Elizabeth Gaskell was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victoria era. She is best known for her novels Cranford and North and South, and for writing the biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë. Gaskell was born Elizabeth Stevenson in 1810 in Chelsea, London. Her mother, Elizabeth died when she was young and …
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer. She is best known for her 1984 novel Blood and Guts in High School. Asker was born in New York City in 1947. Her father left the family before Acker was born, and her mother remarried quickly. Acker grew …
Elizabeth Raffald was an English businesswoman, best known for her 1769 book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Raffald was born Elizabeth Whitaker in 1733 in Doncaster, England. Her father, John Whittaker was a schoolteacher and because of this, Raffald and her sisters were given the rare opportunity (for girls at the time) to learn to read …
Ann Oakley is a British sociologist, feminist and writer who pioneered research into women’s lives, including the role of a housewife, childbirth and motherhood. She is currently a Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London where she founded the Social Science Research Unit and established the EPPI-Centre (Evidence for Policy and Practice Information …
Carrie Fisher was an American actress and writer. She is best known for playing Princess Leia in Star Wars. She has written a semi-autobiographical novel Postcards from the Edge, as well as two autobiographical novels Wishful Drinking and Shockaholic which deal with her struggles with addiction and bipolar disorder. Fisher was outspoken in her views …
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an award-winning Nigerian novelist, nonfiction writer and short story writer. She is best known for her novels, Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun and Americanah and her inspirational 2012 TEDx talk entitled “We should all be feminists” which was adapted into a book-length essay in 2014. Adichie was born in …
Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist. She is best known for her books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Her work has influenced political philosophy, ethics and the fields of feminist, queer and literary theory. Butler was born in 1956 …
Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author. She is considered one of the pre-eminent writers of twentieth-century African-American literature and was closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was born in 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. At the age of three, her family moved to Eatonville Florida, one of the first incorporated black …
Alison Bechdel is an acclaimed author and illustrator known for her graphic novel ‘Fun Home’, and the Bechdel test, an indicator of gender bias in film. Bechdel was born in 1960 in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to Helen and Bruce Bechdel who taught at the local high school. Her father also worked as a funeral director …
Audre Lorde described herself as “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet”. She was a pioneer of intersectional feminism and her work focused on confronting and addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Lorde was born in 1934 in New York City to West Indian parents. She grew up hearing her mother’s stories about the West …