Below are a list of feminists, activists, leaders and role models. Some of which I studied for my set of collectable cards “Actually She Can”. Read below to inform yourself about these powerful women.

Coretta Scott King

“Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.”

Although best known as the wife of 1960s civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) established a distinguished career in activism in her own right. Working side-by-side with her husband throughout the 1950s & 1960s, King took part in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 and worked to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Her memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., was published in 1969. King helped lead the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and was an advocate for African-American equality.

Michelle Obama

“The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued.”

Michelle Obama was born in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois. She attended Princeton University, graduating cum laude in 1985, and went on to earn a degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. Following her graduation from Harvard, she worked at a Chicago law firm, where she met her husband, future U.S. president Barack Obama. The couple married on October 3, 1992. As first lady, she focused her attention on current social issues, such as poverty, healthy living and education.

Malala Yousafzai

“Extremists have shown what frightens them most: a girl with a book.”

Yousafzai became an advocate for girls’ education when she herself was still a child, which resulted in the Taliban issuing a death threat against her. On October 9, 2012, a gunman shot Malala when she was traveling home from school. At the age of 17, she became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban. She survived and has continued to speak out on the importance of education. In 2013, she gave a speech to the United Nations and published her first book, I Am Malala. In 2014, she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Florence Nightingale

“I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took any excuse.”

Nightingale wanted to be a nurse, but her family forbade her due to Victorian era social roles. A young lady of Nightingale’s social stature was expected to marry a man of means to ensure her class standing—not take up a job viewed by the upper social classes as lowly menial labor. Determined, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student in 1850 and ‘51 at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses in Kaiserswerth, Germany. During the Crimean War, she and a team of nurses improved the unsanitary conditions at a British base hospital, greatly reducing the death count.

Rosa Parks

“I had no idea history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.”

Parks’ legacy lives on along side legends of the Revered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was sparked by Parks’ refusal to obey an unjust law, and her subsequent arrest, trial and appeals lead to the Supreme Court decision upholding a federal district court ruling in the case that Alabama’s segregation laws were unlawful. She was an investigator for the NAACP of sexual assaults on black women and was a prominent activist for racial and female equality.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“...it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.”

Ginsburg graduated from Columbia Law School, becoming a courtroom advocate for the fair treatment of women and working with the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project. She was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1980 and to the Supreme Court in 1993. Ginsburg encountered gender discrimination while seeking employment after graduation. After clerking for a U.S. District Judge, Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University Law School and at Columbia, where she became the school’s first female tenured professor. During the 70s, she also served as the director of the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Maya Angelou

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Poet, activist and writer, Angelou was probably best known for her first memoir, Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, for delivering the inaugural poem at Bill Clinton’s swearing-in ceremony in 1993 & the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her works that spanned over 50 years including 36 books, 7 autobiographies and over 50 honorary degrees. Through her literature, public speaking and powerful writing, Angelou inspired both women and African Americans to overcome gender and race discrimination.She was active in politics throughout her life, a friend of prominent activists such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Gloria Steinem

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

Aptly referred to as the “Mother of Feminism,” Gloria Steinem led the women’s liberation movements throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s—& continues to do so. 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 & 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 with her Viceland series, WOMAN, & post-election action for young girls.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man...Your life belongs to you and you alone.”

Adiche is a global feminist icon. Pressured by social and familial expectations, Adichie began to study medicine at the University of Nigeria. After a year and a half, she decided to pursue her ambitions as a writer, dropped out of medical school and took up a communication scholarship in the US. Most known for her “We Should All Be Feminists” TED Talk that was sampled on Beyoncé’s self-titled album, Adichie has become a vital author in the feminist movement. Some of her most prominent pieces, We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, have been instrumental in advocating for women’s rights and representing African culture.

Angela Davis

“We are never assured of justice without a fight”

Known for books like ‘Women, Race and Class’, Davis has worked as a professor and activist who advocates gender equity, prison reform and alliances across color lines. 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.

Audre Lorde

“I am deliberate & afraid of nothing.”

Lorde is a leading African-American poet and essayist who gave voice to issues of race, gender and sexuality. She attended Hunter College, working to support herself through school. After graduating in 1959, she went on to get a master’s degree in library science from Columbia University in 1961. 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.

Alice Walker

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.”

A critical voice for black women in the feminism movement, Walker has been instrumental in her efforts for women and even more specifically for women of color. The writer and activist was involved in the Civil Rights Movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King before joining Gloria Steinem as an editor at Ms. Magazine. Walker’s most famous work, The Color Purple, told the story of black women and was later adapted into both a movie and a musical. Two years after its publication, Walker co-founded Wild Tree Press, a feminist publishing company. Walker’s contribution to feminism is vital in ensuring black womens’ voices were included and heard.

Nawal El Saadawi

“...I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage & dangerous.”

Sometimes described as “the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab world,”Egyptian physician, psychiatrist & author El Saadawi was a feminist whose writings & professional career were dedicated to political and sexual rights for women. Saadawi was a childhood victim of female genital cutting and has campaigned against the practice for the past 60 years. In 1968 she founded Health magazine, which was shut down by Egyptian authorities several years later, & in 1972 she was expelled from her professional position in the ministry of health because of her book Al-mar’ah Wa Al-jins which was condemned by the government.

Rebecca West

“People call me a feminist whenever I express statements that distinguish me from a doormat.”

Rebecca West is a major figure in 20th-century literature. British suffragette-turned-writer West was a legend from the ‘20s to the ‘40s for her outspoken feminist and socialist speeches and writing. She was featured on the cover of Time, which called her “indisputably the world’s No. 1 woman writer.” From 1911 West became involved in journalism, contributing frequently to the left-wing press and making a name for herself as a fighter for woman suffrage. She published many biographies and novels such as The Return of the Soldier which subtly explores questions of gender and class, identity and memory.

Aung San Suu Kyi

“I think more women should be involved in politics for the good of the human race.”

Born in Yangon, Myanmar, in 1945, Suu Kyi spent much of her early adult years abroad before returning home and becoming an activist against the brutal rule of dictator U Ne Win. She was placed under house arrest in 1989 and spent 15 of the next 21 years in custody, winning the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace along the way. Suu Kyi was finally released from house arrest in November 2010 and subsequently held a seat in parliament for the National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Following the NLD’s victory in 2016 parliamentary elections, Suu Kyi became the de facto head of the country in the new role of state counsellor.

Linda Bellos

“I get paid a lot of money giving advice that I gave for free when they didn’t want to know.”

A fiery figure of radical feminism in Britain in the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bellos shook up an angry fist at sexual, social and economic injustices until the establishment sat up and listened. Her influence saw her organizing protests and becoming elected as a Labour councillor for Lambeth. She was known for her passion and anger towards broad types of oppression, being black, African, Jewish, working class, lesbian and Marxist. She was angry about economic injustice, racial discrimination, sexual inequality, oppression, violence against women and to name a few. She now runs a diversity consultancy.

Emma Goldman

“The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.”

Goldman was born in 1869 in a Jewish ghetto in Russia where her family ran an inn. When she was 13 the family moved to St Petersburg. Economic hardship meant that Emma Goldman had to leave school after six months and work in a factory. At 15 her father tried to marry her off but she refused. It was agreed that the rebellious child should go to America with a half sister. Goldman struggled there as a Jewish immigrant & she earned her living as a seamstress. A lifelong anarchist activist, Goldman fought for workers rights, women’s rights to birth control and for sexual freedom in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Aubrey Hepburn

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible!’”

Audrey Hepburn had her own powerful relationship with feminism. She was a diminutive powerhouse who repeatedly struggled against patriarchy. Hepburn made pants a female fashion statement, & her love of flats gave women an out from towering stilettos. Hepburn’s feminism was shadowed by her beauty, & that beauty came with a price. Hepburn’s famous childish face and slender frame was the visual remnant of her starvation as a child in the Netherlands during WWII, which resulted in a slew of ailments. Her life was a battle between the reality and the ideal, which would repeat for Hepburn as feminist elements warred with old-world patriarchy.

Katharine Hepburn

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”

Oscar-winning Hepburn was the daughter of progressive parents, her mother was a feminist campaigner and her father was a urologist who educated the public on sexually transmitted infections—and both taught Hepburn to question societal norms. She began wearing trousers when it was considered scandalous for women. In an era when women were expected to be subservient, she was not. She was the woman so often seen in her roles: independent, imperious and feminist. Though she began her career in the early 30s—after women were given the right to vote but long before they were seen as equals to men— Hepburn never let that bother her.

Minerva Mirabel

“It’s all the same fight, Mamá.”

Patria, Dedé, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal were 4 sisters from the Dominican Republic who brave- ly rejected the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and became know as Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). Ignited to action after witnessing a massacre executed by the regime on June 14, 1959, the sisters formed the Move- ment of the Fourteenth of June and sought to dismantle Trujillo’s rule through public protest & fight for social justice. They created and shared pamphlets outlining the massacre and in turn were repeatedly subjected to torturing, imprisonment & death. After her sisters’ assassinations, Dedé founded the Mirabel Sisters Museum.

Dolly Parton

“If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one”

Parton grew up one of 12 children, in Tennessee, with no electricity or running water, bathing in the river, with soap she made herself. She moved to Nashville the day after she graduated high school, in 1966, and hasn’t stopped working since. She has built a successful business empire from her work and champions childhood literacy among her many philanthropic efforts. This subversive country singer and actress has been singing about female empowerment since the ‘60s. She dedicated her life to helping the poor region that she grew up in, and standing up for gender & racial equality as well as LGBTQ+ rights.

Mindy Kaling

“I love women who don’t ask, ‘Is that OK?’ after everything they say.”

Kaling is confidently feminine, and unapologetically portrays millennial women in life & on her tv shows. Kahling’s known as “a different kind of feminist.” Her characters depict how being a feminist does not mean you have to deny your femininity. In her show The Mindy Project, Kaling plays a hyper feminine & successful gynecologist who loves the color pink, romantic gestures & is one of the most selfish people you will ever meet. In life, she has the same unapologetic take on being a woman. She refuses to be an outsider or the underdog in a comedy world still dominated by white males. She embraces her strengths, laughs at her weaknesses and creates her own path. More importantly, she encourages other women to do the same.

Emma Watson

“If you stand for equality, then you’re a feminist. Sorry to tell you.”

Watson championed gender equality throughout her career, most notably in 2015 when she made feminism the focal point of a speech she delivered at the U.N. headquarters. “This isn’t just, ‘girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls. This is just, ‘everyone deserves a fair chance.’” Feminism also played a role in her depiction of Belle in her of Beauty and the Beast, which earned fem- inist icon Gloria Steinem’s seal of approval, with Watson urging that her character wear sensible shoes. She also made feminism the under- lying current of her book club, Our Shared Shelf. The actress has activ- ely protested and held speeches in relation to social equality & feminism.

Winona LaDuke

“There is no social-change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals.”

Winona LaDuke is an internationally acclaimed author, orator & activist. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities with advanced degrees in rural economic development, LaDuke has devoted her life to protecting the lands and life ways of Native communities and Native women. For two decades she was a board Co-chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network, & an advocate for the status protection and furtherance of Native women. Influenced by her father’s advocacy for the Ojibwe people, activism informed LaDuke’s childhood and at 18, she became the youngest person to speak to the United Nations about American Indian concerns.

Wu Rongrong

“Don’t cry, friends— you’re not alone”

Rongrong majored in social work at China Women’s University while also volunteering at public interest NGOs. She spent nearly 2 years as a volunteer at the China Children’s Press and Publication Group’s “Heart-to-Heart Hotline,” and nearly four years at the New Path Foundation’s Big Brother- /Big Sister Program. She actively spoke up for the rights of disadvantaged people. In one case, she spoke on the behalf of an HIV positive college student who was pressured to drop out of the school by faculty and students. Her activism was not celebrated by officials, who detained her when she and a group of activists attempted to pass out information and protest against sexual harassment.

Diane Von Furstenberg

“I never knew what I wanted to do, but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.”

Von Furstenberg did not go to business school, but that did not stop her from creating the international empire that is now “DVF.” She had her own start-up, as in 1974 she introduced the“wrap dress,” a garment that has come to “symbolize power and independence for an entire generation of women,” as stated on her website. Since then, von Furstenberg has developed a luxury brand available in over 55 countries. Also known for her mentorship and work on the board of Vital Voices, an NGO that supports emerging female leaders and entrepreneurs, Von Furstenberg declares women’s empowerment as her current “mission.

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter

“Power’s not given to you. You have to take it.”

Legendary singer Beyoncé is an icon for many feminists of color. With an implicitly feminist back catalogue, her self-titled Beyoncé album marks her publically coming out as a feminist. The album features a sample of Nigerian author Adichie’s “We Should All Be Feminists” speech on the song “***Flawless,” which she performed in front of a giant LED screen with the word “feminist” behind her silhouette. She also published an essay entitled “Gender Equality is a Myth!” for the Shriver Report on gender inequality, produced by the Center for American Progress, a non-profit institute concerned with progressive public policy research.

Frida Kahlo

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”

Kahlo painted amazing self-portraits after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Kahlo later became politically active and mar- ried fellow communist artist Rivera in 1929. Kahlo’s image has become a feminist icon. She transcended everything—her time (20th century), cultural norms (her paintings dealt with taboo subjects such as abortion, miscarriage, gender inequalities, & the personal and sexual lives of women), feminine beauty ideals (she not remove her unibrow or must- ache, & was known to darken them with a black pencil), & her own physical limitations (she had polio) She was an outspoken leftist, a lesbian, a feminist and activist.

Margot Robbie

“I won’t take parts where the female character has no substance.”

Australian actress and daredevil Margot Robbie is known for her beauty, profession and fearlessness. She does many of her own stunts in her films, is a tattoo artist, performs on trapezes and skydives; traits uncommon among Hollywood actresses. The feminist gave a speech at 2017’s Women in Hollywood Awards calling out the film industry’s propensity to see women “in the simplest terms and with the most convenient definitions.” She’s also president of her own production company, LuckyChap Entertainment.

Whoopi Goldberg

“An actress can only play a woman. I’m an actor, I can play anything.”

Legendary actor Goldberg is known for film and social activism. She raised money on behalf of Afghan women and marched for choice and equal rights. She has also brought attention to countless causes including AIDS, children’s issues, healthcare and substance abuse. Since 1986, she has been hosting the Comic Relief tv specials benefitting charities. In 1999, she received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award for supporting the gay and lesbian community. She was also named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2003, and serves on the Board of Garden of Dreams.

Simone De Beauvoir

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”

Beauvoir was known as a novelist, a feminist thinker & writer. Beauvoir’s most famous work was ‘The Second Sex’ from 1949, a hugely influential book which laid the groundwork for second-wave femin ism. Where first-wave feminism was concerned with women’s suffrage and property rights, the second wave broadened these concerns to include sexuality, family, the work- place, reproductive rights, and so on. All that started with Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, where Beauvoir outlines the ways in which woman is perceived as “other” in a patriarchal society, second to man, which is considered—and treated as—the “first” or default sex.

Elizabeth Warren

“Nasty women are tough. Nasty women are smart. And nasty women vote.”

Warren served as the keynote speaker at the Know Your Value conference, an event dedicated to empowering and elevating women. Her speech focused on believing that women can build a better America. She was also one of several senators in a joint resolution attempt in May to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, a goal that has been pursued by feminists for more than 90 years. While unsuccessful in that aspect, she did continue her efforts for women’s rights. She delivered a powerful speech in defense of the women’s health organization. She also continuously speaks out about pro-choice advocacy and other social justice issues.

Barbara Walters

“If it’s a woman, it’s caustic; if it’s a man, it’s authoritative.”

Walters is revered as the most important woman in the history of broadcast journalism. She was the first woman to co-host NBC’s “Today” show, in 1962, and the first woman to co-anchor an evening newscast, in 1976. Later came her namesake specials that fueled Walters’ reputation as a versatile interviewer of everyone from heads of state to Hollywood stars. She went on to become the first female co-host of a prime-time news magazine—“20/20”—and in 1997, Walters conquered daytime television with “The View,” a talk show that shook up the genre with its spicy blend of politics, pop culture and opinion.

Shirley Chisholm

“Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent wears a skirt.”

After graduating with honors from Brooklyn College in 1946 & teach- ing, Chisholm became politically active with the Democratic Party and challenged the traditional roles of women, African Americans, and the poor. She became involved in several organizations like the League of Women Voters and the Seventeenth Assembly District Democratic Club. She was an active participant in civil rights. Early in her career as a congresswoman, she took a stand on the issue of pro-choice abortions. She also spoke against traditional roles for women professionals, arguing that women were capable of entering many other professions.

Soujourner Truth

“Ain’t I a woman?”

An early women’s rights activist in the US, Truth was born into slavery and after escaping to freedom, became the first black woman to win a legal case against a white man. Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist best-known for her speech on racial inequalities, “Ain’t I a Woman?”, delivered extemporaneously in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. Although Truth began her career as an abolitionist, the reform causes she sponsored were broad and varied, including prison reform, property rights and universal suffrage.

Bianca Jagger

“I am not just a celebrity, I’m a human-rights advocate for the last 20 years.”

Jagger is an internationally cele- brated social and human rights activist from Nicaragua. She has received numerous awards for her activism and charitable work over the past 30 years. Her passion for advocacy began during childhood & she marks 1981 as her “turning point” after she demanded the release of 40 refugees at gun- point while in Honduras. Since then, she has advocated for issues like the opposition of US-intervention in Nicaragua, indigenous rights in Latin America & women’s rights internationally. She serves as a Cou- ncil of Europe Goodwill Ambass- ador & as the chair for the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation.

Feminists, activists, leaders & role models