In happier news, two remarkable women won Nobel Prizes this week. On Tuesday (2 October), Canadian scientist Donna Strickland became the third woman ever to win the Nobel Prize for Physics, alongside her French colleague Gérard Mourou. It was the first time a female physicist had won the award in 55 years.

Strickland and Mourou were recognised for developing what the Nobel committee called “high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses”, which generate beams that can be used in laser eye surgery without damaging the eye itself.

“We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there. I’m honoured to be one of those women,” Strickland said after the announcement at the Nobel institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

On Friday (5 October), meanwhile, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nadia Murad, a 25-year-old Iraqi Yazidi woman who was tortured and raped by Islamic State. Murad now campaigns against rape in warfare and for the freedom of the Yazidi people.

She received the prize alongside Denis Mukwege, the founder of a hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo where he treats women who have been victims of gang rape in wartime.

Murad told Reuters she shared the award “with all Yazidis, with all the Iraqis, Kurds and all the minorities and all survivors of sexual violence around the world”. She said she was also thinking of her mother, who was murdered by Islamic State in 2014.

Women Making Waves is part of Stylist’s Visible Women campaign to raise awareness of women who’ve made a difference to society. See more Visible Women stories here.

From Amy Schumer to Nobel Prize winners: the women making waves this week