More than 91 million people read the phrases "Me Too Movement", "gender equality" and "feminism" across nearly 147 million page views in 2019. In total, people spent more than 58 million minutes reading about these topics.
To mark International Women's Day, these were among global data and insights collected by leading discovery platform Taboola on the female issues, inspirations and individuals that most resonated with people globally online in the past 12 months.
According to Taboola analysis, of more than 100 women who made headlines last year, Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg received the most readership online: more than 188 million people spent more than 193 million minutes reading about her.
She was followed by German chancellor Angela Merkel (170 million readers) and American soccer star Megan Rapinoe (68 million readers), who led the US women’s team to their fourth World Cup.
Taboola looked into some of the biggest “firsts” for women in 2019, across entertainment, sports, arts, science and more.
In the entertainment arena, people read most about:
- Cardi B (64 million readers) - the first solo woman to win a Grammy for best rap album
- Brie Larson (54 million) - actor with the biggest opening for a female-fronted film
- Sandra Oh (20 million) - the first Asian woman to host the Golden Globes
- Aya Nakamura (16 million) - a popular French musician whose song Djadja surpassed more than 400 million views on YouTube
- Phoebe Waller-Bridge (12 million) - English actor and writer who triumped at the Emmy Awards, taking home three gongs for her show Fleabag
- Halima Aden (4 million) - the first hijab and burkini-wearing model to pose for Sports Illustrated
In sport:
- Megan Rapinoe (68 million) - captain who led the US Women's National Team to its fourth World Cup in a game against France
- Simone Biles (26 million) – US gymnast who made history by becoming the most decorated in history
- Mary Kom (11 million) - Indian boxing champion who won a historic 8th World Championship Boxing medal
- Saina Nehwal (2.7 million) - Indian badminton player who secured her second consecutive and overall fourth senior national badminton title
- Dina Asher Smith (2.6 million) - UK runner who became the first British woman to claim a global sprint title
- Ona Carbonell (2.5 million) - Spanish athlete with most medals in the history of water sports (23 in total).
- Mithali Raj (1.9 million) - India team captain who became the first female cricketer to play 200 ODIs
In the arts, sciences and activism:
- Carola Rackete (20 million) - German ship captain who sparked international headlines by rescuing migrants
- Christina Koch (5.3 million) - US astronaut who completed NASA's first ever all-female spacewalk with colleague Jessica Meir
- Katie Bouman (4.2 million) - scientist who produced the first-ever image of a Black Hole
- Esther Duflo (2.9 million) - French economist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, focused on new approaches to alleviating global poverty
- Margarita Salas (1.1 million) - Biochemist from Spain whose discoveries led to faster, more-accurate DNA testing.
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