Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy, the iconic trailblazer has several firsts to her credit but always remembered for battling her personal odds to become the crusader of women’s empowerment. Inspired by Thanthai Periyar’s Self Respect Movement, she stood in the forefront for women’s suffrage, widow remarriage and abolition of the ‘iniquitous’ Devadasi system. She was the first female student to foray into a Men’s College in the 1900s, when women education was a distant dream. She was the first woman House Surgeon in the Government Maternity and Ophthalmic Hospital, the first Woman Legislator in British India, the first Chairperson of the State Social Welfare Advisory Board, the first woman Deputy President of the Legislative Council and the first woman to be appointed as Alderman of the Madras Corporation (now Chennai Corporation). The 1920s saw two movements – the Dravidian movement and Women’s movement making powerful strides in fighting for the rights and empowerment of women. Rationalist Leader Periyar E V Ramasamy who led the Dravidian movement was more vociferous in his fight for women’s empowerment. He held the view that “it was unfair and wicked on the part of the haughty male population to continue to denigrate and enslave the female population.” Taking the cue, Dr Muthulakshmi emerged as the torch bearer of women’s rights and empowerment. She was born in 1886 in the erstwhile Princely State of Pudukottai. Her father, Narayanaswamy Iyer first married a Brahmin girl who died soon after marriage and he remarried Chandrammal, a Devadasi. She gave birth to eight children but four of them died at an early age. Dr Muthulakshmi was the eldest among those who survived and had a brother and two sisters. Hailing from a socially handicapped environment in an era when girls were born only to be married, the fragile looking Muthulakshmi faced numerous challenges, right from her early days but defied the odds. It was not just destiny, but her indomitable spirit and courage that defied the odds. She had to struggle against a hostile environment those days when women were...