bell hooks is an American author, feminist, and social activist whose work deals with issues of race, gender, class, and sexual oppression. hooks was born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, a small, segregated town in rural Kentucky. Her experience in growing up within this community shaped her feminism and her father represented …
Gerda Lerner was an American historian, author and the single most influential figure in the development of women’s and gender history since the 1960s. Lerner was born Gerda Hedwig Kronstein in Vienna, Austria in 1920. She was the first child of the affluent Jewish couple Ilona (née Neumann), an artist and Robert Kronstein, a pharmacist. …
Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist. El Saadawi was born in 1931 in the small village of Kafr Tahla. Her family were a mix of traditional and progressive. At the age of six El Saadawi was pinned down by four women in her home in Egypt and was subjected …
Beyoncé is an American multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning recording artist and actress. She is a philanthropist and co-founder of Chime for Change, a global campaign to raise funds and awareness for girls and women around the world. Beyoncé started singing at an early age, her talent was discovered by her dance instructor who was impressed when …
Mary Beard OBE, FBA, FSA is an English Classical scholar. Beard became interested in the ancient world at the age of 5 after a trip to the British Museum in London. She attended Shrewsbury High School where she excelled, particularly in Latin and Greek. During the summer holidays she participated in local archaeological excavations. In …
Andrea Dworkin was an American feminist, author and outspoken critic of sexual politics, particularly the victimising effects she felt pornography had on women. Dworkin’s father, an educator and socialist was a big influence on her and her interest in human rights and human dignity. Her mother believed in legal birth control and legal abortion long …
Simone de Beauvoir was a French existentialist philosopher and writer. She laid the foundation for the modern feminist movement. De Beauvoir was born into a family that had lost most of their fortune shortly after World War 1. She attended a prestigious convent school and was religious to the point that she intended to become …
Christabel Pankhurst was one of the driving forces of the Suffragette movement, she was a co-founder of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU). Pankhurst was born in Manchester in 1880. She was the daughter of radical socialist Dr. Richard Pankhurst and women’s suffrage movement leader Emmeline Pankhurst. Her father had been responsible for drafting …
Betty Friedan was an American writer, women’s rights activist, and feminist. She co-founded the National Organisation for Women (NOW). Friedan was involved with the school newspaper while at Peoria High School, after her application to write her own column was turned down she and 6 friends launched a literary magazine called ‘Tide’. She graduated from …
Gloria Steinem is is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organiser who became nationally recognised as a leader and spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 70s. Steinem was given her first serious assignment as a freelance writer by Esquire magazine features editor Clay Felker. Her first draft on the …