Women's Rights Activists

Susan Sontag was a critical essayist, cultural analyst, novelist and filmmaker. She wrote 'On Photography,' 'Illness as Metaphor,' 'The Volcano Lover' and 'In America,' among many other works.

Bella Abzug was a leading liberal activist and politician in the 1960s and 1970s, especially known for her work for women’s rights.

When Hillary Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2001, she became the first American first lady to win a public office seat. In 2016, she became the first woman in U.S. history to become the presidential nominee of a major political party.

As a young girl, Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 but survived. In 2014, she became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kirsten Gillibrand is a U.S. lawyer and politician from New York who's served in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Abolitionist and women's rights activist Sojourner Truth is best known for her speech on racial inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?" delivered at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in 1851.

Writer, feminist and women's rights activist Betty Friedan wrote 'The Feminine Mystique' (1963) and co-founded the National Organization for Women.

Coretta Scott King was an American civil rights activist and the wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

French writer Simone de Beauvoir laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. Also an existentialist philosopher, she had a long-term relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.

Jeannette Rankin was the first woman to elected to the U.S. Congress. She helped pass the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, and was a committed pacifist.

Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women’s Social and Political Union, whose members — known as suffragettes — fought to enfranchise women in the United Kingdom.

Susan B. Anthony was a suffragist, abolitionist, author and speaker who was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an early leader of the woman's rights movement, writing the Declaration of Sentiments as a call to arms for female equality.

Margaret Fuller is best known for feminist writing and literary criticism in 19th century America.

Mary Wollstonecraft was an English writer who advocated for women's equality. Her book 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman' pressed for educational reforms.

Alice Walker is a Pulitzer Prize-winning, African American novelist and poet most famous for authoring 'The Color Purple.'

Angela Davis is an activist, scholar and writer who advocates for the oppressed. She has authored several books, including 'Women, Culture & Politics.'

Dorothy Height was a civil rights and women's rights activist focused primarily on improving the circumstances of and opportunities for African American women.

Prolific author Pearl S. Buck earned a Pulitzer Prize for her novel 'The Good Earth.' She was also the fourth female to win a Nobel Prize for Literature.

The wife of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson served as first lady from 1963 to 1969.

Joan Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter and activist who is best known for songs like 'There But for Fortune,' 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' and 'Diamonds and Rust.'

Social activist, writer, editor and lecturer Gloria Steinem has been an outspoken champion of women's rights since the 1960s.

Lucy Burns was a suffragist who, with Alice Paul, founded the National Women’s Party and played a key role advocating for the 19th Amendment.

Dorothy Day was an activist who worked for such social causes as pacifism and women's suffrage through the prism of the Catholic Church.