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 …
Lady Bo was an American musician and a pioneer of rock ‘n’ roll. She was one of the first female rock guitarists in a highly visible rock band and the “Queen Mother of Guitar”. Lady Bo was born Peggy Jones in Harlem, New York City. She attended Manhattan’s High School for the Performing Arts where …
Patti Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist. She became a high influential part of the New York City punk rock scene after the release of her 1975 album Horses. Smith was a tomboy as a child, experiencing gender confusion because she did not fit in with the social expectations of femininity. She …
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 …
Grainnuile / Grainne (Ní Mháille) Ó Máille was the Pirate Queen of Connacht and head of the Ó Máille Clan in Ireland in the 1500’s. As a child, Grainnuile was said to have cut off all her hair to diguise herself a boy so that she could sneak onto one of her father’s ships. Her …
Audrey Hepburn was an actress, style icon and humanitarian. Hepburn was educated in England until, in September 1939 Britain declared war on Germany. Hepburn and her mother relocated to Arnheim in the Netherlands where she attended Arnhem Conservatory and studied ballet in addition to her academic studies. After the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940, …
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 …
Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who became the first woman leader of a Muslim nation in modern history. She was assassinated in 2007. Bhutto was born in Karachi, Pakistan former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was from Sindhi Rajput ethnicity and Begum Nusrat Ispahani, of Iranian Kurdish descent. Bhutto’s mother’s Kurdish culture played …
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 …
Ida B Wells was an American journalist, suffragist, sociologist and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. Wells was born a slave in Mississipi in 1862. Six months after her birth slaves were decreed free by the Union thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation. Wells faced racial prejudice and discriminatory rules because of her race. …