Famous Feminists S-V

Olive Schreiner

South African author and feminist. Born in Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony. After several years as a governess, she went to England in 1881, taking with her the manuscript of her famous novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883). The novel, which has been likened to Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, is an intense story of two children living in the African veldt; it was controversial because of its feminist and anti-Christian sentiments. Her later works included Dreams (1921), a collection of allegories; Women and Labour (1911); and a significant novel, unfinished, From Man to Man (1926). Her letters were edited (1924) by her husband, S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner, who also wrote her biography (1923, repr. 1973).

Richard Schmitt: Profeminist Men and Their Friends

Valerie Solanas: SCUM Manifesto

A radical feminist. Probably most well-known because she shot Andy Warhol because she thought he had stolen a play she wrote, but she is also the author of the S.C.U.M. Manifesto. http://www.ai.mit.edu/~shivers/rants/scum.html

Elizabeth V. Spelman: Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for The Woman’s Voice

Teaches at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her books include Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought, Fruits of Sorrow: Framing Our Attention to Suffering, and the one pictured here, Repair: The Impulse to Restore in a Fragile World.

Barbara Smith

Co-founder of the Combahee River Collective. They began meeting in 1973 as the Boston chapter of the National Black Feminist Organization. They came together in response to the sexism of the Civil Rights and Black Nationalist Movements, and the racism of the predominately white Feminist Movement. Their Black Feminist Statement was written in 1977.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments from The History of Women’s Suffrage

Best known for her long contribution to the woman suffrage struggle, she was also active and effective in winning property rights for married women, equal guardianship of children, and liberalized divorce laws so that women could leave marriages that were often abusive to the wife, the children, and the economic health of the family.

Nadine Strossen: Defending Pornography

Professor of Law at New York Law School, she has written, lectured and practiced extensively in the areas of constitutional law, civil liberties and international human rights. Since 1991, she has served as President of the American Civil Liberties Union, the first woman to head the nation's largest and oldest civil liberties organization. She comments frequently on legal issues in the national media, having appeared on virtually every national news program. She is a regular guest on the PBS show "Debates, Debates" and has appeared on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" with BiIl Maher. She has also been a monthly columnist for two Web-zines and a weekly commentator on the Talk America Radio Network. She was the author of Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (1995), and co-authored Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties (1995). In 1986, Strossen became one of the first three women to receive the U.S. Jaycees' "Ten Outstanding Young Americans" Award; she was also the first American woman to win the Jaycees International's "The Outstanding Young Persons Of the World" Award. In her presentations, this dynamic speaker tackles such intense issues as censorship and freedom of speech with wisdom, humor and class. http://archive.aclu.org/about/strossnw.html

Harriet Taylor: The Enfranchisement of Women

Taylor and John Stuart Mill exchanged essays on issues such as marriage and women's rights. Those essays that have survived reveal that Taylor held more radical views than Mill on these subjects. Taylor was attracted to the socialist philosophy that had been promoted by Robert Owen in books such as The Formation of Character (1813) and A New View of Society (1814). In her essays Taylor was especially critical of the degrading effect of women's economic dependence on men. Taylor thought this situation could only be changed by the radical reform of all marriage laws. Although Mill shared Taylor's belief in equal rights, he favoured laws that gave women equality rather than independence.

Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman"

U.S. evangelist and reformer. She was born into slavery in Ulster Co., N.Y.. After being freed, she worked as a domestic in New York City (1829-43) and began preaching on street corners with the evangelical missionary Elijah Pierson. Adopting the name Sojourner Truth, she left New York to obey a "call" to travel and preach. Adding abolitionism and women's rights to her religious messages, she traveled in the Midwest, where her magnetism drew large crowds. In the Civil War she gathered supplies for black volunteer regiments and met with President Lincoln. After the war she worked for the freedmen's relief organization and encouraged migration to Kansas and Missouri.

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