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 …
Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 to James and Elizabeth Baumfree in the town of Swartekill, in Ulster County, New York. Her father was a slave who had been captured in modern-day Ghana and her mother was the daughter of slaves from Guinea. The …
Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist, women’s rights activist and writer. Mead was born in 1901 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Edward Sherwood Mead, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and Emily Mead, a feminist political activist and sociologist who studied Italian immigrants. Mead’s family moved frequently and …
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 …
Claudia Jones was a feminist, black nationalist, political activist, community leader, communist and journalist. She is the founder of Britain’s first black weekly newspaper “The West Indian Gazette” and has been described as the mother of the Notting Hill Carnival. Jones was born Claudia Vera Cumberbatch in Belmont, Port of Spain, Trinidad in 1915. At …
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 …
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 …
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter and later a feminist icon. She is best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo was three when the Mexican Revolution began in 1910 and witnessed violent armed struggles in the streets of Mexico City and frequent gunfire. Her mother would occasionally feed the revolutionaries. Kahlo contracted polio when she was …
Valentina Tereshkova is a Russian cosmonaut and the first woman to have flown in space. Tereshkova was born in Maslennikovo, a small town in the Yaroslavl Region. She began school late, when she was eight years old and had to leave at 17 to help to support her family. She continued her education while working …
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 …