two Nobel Peace Prizes one in 1999 and one in 2014. She has received over 20 awards and some of these are: Haile Selassie Humanitarian Prize, Hold Medal of Merit, Rotary Award for World Understanding and Peace, and Lifetime Achievement Award (People to People).

Dr. Hamlin, who was born in 1924, is still seeing patients at the age of 91.

17. Terri Irwin

She is the wife of the late Steve Irwin, naturalist, television personality and owner of Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Queensland. She spent her early career working in an emergency veterinary hospital while at the same time starting her rehabilitation facility called “Cougar Country” that re-educated people and released animals back into the wild. Terri was known to be handling almost 300 animals every year.

She is a member of the Order of Australia for her services to wildlife conservation and the tourism industry. She and her husband had filmed over 300 shows which has been shown in 142 countries and has been seen by more than 500 million viewers world wide. She has been nominated for the Australian of the Year award and won the InStyle Australia Women of Style Environmental Award. She works at the Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve which is a 135,000 hectare property dedicated to her late husband.

She wrote “Steve and Me” and “My Steve” to honor her beloved husband.

18. Deborra-Lee Furness

Deborra is an actress, director and producer who began her career in the television series “Falcon Crest” where she played the Aussie wife Kathleen. She made a comeback in 1988 when she played a role in the movie “Shame” which won her the Best Actor awards from both Film Critics Circle of Australia and Golden Space Needle.

She also won a Silver Shell for best actress at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1991. She is married to Hugh Jackman who she met on the television show Correlli in 1995. She founded the Jackman Furness Foundation for the Performing Arts which supports art students. She has had two miscarriages but that has not stopped her from adopting both her son Oscar Maximillian and daughter Ava Eliot. Her experience led her to becoming an avid adoption campaigner. Deborra was awarded the New South Wales Australian of the Year in 2014.

19. Deborah Mailman

Deborah is a television and film actress famous for her roles in “The Secret Life of Us” as Kelly and in “Offspring” as Cherie. She is the first Aboriginal actress to win Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role from the independent film Radiance as the character Nona in 1998. She and Cathy Freeman did a four-part television documentary series called Going Bush where they journeyed from Broome to Arnhem Land while spending time with the Indigenous communities.

Deborah has co-hosted the AACTA Awards with Cate Blanchett in January 2015. She has won five AACTA awards for Best Leading Movie and TV Actress. She was also awarded Best Supporting Movie and TV Actress. She has won three Logie Awards and three for Most Outstanding Actress in 2002 and 2004 for her part in The Secret Life of US, as well as one award in 2004 for her part in Mabo. She was also named NAIDOC Person of the Year.

20. Sally Pearson

Pearson is an Olympic 100m hurdle champion having won in 2012. She beat the world record for fastest 100m hurdle which Pam Ryan had owned since 1972 at the National Championships in Brisbane in 2007 with a time of 12.92 which is just .01 seconds under the old mark. She made her first international debut at the World Youth Championships in Canada in 2003 and won gold in the 100m hurdles.

Sally is an ambassador for two charities, the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and the Animal Welfare League Queensland. She is also a supporter for the Golden Ark Rescue in Australia.

She won the Female Athlete of the Year in 2011 from International Association of Athletics Federations and is the first Australian to receive it. In 2014, she was named the most inspirational Australian athlete and also was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her contribution to sports after she received a Gold Medal in the London Olympic Games.

21. Sia Kate Isobelle Furler

Sia better known as just Sia is a singer, songwriter and music video director. Her music is a mix of funk, hip hop, and soul as a base for her vocal styling. She won the APRA Breakthrough Songwriter category in 2002 alongside Aneiki’s Jenifer Waite and Grant Wallis. She won the Best Music DVD Category for TV is My Parent at the ARIA Music Awards in 2009, while in 2010, she won both the Best Independent Release and Best Pop Release.

Besides an unparalleled musical career which has the names of the world’s biggest names in the music industry attached to it, Sia is also a supporter of PETA and has participated in an advertisement for PETA in the Asia-Pacific region with her dog Pantera. In both 2009 and 2010, she was nominated by readers of SameSame.com.au as one of the 25 most influential lesbians in Australia. In 2015, Rolling Stone Australia awarded her Best Album for 1000 Forms of Fear.

22. Margaret Fulton

Margaret has greatly changed Australia’s national cuisine by showing them how to bring good food into ordinary homes through her cookery writing in magazine columns and cookbooks. The British-born Australian is considered to be the first and the most-loved cooking guru in Australia. Her writings have inspired so many people to cook with style which allows people to enjoy the pleasures of fine dining every day in the comforts of their home. She loves to travel around the world and has introduced International cuisine to Australia through her sought-after cookbooks.

The best-selling Margaret Fulton Cookbook was first published in 1968 with a revised edition in 2010. The book sold millions of copies.

One of her greatest recognition was when she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the 1983 for her service through the media as a journalist and food writer. She also has been nominated by the National Trust as an Australian Living National Treasure in 1998.

23. Gail Kelly

Gail is ‘Australia’s most powerful woman in finance’ according to Forbes.com. She is the former chief executive officer of Westpac, Australia’s first and second largest bank and financial service provider. She was the first female CEO of a top Australian company and was the highest paid woman in an Australian corporation.

Gail is well-known for her excellence in business management. In just two years during her term as CEO of St. George Bank, she was able to raise the bank’s profitability, reached higher levels on return assets and the bank’s capitalization rose to three billion.

During her career as CEO in Westpac, she targeted to have women fill at least 40% of the top positions for the company which was also achieved two years later. Her successful career was proof that women can stand out and can excel in a career dominated by men.

She is one of the members for board for the US Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Group of Thirty, an international body of business experts that aims to educate the public of the economic and financial issues around the world.

24. Stephanie Gilmore

The six-time world surfing champion Stephanie Gilmore is an epitome of beauty, strength and talent. Having won three consecutive world championships in a short period of time, she has topped an accomplishment that no man has ever achieved. Her surfing skills has placed her as one of the world’s most popular female surfers.

She was awarded the Laureus World Sports Award in 2010 which is the most prestigious award in action sports worldwide.  She is also a two-time awardee of ESPN ESPY for Best Female Action Sports Athlete in 2011 and 2013.

Stephanie is also a well-known philanthropist. She is a proud supporter of MOvember foundation, a global charity raising funds and awareness for men’s health. She also works with the Couer de Foret foundation, a group that protects primary forest and local population. She helped the organization build and provide water wells in communities in Senegal. Stepanie has been an advocate in ending world hunger and a long-time supporter of World Vision sponsoring children in different parts of the globe.

25. Dr. Fiona Wood

Dr. Wood is a world-renowned plastic surgeon and a burns treatment expert based in Perth, Australia. In the earlier years of her career, she discovered her passion in innovation, research and surgery. In 1995, she founded Cellspray, a spray-on solution of skin cells aimed at healing severe skin burns. In 1999, she founded Clinical Cell Culture now called ‘Avita Medical’, a company that specializes in producing and marketing a wide range of respiratory and regenerative products.

She caught the world’s spotlight when she helped the victims of the Bali bombing in 2002. She has been a great adviser since and provided motivation for the burn victims for whom she has done surgery. Amidst the world-wide fame, she continues to do research on innovation and cell regeneration to improve her products and aims to help more people across the globe with her studies and research.

She has truly been inspiring for victims and their families healing from the tragedy and was recognized as Australian of the Year in 2005.

26. Layne Beachley

Beachley is a former professional surfer who started surfing at the age of 16 and ranked 6th in the world by the time she turned 20. She is one of four vice presidents for the International Surfing Association while sitting on the organization’s Executive Committee.

She set up a fierce training regimen to try and set herself apart which came at the price of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which became one of the foundations that would push her to her goal.

She then became the Women’s ASP World Champion seven times, six times of which were consecutive, making her the first woman to win seven World Championships in total. She has surfed in the Energy Australia Open in 2004 held in Newcastle which is a men’s only surfing event. In 2006, she was added to the Surfers’ Hall of Fame.

Layne created the Aim for the Stars Foundation in 2003 which supports and helps young women in Australia to realize their dreams in all fields.

27. Penelope Ying-Yen Wong

Penelope better known as Penny Wong is an Australian politician who was elected as the first female Leader of the Government in the senate after the government change in 2013. She is the Minster for Climate Change and Water and represents Australia in the international climate change negotiations which she has used to expand the Renewable Energy Target.

Penny was appointed Minster for Finance and Deregulation in 2010 which allowed her to implement policies to ensure women are considered to be appointed to senior positions in government agencies and corporations. She believes Australian Labor’s central values should strive for equality to help promote economic growth which is why she is an advocate for women’s rights, LGBTI rights, and multicultural Australians.

28. Edna Everage

Edna is a character created and played by Barry Humphries. Madame Edna is best known for her animated greeting, “Hello Possums!” She has done multiple tours around the world and has even appeared on Broadway.

One such show called The Royal Tour won her the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and a Tony Award in 2000. Melbourne has renamed a city street in her honor: Dame Edna Place, which can be found on the opposite side of the Royal Arcade and the Causeway.

Her alter-ego Barry Humphries was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1982 before being named Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2007 because of his work in entertainment.  A bronze statue was unveiled of her at Melbourne Dockland in 2009 near Yarra River.

29. Collette Dinnigan

Australia-based designer Collette Dinnigan is well known for revolutionizing the lingerie industry in Australia in the 90’s by designing dry clean only French-inspired underwear. In 1992, she opened her first retail store in Paddington, Sydney which became the go-to store for people who loved intricate, lacey, lingerie style dresses. She became a favorite in the fashion world with a long list of superstars wearing her brand such as Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Elle Macpherson and many more.

She was invited to design a lingerie collection for Marks and Spencer and she was the first designer from Australia to launch a prêt-a-porter collection in Paris. In 1997, she was awarded the ‘Louis Vuitton Business Award’ and she was inducted in the ‘Australia Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame’ in 1998.

On the Australian Ballet’s 50th anniversary in 2012, she designed and launched a range of tutu’s which were sold at Target stores. The proceeds went to the Australian Ballet Kids Education Program.

30. Ellyse Perry

Ellyse is a sportsman like no other. At the age of 16 she made her debut in both European football and Cricket making her the youngest cricket representative of Australia and the first Australian to have appeared in both cricket and football World Cups. She made her debut for New South Wales in 2007 to 2008 winning the WNCL with them.

She has won three ICC World Twenty20 World Cups in Cricket and received Player of the Match in 2010 World Cup Finals.  She was selected into the Matildas squad for FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany 2011 which made her to the first Australian woman to represent Australia at a senior World Cup in both football and cricket.

In June 2015, she was named as one of the Women’s Ashes touring party members set up in England.

Do you agree with the list? Who else should be added?