Jeanne Baret

The Australian National Maritime Museum recently published on their blog an interesting story about Jeanne Baret - the first woman to have circumnavigated the earth.

https://anmm.wordpress.com/2015/11/10/she-will-be-the-first-woman-that-has-ever-made-it/?utm_source=General+Public+eNewsletter&utm_campaign=8331b68c73-General_News_December_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_7df72491fc-8331b68c73-145429493&mc_cid=8331b68c73&mc_eid=694125080f

I disagree with the comment at the end, from one of the people who named a new species of plant in her honour in 2012, though. The comment that she was "an unwitting explorer", seems to be ignoring her entire story.
Her partner/employer, Philibert Commerson, could have left her safely at home, but instead values her so much that he brings her with him and into an environment that requires the hardest of work from Jeanne to disguise her true self.

This woman was no unwitting traveller, dragged along by accident, but a willing participant in what was from the start a multi-year prospect. You just have to look at how she preserved the work done by Commerson and herself for years after his death and brought it back with her and her new husband to France; to see that she valued the work done and wasn't just the sidekick. This may not have been the intention of Tepe and may also have been taken out of context, but it's stuff like this we have to be careful of to make sure that deserving people aren't relegated to the shadows of historic endeveour.