Feminist Names

Because I spent too much time looking it up so I might as well feed y'all this knowledge.

As odd as it is for a layperson, not every woman is a feminist. Also nowadays feminists aren't only women and they do not fight solely for women rights. It's important to mention that men's liberation from the socio-cultural constraints of sexism and gender roles is a necessary part of feminist activism and scholarship. Here are just a few feminists and what they have done.

Hélène Cixous

Novelist, literary critic and poet Cixous is famous for her analyses of the unconscious, bisexuality and l’écriture féminine. Best known for her 1975 essay, The Laugh of the Medusa, which was a timely prod for women to take themselves and their own intellect seriously, she holds that ”the origin of the metaphor is the unconscious”, and the unconscious, which is associated with the repressed, is also associated with the feminine. Considered a difficult read even in French, Cixous is noted for using wordplay and punning to explore language and gender.


Simone De Beauvoir

De Beauvoir is considered one of the main founders of the modern feminist movement, mainly for her landmark text,Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex), 972 pages of analysis of women in a society that considers them unequal to men. Still controversial, de Beauvoir’s work was called pornography and forbidden by the Vatican. She said: “All oppression creates a state of war.”


Naomi Wolfe

Wolfe made an impact with her 1991 bestseller, The Beauty Myth, which was a must-read for the third wave of feminism. Listed as one of the 70 most influential books of the 20th century by The New York Times, Wolfe’s argument that beauty is a social construct determined by men was endorsed by generations of men and women. A cultural commentator and serial author, her latest book, Vagina: A New Biography is unflinching in its analysis: “Every woman is wired differently. Some women's nerves branch more in the vagina; other women's nerves branch more in the clitoris. Some branch a great deal in the perineum, or at the mouth of the cervix. That accounts for some of the differences in female sexual response.”


Germaine Greer

Most famous for The Female Eunuch, which argued that women have been repressed and alienated from their own bodies and sexuality, and that sexual liberation is the key to women's liberation. A leader of the second wave of the women’s movement of the Sixties and Seventies, Greer now feels feminism has not gone far enough. She believes that women are now “settling” for less than total equality.


bell hooks

hooks (who takes her uncapitalised name from her maternal great-grandmother) is one of America’s most widely published black feminist scholars. Her book, Feminism is for Everybody, is a wildly popular, man-friendly proposal for common sense feminism that is sensible and wise. Calling for unity to tackle societal ills, hooks is savvy but also outspoken as a cultural critic, education theorist and English professor. “Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not alike or even always equal, but where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction.”


Doris Lessing

The oldest person ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2007, Lessing was called an "epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Her first novel was published in 1950, but it was Lessing’s 1962 groundbreaking novel, The Golden Notebook, that made her famous, touching on politics and gender in a new way. She has said: "I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is hardly even noticed.”


Andrea Dworkin

A radical feminist and activist famous for being boldly outspoken, writing and saying what others could only think. With the publication of her book, Woman Hating (1974), Dworkin assailed the gender war’s pretence of civility with brutal acumen. Criticised for being a lesbian and a feminist, she is often seen as a man-hater and for being passionately against pornography. “Men know everything – all of them, all the time – no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.” Her viewpoint is often compared to that of feminist linguist Mary Daly.


Malala Yousafzai

Yousafzai became the youngest (shared) winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. The Pakistani schoolgirl is famous for advocating girls schools, writing for the BBC about Taliban rule in her town. She was shot in the head in 2012 and recovered, carrying on her quest for female education. Yousafzai was on Time magazine’s 2013 list of the globally influential people. She says: "I believe it's a woman's right to decide what she wants to wear and if a woman can go to the beach and wear nothing, then why can't she also wear everything?"


Gloria Steinem

A leader in the second wave of feminist activists and writers, Steinem was a founder and editor of one of the first feminist magazines – Ms – until its closure in 1987. Her collection of essays, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, is a classic of its time. Vocal about women’s rights, Steinem has espoused feminism on TV, together with lectures and articles. She has also written on topics such as Marilyn Monroe and politics. Steinem says: “Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.”


Roxane Gay

Author of the essay collection, Bad Feminist (2014), Gay is a commentator, editor, writer and professor of English who is at the forefront of feminist multiplicity. Gay, far from having an academic style, speaks plainly about how feminism intersects with race, religion, context, location, history and heritage. In her TED talk, she says she is “a mess”, failing as a woman and as a feminist while encouraging others to find new ways to make genuine change for equality. “When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement,” she says.


Eleanor Roosevelt

Roosevelt became the first First Lady to take on responsibilities beyond merely hosting and entertaining in the White House. Before her tenure as First Lady, she was already outspoken and involved with women's issues, working with the Women's Trade Union League and the International Congress of Working Women. From 1935 to 1962, Roosevelt wrote "My Day," a newspaper column that addressed women's work, equality and rights before there was even a word for "feminism"—the social issues at the time were considered "controversial," especially for that of a First Lady to speak about. After her time as First Lady, she became the first US delegate to the United Nations, served as first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and also chaired JFK's President's Commission on the Status of Women to promote equality and advise on women's issues.


Marlene Dietrich

While her efforts didn't directly fight for women's rights, Dietrich made a contribution to feminism through fashion. The Hollywood actress wore trousers and men's suits during a time where it was considered extremely scandalous and taboo; both on screen and privately, once almost being arrested for wearing pants in public during the 1930s. She was famously quoted saying, "I dress for the image. Not for myself, not for the public, not for fashion, not for men." Dietrich's way of dressing went on to influence generations of women after her, lending many the confidence and power of wearing a suit.


Gloria Steinem

Aptly referred to as the "Mother of Feminism," Gloria Steinem led the women's liberation movements throughout the '60s and '70s—and continues to do so today. Co-founder of the feminist themed Ms. Magazine and several female groups that changed the face of feminism including Women's Action Alliance, National Women's Political Caucus, Women's Media Center and more. All of her efforts led to her induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993 and in 2013 she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Steinem continues to be a trailblazer for feminism today, most recently with her Viceland series, WOMAN, and post-election action for young girls and women.


Angela Davis

A trailblazing voice for black women, Davis played a crucial part in the Civil Rights movement. The political activist was a key leader in the Black Power movement, and though some of her more radical positions and role in political protests have been deemed controversial, she has relentlessly fought to champion the progress of women's rights for over six decades. She most recently served as an honorary co-chair for the Women's March on Washington in 2017.


Coretta Scott King

Although most known for her marriage to Martin Luther King Jr. and her work with Civil Rights, Coretta Scott King devoted much of her life to women's equality. She helped found NOW (National Organization for Women) in 1966 and played a key role in the organization's development. In her efforts for women's rights, King was also notably the first woman to deliver the class day address at Harvard.


Maya Angelou

Through her literature, public speaking and powerful writing, Maya Angelou inspired both women and African Americans to overcome gender and race discrimination. In 2011, Angelou was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her works that spanned over 50 years including 36 books, seven autobiographies and over 50 honorary degrees.


Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde channeled her powerful voice through writing and poetry, exploring female identity and life as a Black lesbian and writing about issues that affected women across the country during the height Civil Rights movement. All of her work was based on her "theory of difference," which we refer to as "intersectionality" today. She famously said, "It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."


Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Before her tenure as Supreme Court justice, Bader Ginsburg co-founded the Women's Rights Law Reporter in 1970, the first U.S. law journal to focus exclusively on women's rights. Two years later, she co-founded the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), once again making sure women's voices were heard in law. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, Bader Ginsburg became the second female Supreme Court justice ever.


Kathleen Neal Cleaver

In the '60s, Kathleen Neal Cleaver was a prominent member of the Black Panther Party, in which she created the position of communications secretary. In 1998, she said, "I think it is important to place the women who fought oppression as Black Panthers within the longer tradition of freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells-Barnett, who took on an entirely oppressive world and insisted that their race, their gender, and their humanity be respected all at the same time. Not singled out, each one separate, but all at the same time. You cannot segregate out one aspect of our reality and expect to get a clear picture of what this struggle is about." She began teaching at Emory University School of Law in 1992.


Chai Ling

Ling is a Chinese psychologist who was one of the student leaders in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. She is the founder of All Girls Allowed, an organization dedicated to ending China's one-child policy, and the founder and president of Jenzabar, an enterprise resource planning software firm for educational institutions.


Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Considered one of the most influential postcolonial intellectuals, Spivak is best known for her essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" and for her translation of and introduction to Jacques Derrida's De la grammatologie. She also translated such works of Mahasweta Devi as Imaginary Maps and Breast Stories into English and with separate critical appreciation on the texts and Devi's life and writing style in general. Spivak was awarded the 2012 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy for being "a critical theorist and educator speaking for the humanities against intellectual colonialism in relation to the globalized world." In 2013, she received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award given by the Republic of India.


Lata Mani

Her involvement in the autonomous women’s movement in India in the early 1980’s prompted her go to graduate school. She received an M.A. in Comparative World History (1983) and a Ph.D in History of Consciousness (1989) at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was on the faculty of Women’s Studies at the University of California, Davis, when a head injury in 1993 catapulted her into the world of illness and disability. This experience inaugurated a new phase of physical, intellectual and spiritual transformation, deepening previous commitments to social justice in unanticipated ways. Since then her writing has drawn on secular as well as contemplative frameworks in addressing pressing sociocultural issues.


Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-1800s. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.


Parker Pillsbury

Pillsbury became Massachusetts Abolitionist and woman suffrage leader. His Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles was history of the New England Abolitionist movement. Parker Pillsbury and other abolitionist men held feminist views and openly identified as feminist, using their influence to promote the rights of women and slaves respectively. Pillsbury helped draft the constitution of the feminist American Equal Rights Association in 1865 serving as vice-president of the New Hampshire Woman Suffrage Association. In 1868 and 1869, Parker edited Revolution with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.


Frederick Douglass

In 1848, Douglass was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women's suffrage; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. After Douglass' powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution.In the wake of the Seneca Falls Convention, Douglass used an editorial in The North Star to press the case for women's rights. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time. Strikingly, he expressed the belief that "[a] discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency...than would be a discussion of the rights of women," and Douglass noted the link between abolitionism and feminism, the overlap between the communities. His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the North Star explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man." This letter, written a week after the convention, reaffirmed the first part of the paper's slogan, "right is of no sex."


Nicolas de Condorcet

Condorcet's work was mainly focused on a quest for a more egalitarian society. This path led him to think and write about gender equality in the Revolutionary context. In 1790, he published "Sur l'admission des femmes au droit de cité" ("On the Admission of Women to the Rights of Citizenship") in which he strongly advocated for women's suffrage in the new Republic as well as the enlargement of basic political and social rights to include women. One of the most famous Enlightenment thinkers at the time, he was one of the first to make such a radical proposal. 'The rights of men stem exclusively from the fact that they are sentient beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning upon them. Since women have the same qualities, they necessarily also have the same rights. Either no member of the human race has any true rights, or else they all have the same ones; and anyone who votes against the rights of another, whatever his religion, colour or sex, automatically forfeits his own.'


Justin Trudeau

In 2015 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made international headlines for establishing the first gender-balanced cabinet in Canada. In response to a media question asking his reason for doing so, Trudeau said, "Because it's 2015." At the World Economic Forum in 2016, Trudeau again made headlines when he spoke about raising his sons to be feminists and urged men not to be afraid of using the word "feminist". A few months later at a United Nations conference, Trudeau said "I'm going to keep saying, loud and clearly, that I am a feminist. Until it is met with a shrug." He explained further what that meant for him: "It shouldn’t be something that creates a reaction. It’s simply saying that I believe in the equality of men and women and that we still have an awful lot of work to do to get there. That’s like saying the sky is blue and the grass is green."