As a Mexican-American journalist, activist, and suffragist, Jovita Idár often faced dangerous situations. However, she never backed down from a challenge. She single-handedly protected her newspaper headquarters when the Texas Rangers came to shut it down, and crossed the border to serve as a nurse during the Mexican Revolution. Idár bravely fought the injustices in her time.
As a poet, author, and lecturer, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was a household name in the nineteenth century. Not only was she the first African American woman to publish a short story, but she was also an influential abolitionist, suffragist, and reformer that co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.
In a 1912 New York Times article, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was regarded as “the symbol of the new era, when all women will be free and unhampered.” At the time, sixteen year old Lee was already a recognized suffragist and activist that would help to lead almost 10,000 people in the New York suffrage parade.
Gwendolyn Margaret Lizarraga, MBE was a Belizean businesswoman, women’s rights activist and politician who was the first woman elected to the British Honduras Legislative Assembly (now the Belize House of Representatives) and the first woman to serve as a government minister in British Honduras (now Belize).
Pálné Veres was a Hungarian teacher and feminist who opened the first secondary school for women in Hungary in 1869 and founded the Hungarian National Association for Women’s Education.
Her school’s philosophy was that girls should be taught to be self-sufficient, and to learn to appreciate arts and culture while avoiding a tendency towards self-indulgence in luxury. Girls were to be taught to be direct representatives of God in their future married lives, and to embody Christian ideals in their behaviour. The school itself was divided into 11 grades: four in the elementary level, four at the intermediary level, and three in the superior level. The curriculum for the superior classes included Religious instruction; Hungarian Language; Hungarian Literature; Aesthetics; Pedagogy; Anthropology and Psychology; Logic; History of Civilization (partiularly as it related to women); Algebra and Geometry; German language; French language; Manual arts; Vocal and Instrumental Music; Gymnastics; Mathematics and Stereometry; Drawing.
Veres was disappointed at the high rate of departure of the students before the superior level, as the upper bourgeoisie and aristocratic parents of her students did not see a practical use for their daughters to advance beyond a certain age. The superior-level classes were seen as useful only for young women who intended to become school teachers themselves. Veres did succeed in influencing the upper bougeoisie and aristocracy attitudes, in acknowledging the benefits of education in general for children of both sexes.
Dr Alanoud Alsharekh is a Kuwaiti women’s rights activist and founding director of Abolish 153 (short for Abolish Article 153), a campaign calling to end honour killings in Kuwait.
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.
Gertrud Johanna Woker was a Swiss suffragist, biochemist, toxicologist and peace activist.
Hanan Daoud Mikhael Ashrawi is a Palestinian politician, activist and scholar who served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, starting with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.
Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková was a Moravian teacher, editor and women’s rights activist. After teaching for several years, she began to recognize the disparities between male and female teachers, as well as between their students. By 1898, she was publicly calling for women to receive equal pay for equal work and campaigning for equal education for boys and girls. In 1902, Wiedermannová founded and became chair of the Moravian Teachers Union, whose goal was to professionalize teaching standards. In 1903, she opened a Girls’ Academy in Brno, hoping to later expand to include secondary education. Because the Austro-Hungarian Empire provided little funding for girls’ education, she held lectures to help pay the academy’s operating costs of the academy. It was five years before she successfully established the first girls’ secondary school in Moravia, in 1908.
That same year, Wiedermannová founded and became the editor of Ženská revue (Women’s Review), a magazine featuring articles on developments in the international women’s movement. In 1909, she retired from teaching to focus on activism and became one of the most prominent Czech feminists, presenting more than a hundred lectures during her career. She founded several women’s associations and in 1910 was instrumental in creating a regional umbrella organization, the Progressive Organization of Women in Moravia, which was actively committed to women’s suffrage and the integration of women into all segments of public life.
Wiedermannová-Motyčková was an active demonstrator at rallies and participated in petition drives to secure the vote for women. She participated in international conferences and sought connections with feminists in other parts of her country. From the onset of World War I, her activism shifted to humanitarian aid for the poor and for soldiers’ families.She died in 1915, only a few years before Czech women secured the right to vote in 1918.