| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| October 1 | Julie Andrews born 1935 |
| October 2 | Donna Karan born 1948 |
| October 3 | Rebecca Felton becomes the first woman to occupy a seat in the US Senate, 1922 |
| October 4 | Bernice Johnson Reagon born 1942 |
| October 5 | Maya Ying Lin born 1959 |
| October 6 | Fannie Lou Hamer born 1917 |
| October 7 | Toni Morrison awarded Nobel Prize in literature, 1993 |
| October 8 | Sigourney Weaver born 1949 |
| October 9 | Helen Hayes born 1900 |
| October 10 | Beatrice Hinkle born 1874 |
| October 11 | Marguerite d'Angouleme born 1492 |
| October 12 | Mabel Boardman born 1860 |
| October 13 | Edith Spurlock Sampson born 1901 |
| October 14 | Katherine Mansfield born 1888 |
| October 15 | Helen Hunt Jackson born 1830 |
| October 16 | Margaret Sanger opens the first US birth control clinic, New York City, 1916 |
| October 17 | Mae C Jemison born 1956 |
| October 18 | Martina Navratilova born 1956 |
| October 19 | Annie Smith peck born 1850 |
| October 20 | Byllye Avery born 1937 |
| October 21 | Grete Waitz is the first woman to run a marathon in under 2.5 hours, New York City, 1979 |
| October 22 | Abigail Scott Dniway born 1834 |
| October 23 | Gertrude Ederle born 1906 |
| October 24 | Belva Lockwood born 1830
"I have not raised the dead, but I have awakened the living; and if I have not been able to walk on water the progressive spirit of this age may soon accomplish this feat. The general effect of attempting things beyond us, even though we fail, is to enlarge and liberalize the mind. With work and school I soon abandoned the miracles, but few undertakings were so great that I did not aspire to them." Belva A. Lockwood, My Efforts to Become a Lawyer, 41 LIPPINCOTT'S MONTHLY MAG. 215, 216 (1988). |
| October 25 | Hanna Holborn Gray born 1930 |
| October 26 | Hillary Rodham Clinton born 1947 |
| October 27 | Maxine Hong Kingston born 1940 |
| October 28 | Anna Dickinson born 1842 |
| October 29 | National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded, 1966 |
| October 30 | Gertrude Atherton born 1857 |
| October 31 | Ethel Waters born 1900 |