9 Incredible Feminists From Around The World That You May Not Have Known About

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Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani

Arash Ashoorinia

Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani is a notable Iranian author, translator, essayist, journalist, women's rights activist and community activist. She is one of the founding members of the One Million Signatures campaign, a campaign by women in Iran to collect one million signatures in support of changing discriminatory laws against women in their country. She was also a founder of Women’s Cultural Center.

Read more about her here: https://newint.org/features/2013/03/01/noushin-ahamdi-khorasani/

Tegla Chepkite Laroupe

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Tegla Chepkite Loroupe is a Kenyan long-distance track and road runner. She is also a global spokeswoman for peace, women's rights and education. She founded the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation, a foundation that aims at supporting initiatives that promote conflict resolution, peace building, education, environment, poverty reduction and reducing human rights violations, especially Female Genital Mutilation in communities in Northern Kenya and the Greater Horn of Africa Region.

Read more about her here: http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1023703/from-running-star-to-champion-for-peace-the-story-of-tegla-loroupe

Qui Jin

Wikimedia Commons

Qiu Jin was a Chinese revolutionary, feminist, and writer. She was a strong-willed feminist and martyr who is considered a national hero in China. She became vocal in her support for women’s rights, pressed for improved access to education for women in her journals and speech, and spoke out against the practice of foot-binding. She was warned that officials would be coming for her at the Datong school, but she stayed anyway, writing to her sword sister Xu Yunhua that she was determined to die for the cause. She was later executed.

Read more about her here: http://www.amazingwomeninhistory.com/qiu-jin-chinese-feminist-revolutionary/

Voltairine de Cleyre

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Voltairine de Cleyre was an American anarchist, known for being a prolific writer and speaker, and opposing the state, marriage, and the domination of religion over sexuality and women's lives. During her early radical days she was a Free Thought lecturer stressing the rights of the individual against encroachment by larger social/political units. She wrote many novels and went on to become a successful advocate for both anarchy and feminism.

Read more about her here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/marian-leighton-voltairine-de-cleyre-an-introduction

Urvashi Vaid

Jerek Wajdowicz

Urvashi Vaid is an Indian-American LGBT and women's rights activist. Vaid is CEO of The Vaid Group LLC, a social innovation firm that works with global and domestic organizations to advance equity, justice and inclusion. She is also and attorney and a leader in the LGBT and feminist movements.

Read more about her here: http://urvashivaid.net/wp/?page_id=2

Margaret Heafield Hamilton

Wikimedia Commons

Margaret Heafield Hamilton is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. She is an Apollo Software engineer, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Hamilton led the team that developed the building blocks of software engineering. Hamilton was honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development. She is a powerful woman and an inspiration to other feminists. Her code got humans on the moon and invented software itself.

Read more about her here: https://www.wired.com/2015/10/margaret-hamilton-nasa-apollo/

Agnes Pareiyo

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Agnes Pareiyo is a Maasai Kenya women's rights activist, politician and Founder and Director of the Tasaru Ntomonok Rescue Center for young girls, who campaigns against female genital cutting. With help from Comic Relief, and from Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, she set up an organisation called the Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative, and built a shelter for girls fleeing genital mutilation. She works on the front lines, advocating for women's rights and against female genital mutilation.

Read more about her here: http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/2009/04/kenya-activist-agnes-pareiyo/

Janet Mock

Janet Mock is an American writer, TV host, transgender rights activist, author of the New York Times bestseller Redefining Realness, contributing editor for Marie Claire, and former staff editor of People magazine's website. She is a sought-after speaker who gave a rousing speech at the history-making Women’s March on Washington; an advocate for trans women who founded #GirlsLikeUs and #TransBookDrive; the host of the interview podcast, Never Before, with Lenny Letter; and a contributing editor at Allure, where she writes the column, “Beauty Beyond Binaries.” She herself is a trans woman who is a strong leader in the feminist and trans movements.

Read more about her here: http://janetmock.com/bio/

Lucia Bellini

Sisters of Frida

Sisters of Frida Steering group member, Lucia Bellini, spoke for disabled women against domestic violence and violence against women at Million Women Rise at Trafalgar Square. Lucia works to tackle violence and abuse against disabled and Deaf people. Pictured beside her is Ruth Bashall, another advocate for feminism and disabled women.

Read more about her here: http://www.sisofrida.org/tag/lucia-bellini/