"If you stand for equality, then you're a feminist. Sorry to tell you, you're a feminist."
Emma Watson (15 April 1990) is a British actress and social activist. She rose to prominence through her role as Hermione in the Harry Potter film series. In recent years, she has been a spokesperson on women’s rights and other social issues. In 2014, she was appointed a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and helped to launch the UN Women campaign HeForShe, which campaigns for gender equality.
Self-described as “grand-mother of women’s studies in South Asia.”
Dr. Vina Mazumdar was one of the first women to be involved in the ‘twin movements’ of Women's Studies and Women's Activism. She spent most of her time understanding the diverse experiences of women in the patriarchal system across India. Through her research, she and her colleagues realised that there wasn't any widespread knowledge about lived experiences underprivileged women, thus leading to the advent of the Centre For Women's Development Studies (CWDS), in 1980. In 1982, Dr Vina Mazumdar became a founding member of the Indian Association of Women's Studies (IAWS), which conducts national conferences to promote Women's Studies, even to this day.
"Of course it is extremely difficult to like oneself in a culture which thinks you are a disease."
Chrystos (born November 7, 1946, as Christina Smith) is a Menominee self-educated writer and two-spirit activist who has published various books and poems that explore indigenous Americans's civil rights, social justice, and feminism. Chrystos is also a lecturer, writing teacher and fine-artist.
“Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.”
Chimamanda grew up in Nigeria and moved to America at age 19 to pursue her education. She advocates for gender equality through her novels as well as her TED talks, and breaks down the concept of feminism in a powerful and digestible way. She also shines a light onto the experience of being a Nigerian woman who has moved to America, offering a unique perspective of American society due to the intersections of her identity.
"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility."
Eleanor Roosevelt was the niece of one U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, and married a man who would become another, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Redefining the role of the first lady, she advocated for human and women's rights, held press conferences and penned her own column. After leaving the White House in 1945, Eleanor became chair of the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission. The groundbreaking first lady died in 1962 in New York City.
“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
Lorde (1934-1992) was a native New Yorker and daughter of immigrants. Both her activism and her published work speak to the importance of struggle for liberation among oppressed peoples and of organizing in coalition across differences of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, age and ability.
“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.”
Born to sharecropper parents, Alice Walker grew up to become a highly acclaimed novelist, essayist and poet. She is best known for her 1982 novel The Color Purple, which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and soon was adapted for the big screen by Steven Spielberg. Walker is also known for her work as an activist.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an abolitionist, human rights activist and one of the first leaders of the woman’s rights movement. She came from a privileged background and decided early in life to fight for equal rights for women. Stanton worked closely with Susan B. Anthony—she was reportedly the brains behind Anthony’s brawn—for over 50 years to win the women’s right to vote. Still, her activism was not without controversy, which kept Stanton on the fringe of the women’s suffrage movement later in life, though her efforts helped bring about the eventual passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave all citizens the right to vote.
“Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to be themselves.”
Journalist, activist, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Betty Friedan was one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her 1963 best-selling book, The Feminine Mystique, gave voice to millions of American women’s frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public activism for gender equality.
“Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression. I liked this definition because it does not imply that men were the enemy.”
bell hooks is an acclaimed intellectual, feminist theorist, cultural critic, artist, and writer. hooks has authored over three dozen books and has published works that span several genres, including cultural criticism, personal memoirs, poetry collections, and children's books. Her writings cover topics of gender, race, class, spirituality, teaching, and the significance of media in contemporary culture.
“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”
Artist Frida Kahlo was considered one of Mexico's greatest artists who began painting mostly self-portraits after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Kahlo later became politically active and married fellow communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. She exhibited her paintings in Paris and Mexico before her death in 1954.