Aletta H. Jacobs was the first woman to officially attend a Dutch University and the first female physician in the Netherlands. She was also a women’s suffrage activist and inventor. Jacobs was born in 1854 in Sappemeer, Netherlands to Abraham Jacobs, a physician and Anna de Jongh. From an early age, Jacobs would accompany her …
Eugénie Niboyet was a French author, journalist and early feminist. She is best known for founding La Voix des Femmes (The Women’s Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France. Niboyet was born in 1797 in Montpellier, France and raised in a Protestant household. During the Bourbon Restoration following the fall of Napoleon in 1814, …
Huda Shaarawi was a pioneering Egyptian feminist leader and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union. Shaarawi was born in 1879 in Al-Minya, Egypt, and was the daughter of Muhammad Sultan, the first president of the Egyptian Representative Council. When she was 5, her father died and she realised that her status as his oldest child …
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was a self described Chicana/Tejana/lesbian/dyke/feminist/writer/poet/cultural theorist. She is best known for her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza about growing up on the U.S./Mexican border. Anzaldúa was born in 1942 in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. At a young age, she developed an extremely rare hormonal imbalance, and was menstruating from the age …
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is a transgender rights activist, Hindi film actress and Bharatanatyam dancer in Mumbai, India. She became the first transgender person to represent Asia Pacific in the UN in 2008. Laxmi was born in 1979 in Thane to an orthodox Brahmin family. She had a difficult childhood, both due to her health – …
Begum Rokeya was a leading Muslim feminist writer and social worker in undivided Bengal during the early 20th century. She fought for gender equality and established the first school for Muslim girls, which still exists today. Rokeya was born in 1880 in Bangladesh during British colonial rule. Her family were orthodox Muslims, and so women …
Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist who founded the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran. She was the first female judge in Iran, and the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Ebadi was born in 1947 in Hamadan, Iran. A year later, her family …
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a Guatemalan Indigenous rights activist who became the first indigenous person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. Menchú was born in 1959 in Laj Chimel, Quiché, Guatemala Her family were of K’iche descent, and lived in poverty as a result of their Mayan heritage, as, like many other countries …
Raichō Hiratsuka was a writer, journalist, political activist, anarchist and pioneering Japanese feminist who founded Seitō (Bluestocking) magazine. Hiratsuka was born in 1886 in Tokyo. She attended Japan Women’s University where she became interested in European philosophy, Zen buddhism and the Swedish feminist writer Ellen Key. After graduating, she continued her education at the Narumi …
Vilma Espín was a Cuban revolutionary, feminist, and chemical engineer. She was known as “Cuba’s First Lady” and was the most politically powerful woman in the country. Espín was born in 1930 in Santiago, Cuba to Margarita Guillois and Jose Espín, the chief accountant and executive assistant to the CEO of the Bacardi rum company. …