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Women's rights
The term women's rights refers to freedoms and entitlements of women and girls of all ages. These rights may or may not be institutionalized, ignored or suppressed by law, local custom, and behavior in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader...
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Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft (pronounced /ˈwʊlstənkrɑːft/; 27 April 1759 – 10 September 1797) was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and feminist. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the...
Date of birth:
- Apr 27, 1759
Date of death:
- Sep 10, 1797 (age 38 years)
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She traveled the...
Date of birth:
- Feb 15, 1820
Date of death:
- Mar 13, 1906 (age 86 years)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in...
Date of birth:
- Nov 12, 1815
Date of death:
- Oct 26, 1902 (age 87 years)
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement, which won women the right to vote. In 1999, Time named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People...
Date of birth:
- Jul 4, 1858
Date of death:
- Jun 14, 1928 (age 69 years)
Guru Nanak Dev
Guru Nanak Dev Ji (Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ, Hindi: गुरु नानक देव, Urdu: گرونانک Guru Nānak) (15 April 1469 -22 September 1539) is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. Sikhs believe that all subsequent Gurus possessed Guru Nanak's divinity and religious...
Date of birth:
- Apr 15, 1469
Date of death:
- Sep 22, 1539 (age 70 years)
Inez Milholland
Inez Milholland Boissevain (August 6, 1886 - November 25, 1916) was a suffragist, labor lawyer, World War I correspondent, and public speaker who greatly influenced the women's movement in America.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, she grew up...
Date of birth:
- Aug 6, 1886
Date of death:
- Nov 25, 1916 (age 30 years)
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, more commonly known as Margaret Fuller, (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850) was a journalist, critic and women's rights activist associated with the American transcendental movement. She was the first full-time female book...
Date of birth:
- May 23, 1810
Date of death:
- Jul 19, 1850 (age 40 years)
Shirin Ebadi
Shirin Ebadi (Persian: شیرین عبادی - Širin Ebâdi; born 21 June 1947) is an Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of Centre for the Defence of Human Rights in Iran. On October 10, 2003, Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her...
Date of birth:
- Jun 21, 1947 (age 62 years)
Sor Juana
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1648/51 – 17 April 1695), fully Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asbaje (or Asuaje) y Ramírez de Santillana, was a self-taught scholar, mathematician, poet of the Baroque school, and nun of New Spain. Although she...
Date of birth:
- 1648
Date of death:
- Apr 17, 1695 (age 47 years)
Ida B. Wells
Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862–March 25, 1931) was an African American journalist, newspaper editor and, with her husband, newspaper owner. An early leader in the civil rights movement, she documented the extent of lynching in the United...
Date of birth:
- Jul 16, 1862
Date of death:
- Mar 25, 1931 (age 68 years)
Dora Russell
Dora Black, Lady Russell (3 April 1894 – 31 May 1986) was a British author, a feminist and socialist campaigner, and the second wife of the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Dora Black was born into an English upper-middle class family, the...
Date of birth:
- Apr 3, 1894
Date of death:
- May 31, 1986 (age 92 years)
Kate Sheppard
Katherine Wilson Sheppard (10 March 1847 – 13 July 1934) was the most prominent member of New Zealand's women's suffrage movement, and is the country's most famous suffragette. Because New Zealand was the first country to introduce universal...
Date of birth:
- Mar 10, 1847
Date of death:
- Jul 13, 1934 (age 87 years)
Berta Lutz
Berta Maria Júlia Lutz (August 2, 1894, São Paulo – September 16, 1976, Rio de Janeiro) was a zoologist, scientist, and also a leading figure of feminism in Brazil.
She was born in São Paulo. Her father, Adolfo Lutz (1855-1940), was a famous...
Date of birth:
- Aug 2, 1894
Date of death:
- Sep 16, 1976 (age 82 years)
Emily Stowe
Dr. Emily Howard Stowe (May 1, 1831 – April 30, 1903) was the first female doctor to practice in Canada, and an activist for women's rights and suffrage. Emily Stowe was born in Norwich Township, Oxford County, Ontario.
Emily’s public struggle to...
Date of birth:
- May 1, 1831
Date of death:
- Apr 30, 1903 (age 72 years)
Mahatma Jyotirao Phule
Jotiba Govindrao Phule (Marathi: जोतीबा गोविंदराव फुले) (April 11, 1827 — November 28, 1890), also known as Mahatma Jotiba Phule was an activist, thinker, social reformer, writer, philosopher, theologist, scholar, editor and revolutionary from...
Date of birth:
- Apr 11, 1827
Date of death:
- Nov 28, 1890 (age 63 years)
Emily Murphy
Emily Murphy (March 14, 1868 - October 17, 1933) was a Canadian women's rights activist, jurist, and author. In 1916, she became the first woman magistrate in Canada, and in the British Empire. She is best known for her contributions to Canadian...
Date of birth:
- Mar 14, 1868
Date of death:
- Oct 17, 1933 (age 65 years)
Helen Magill White
Helen Magill White (1853-1944) was the first woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. She earned her doctoral degree in Greek from Boston University in 1877. She attended high school at Boston Latin School and was the first woman to graduate....
Date of birth:
- 1853
Date of death:
- 1944 (age 91 years)
Qasim Amin
Qasim Amin (1863–1908) was an Egyptian jurist and one of the founders of the Egyptian national movement and Cairo University. Born to an Upper Egyptian mother and an Ottoman-Turkish father who had served as an administrator in Kurdistan and then in...
Date of birth:
- 1863
Date of death:
- 1908 (age 45 years)
Luisa Capetillo
Luisa Capetillo (October 28, 1879 – October 10, 1922) was one of Puerto Rico's most famous labor organizers. She was also a writer and an anarchist who fought for workers and women's rights.
Capetillo was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, where she was...
Date of birth:
- Oct 28, 1879
Date of death:
- Oct 10, 1922 (age 42 years)
Jean Kilbourne
Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. (born January 4, 1943) is an author, speaker, and filmmaker who is internationally recognized for her groundbreaking work on the image of women in advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising. In the...
Date of birth:
- Jan 4, 1943 (age 67 years)
Hoda Shaarawi
Huda Shaarawi (Arabic: هدى شعراوي) (born June 23, 1879 died December 12, 1947) was a pioneer Egyptian feminist leader and nationalist.
Born in Minya, she was a daughter of Muhammad Sultan, the first president of the Egyptian Representative Council,...
Date of birth:
- 1879
Date of death:
- 1947 (age 68 years)
Shamima Shaikh
Shamima Shaikh (September 14, 1960 - January 8, 1998) was South Africa's most well-known Muslim women's rights activist. She was a notable Islamic feminist.
She was born in Louis Trichardt – in what is today South Africa’s Limpopo Province – just...
Date of birth:
- Sep 14, 1960
Date of death:
- Jan 8, 1998 (age 37 years)
Emma Patterson
Emma Paterson (1848 – 1886) was an English feminist and trade unionist.
Paterson was the daughter of a schoolteacher and married to a cabinet-maker.
In 1875 Paterson founded Women's Protective and Provident League (which in 1903 became the Women's...
Date of birth:
- 1848
Date of death:
- 1886 (age 38 years)
Pauli Murray
The Reverend Dr. Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray (November 20, 1910 – July 1, 1985) was an American civil rights advocate, feminist, lawyer, writer, poet, teacher, and ordained priest.
Pauli Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1910, to William H....
Date of birth:
- Nov 20, 1910
Date of death:
- Jul 1, 1985 (age 74 years)
Henrietta Edwards
Henrietta Muir Edwards (December 18, 1849 – November 10, 1931) was a Canadian women’s rights activist and reformer.
She was born Henrietta Louise Muir in Montreal. As a young woman, she espoused various feminist causes, forming the Working Girls'...
Date of birth:
- Dec 18, 1849
Date of death:
- Nov 10, 1931 (age 81 years)
Anna Howard Shaw
Anna Howard Shaw (February 14, 1847 – July 2, 1919) was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and the first ordained female Methodist minister in the United States.
Shaw was born at Newcastle-on...
Date of birth:
- Feb 14, 1847
Date of death:
- Jul 2, 1919 (age 72 years)
Emilia Snethlage
Maria Emilie Snethlage (April 13, 1868 – November 25, 1929) was a German-born Brazilian naturalist andornithologist who worked on the bird fauna of the Amazon. Snethlage collected in Brazil from 1905 until her death.
Maria Emilie Snethlage was born...
Date of birth:
- Apr 13, 1868
Date of death:
- Nov 25, 1929 (age 61 years)
Inga Muscio
Inga Muscio, (born c. 1966), is a feminist, anti-racist writer and public speaker. She became famous after the publication of her 1998 Seal Press book Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, which called for women to break down boundaries between...
Date of birth:
- 1966 (age 44 years)
Carolyn Egan
Carolyn Egan is a trade unionist, feminist and political activist.
An American by birth, Egan moved to Canada during the Vietnam War with her partner who was a draft resister, and settled in Toronto.
In the 1970s Egan was a member of the Toronto...
Diana E. H. Russell
Diana E. H. Russell (born Nov 6, 1938, South Africa) is a radical feminist writer and activist. For the past 25 years she has been engaged in research on sexual violence against women and girls. She has written numerous books and articles on rape ...
Date of birth:
- Nov 6, 1938 (age 71 years)
Marianne Hainisch
Marianne Hainisch, born Marianne Perger (March 25, 1839, in Baden bei Wien - May 5, 1936, in Vienna) was the founder and leader of the Austrian women's movement. She was also the mother of Michael Hainisch, the first President of Austria (1920 -...
Date of birth:
- Mar 25, 1839
Date of death:
- May 5, 1936 (age 97 years)
Flora Dunlap
Flora Dunlap became president of the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association, in 1913. She also headed the Roadside Settlement House, in Des Moines, Iowa. She was a friend of Jane Addams.
Rosemary Dempsey
Rosemary Dempsey is an American feminist activist. She was the Vice President for Action of the National Organization for Women from 1990-1997.
Dempsey has a degree in Sociology from the College of New Rochelle in New York and a JD from Rutgers...
Raden Ayu Kartini
Raden Ayu (Ajoe in the Dutch spelling) Kartini, (April 21, 1879–September 17, 1904), or sometimes known as Raden Ajeng Kartini, was a prominent Javanese and an Indonesian national heroine. Kartini is known as a pioneer in the area of women's rights...
Date of birth:
- Apr 21, 1879
Date of death:
- Sep 17, 1904 (age 25 years)
Martha Burk
Martha Burk (born October 18, 1941 in Tyler, Texas) is a political psychologist, feminist, and former Chair of the National Council of Women's Organizations.
Burk is widely known for a disagreement beginning in 2002 with William "Hootie" Johnson,...
Date of birth:
- 1941 (age 69 years)
Helen LaKelly Hunt
Helen LaKelly Hunt (born 1949) is a daughter of H. L. Hunt. She is founder and president of The Sister Fund, which describes itself as "a private women's fund dedicated to the social, political, economic, and spiritual empowerment of women and girls...
Date of birth:
- 1949 (age 61 years)
Amina Mama
Amina Mama (born 19 September 1958) is a Nigerian feminist writer and academic. She received her doctorate in organizational psychology from the University of London. From 1999 to 2002 she served as director of the African Gender Institute at the...
Date of birth:
- Sep 19, 1958 (age 51 years)
Sara Jane Lippincott
Sara Jane Lippincott (1823-1904) was better known by the pseudonym Grace Greenwood. She was an American author, poet and lecturer. One of the first women to gain access into the Congressional press galleries, she used her questions to advocate for...
Date of birth:
- Sep 23, 1823
Date of death:
- Apr 20, 1904 (age 80 years)
Kate Austin
Kate Cooper Austin (1864–1902) was an American journalist and advocate of feminist and anarchist causes.
Austin was raised in a Universalist and spiritualist family in Hook's Point, Iowa, where she married in August 1883. Around the same time, her...
Date of birth:
- 1864
Date of death:
- 1902 (age 38 years)
Ella Cora Hind
Ella Cora Hind (September 18, 1861 – October 6, 1942) was Western Canada's first female journalist and a women's rights activist.
Born in Toronto, she moved to Winnipeg in 1882 where she was unable to get a job with the Free Press. She decided to...
Date of birth:
- Sep 18, 1861
Date of death:
- Oct 6, 1942 (age 81 years)
Janet Scudder
Janet Scudder (October 27, 1869, Terre Haute, Indiana – June 9, 1940, Rockport, Massachusetts) was an American sculptor.
Born as Netta Deweze Frazee, Scudder's childhood was marred by tragedy. Her father was a hardworking Terre Haute confectioner...
Date of birth:
- Oct 27, 1869
Date of death:
- Jun 9, 1940 (age 70 years)
Anna Kuliscioff
Anna Kuliscioff (or Anna Kulischov, Kulisciov; born Anija Rosenstein; cca. 1857,—27 December 1925) was a Jewish Russian revolutionary, a prominent feminist, an anarchist influenced by Mikhail Bakunin, and eventually a Marxist socialist militant; she...
Date of birth:
- 1857
Date of death:
- Dec 27, 1925 (age 69 years)
Ansar Burney
Ansar Burney born August 14, 1956 in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan is a leading Pakistani human rights and civil rights activist. He is a graduate of Master's and Law from Karachi University and honorary recipient of a PhD. in Philosophy. In 1980, Ansar...
Date of birth:
- 1956 (age 54 years)
Carol Downer
Carol Downer (born 1933) is an American feminist lawyer and non-fiction author who has focused her career on abortion rights.
She and Lorraine Rothman were leaders of a group that founded the Feminist Women's Health Center in Los Angeles, California...
Date of birth:
- 1933 (age 77 years)
Unity Dow
Unity Dow (born 1959) is a judge, human rights activist, and writer from Botswana. She came from a rural background that tended toward traditional values of the African kind. Her mother could not read English, and in most cases decision-making was...
Date of birth:
- 1959 (age 51 years)
Jill Tweedie
Jill Sheila Tweedie (22 May 1932 - 12 November 1993) was an influential feminist, writer and broadcaster. She was educated at the independent Croydon High School in Croydon, South London. She is mainly remembered for her column in The Guardian on...
Date of birth:
- May 22, 1936
Date of death:
- Nov 12, 1993 (age 57 years)
Marietta Stow
Marietta L. B. Stow (died 1902) ran for Governor of California as the candidate of the Women's Independent Political Party. She and Clara S. Foltz nominated Belva Ann Lockwood for President of the United States, and Stow ended up supporting her on...
Date of death:
- 1902
Ghada Jamshir
Ghada Jamshir (Arabic: غادة جمشير) is a Bahraini women's rights activist and an ardent campaigner for the reform of Sharia courts in Bahrain and the Arab Gulf states. Jamshir heads the Women's Petition Committee lobbying for a law that would shift...
Alice Moore Hubbard
Alice Moore Hubbard (June 7, 1861 – May 7, 1915) was a noted American feminist, writer, and, with her husband, Elbert Hubbard was a leading figure in the Roycroft movement- a branch of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England with which it was...
Date of birth:
- Jun 7, 1861
Date of death:
- May 7, 1915 (age 53 years)
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, Baroness Pethick-Lawrence (1867, Bristol, England – 1954) was a British women's rights activist.
Her father was a businessman. She was the second of 13 children, and was sent away to boarding school at the age of eight.
Date of birth:
- 1867
Date of death:
- 1954 (age 87 years)
Emily Faithfull
Emily Faithfull (1835–1895) was an English women's rights activist.
She was the youngest daughter of the Rev. Ferdinand Faithfull, and was born at Headley Rectory, Surrey. She took a great interest in the conditions of working-women. With the object...
Date of birth:
- 1835
Date of death:
- 1895 (age 60 years)
Charlotte Despard
Charlotte Despard (née French) (1844 – 1939) was a British-born, later Irish-based suffragist, novelist and Sinn Féin activist.
She was born in Ripple, Kent. Her brother, John French, would become Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. She expressed regret of...
Date of birth:
- 1844
Date of death:
- 1939 (age 95 years)
Elizabeth How-Martyn
Edith How-Martyn (1875-1954) was a British suffragette and a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She was arrested in 1906 for attempting to make a speech in the House of Commons. This was one of the first acts of suffragette...
Date of birth:
- 1875
Date of death:
- 1954 (age 79 years)
Mary Barr Clay
Mary Barr Clay (1839-1924) was a leader of the American women’s suffrage movement. She also was known as Mary B. Clay and Mrs. J. Frank Herrick.
A daughter of Cassius Marcellus Clay and his wife Mary Jane Warfield, Clay married John Francis “Frank”...
Date of birth:
- 1839
Date of death:
- 1924 (age 85 years)
Nawal El Saadawi
Nawal El Saadawi (Arabic: نوال السعداوى) (born October 27, 1931) is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist and physician. She was born in Kafr Tahla village on the banks of the Nile. She has written many books on the subject of women in Islam,...
Date of birth:
- Oct 27, 1931 (age 78 years)
Yoshioka Yayoi
Yoshioka Yayoi (吉岡彌生, April 29, 1871 - May 22, 1959) was a physician and women's rights activist, who founded the Tokyo Women's Medical University (東京女子医科大学, Tōkyō Joshi Ika Daigaku) in 1900, as the first medical school for women in Japan. She was...
Date of birth:
- 1871
Date of death:
- 1959 (age 88 years)
Jennifer Baumgardner
Jennifer Baumgardner (born 1970) is an author and third-wave feminist activist.
Baumgardner grew up in Fargo, North Dakota and attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, graduating in 1992. Subsequently, she moved to New York City where...
Date of birth:
- 1970 (age 40 years)
Faye Wattleton
Faye Wattleton (born Alyce Faye Wattleton on July 8, 1943) is the first African-American and youngest President ever elected to Planned Parenthood (1978 - 1992). Currently, she serves as the President of the Center for the Advancement of Women, and...
Date of birth:
- Jul 8, 1943 (age 66 years)
Mary Garrett
Mary Garrett (5 March 1854 - 1915) was an American suffragist and philanthropist.
Mary Garrett was the daughter of John W. Garrett, a philanthropist and president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O;). She became the wealthiest "spinster woman"...
Date of birth:
- Mar 5, 1854
Date of death:
- 1915 (age 60 years)
Blanche Ames Ames
Blanche Ames Ames (1878 – 1969) was an artist and prominent supporter of women's suffrage and birth control. Born Blanche Ames in Lowell, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of Civil War General and Mississippi Governor Adelbert Ames and brother of...
Date of birth:
- 1878
Date of death:
- 1969 (age 91 years)
