Journalist, activist, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Betty Friedan was one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her 1963 best-selling book, The Feminine Mystique, gave voice to millions of American women’s frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality.
Charlotta Spears Bass, longtime editor of the African American newspaper The California Eagle, was a journalist, activist, and politician who fought for the civil rights of African Americans in the early and mid-twentieth century. The first Black woman to run for vice president of the United States (1952), she worked to combat what she called, “The two-headed monster, Segregation and Discrimination.”
Anissa Rawda Najjar was a Lebanese feminist and women’s rights activist, who co-founded the Village Welfare Society (Jam`iyat In`ash Al-Qarya) with Evelyne Bustros in 1953, to advance literacy and economic opportunities for rural women in Lebanon.
Feminist activist and journalist Sediqeh Dowlatabadi was a pioneering figures in the Persian women’s movement who believed in the advancement of women through education.
Norwegian feminist writer and artist
Andrea Villarreal was a teacher, poet, feminist, labor organizer, and revolutionary.
Urani Rumbo was an Albanian feminist, playwright and teacher who founded several associations promoting Albanian women’s rights.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works range from novels to short stories to nonfiction.