Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) – prominent civil rights leader, played a pivotal role in the 19th-century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States
Gloria Steinem (born 1934) – writer, activist, feminist, women's rights journalist
Doris Stevens (1892–1963) – organizer for National American Women Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party, prominent Silent Sentinels participant, author Jailed for Freedom
Sandra Bloodworth – labour historian, socialist activist, co-founder of the Trotskyist organisation Socialist Alternative, editor of Marxist Left Review.
Eva Cox (born 1938) – sociologist and feminist active in both the political and social services sectors. Long-time member of the Women's Electoral Lobby and social commentator on women in power, women and work and social justice.
Zelda D'Aprano (1928–present) – trade unionist, feminist, in 1969 chained herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Building in protest for equal pay.
Elizabeth Evatt (born 1933) – legal reformist and juror; outspoken on inadequacy of Australia's Sex Discrimination Act in relation to CEDAW. Evatt was the first Australian to be elected to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Miles Franklin (1879–1954) – writer and feminist of national significance.
Vida Goldstein (1869–1949) – early Australian feminist politician who campaigned for women's suffrage and social reform. First woman in the British Empire to stand for election to a national parliament.
Germaine Greer (born 1939) – Author of The Female Eunuch, academic and social commentator.
Bella Guerin (1858–1923) – first woman to graduate from an Australian university, Guerin was a socialist feminist prominent (although with periods of public dispute) within the Australian Labor Party.
Louisa Lawson (1848–1920)) – feminist, suffragist, author and publisher. Founder of The Dawn, Lawson was a radical pro-republican federalist.
Eileen Powell (1913–1997) – trade unionist, women's activist and important contributor to the Equal Pay for Equal Work decision.
Millicent Preston-Stanley (1883–1955) – first female member of the NSW Legislative Assembly. Campaigned for the custodial rights of mothers in divorce and women's healthcare.
Elizabeth Anne Reid – world's first advisor on women's affairs to a head of state (Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam) and active on women's development for the UN. Also prominent in HIV activism.
Bessie Rischbieth (1874–1967)) – earliest female appointed to any court (honorary position to the Perth Children's Court in 1915); early activist against the Australian Government's practice of taking Aboriginal children from their mothers (Stolen Generation; leading founding member of many women's organisations and editor of The Dawn.
Jessie Street (1889–1970) – Australian suffragette, feminist and human rights campaigner. Influential in labor rights and early days of UN.
Anne Summers (born 1945)- women's rights activist, prominent in political and media spheres. Women's advisor to Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating and editor of Ms. magazine (New York).
Marguerite Coppin (1867–1931) – woman poet laureate of Belgium and advocate of women's rights
Frédérique Petrides (1903–1983) – Belgian-American pioneering orchestral conductor, activist and editor of the Women in Music, a series of periodicals chronicling the activities of women in music
Widad Akrawi (born 1969) – writer and doctor, advocate for gender equality and women's empowerment and participation in peace building and post-conflict governance.
Astrid Stampe Feddersen (1852–1930) – chaired the first Scandinavian meeting on women's rights
Qasim Amin (1863–1908) – jurist, early advocate of women’s rights in Egyptian society
Nawal el-Saadawi (born 1931) – writer and doctor, advocate for women’s health and equality
Hoda Shaarawi (1879–1947) – feminist, organizer for the Mubarrat Muhammad Ali (women’s social service organization), the Union of Educated Egyptian Women and the Wafdist Women’s Central Committee, founder and first president of the Egyptian Feminist Union
Mamatha Raghuveer Achanta – a women and child rights activist and has served as Chairperson, Child Welfare Committee, Warangal District, Member, A.P. State Commission for Protection Child Rights, and Founder and Executive Director, Tharuni, a non-government organization (NGO) that focuses on girl child and women empowerment. She has participated in rescues and adjudicated on issues such as exploitation, violence, child sexual abuse, child marriages, and neglect.
Manasi Pradhan (born 1962) – Founder of the Honour for Women National Campaign, a nationwide campaign to end violence against women in India.
Jyotiba Phule (1827–1890) – social reformer, critic of the caste system, founded a school for girls, a widow-remarriage initiative, a home for upper caste widows, and a home for infant girls to discourage female infanticide
Sunitha Krishnan (born 1972) – Indian social activist and chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala, an institution that assists trafficked women, girls and transgender people in finding shelter, giving education and employment.
Francis Hutcheson (8 August 1694 – 8 August 1746) was an Irish philosopher born in Ireland to a family of Scottish Presbyterians who became one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment. He was an opponent of slavery and an advocate for women's rights who challenged Locke for ignoring those two issues.
Kate Sheppard (1847–1934) – suffragette, influential in winning voting rights for women in 1893 (the first country and national election in which women were allowed to vote)
Malala Yousafzai (born 1997) – Pakistani women's rights activist shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by the Taliban for advocating for girls' education
Sophie Adlersparre (1823–1895) – publisher, women's rights activist and one of three (Fredrika Bremer and Rosalie Roos) most notable pioneers of women's rights movement in Sweden.
Gertrud Adelborg (1853–1942) – teacher, active in the women's rights movement and struggle for woman suffrage
Unity Dow (born 1959) – judge and writer from Botswana, plaintiff in a case that allowed children of Motswana women and foreign men to be considered Batswana.
Raden Adjeng Kartini (1879–1904) – Javanese advocate for native Indonesian women, critic of polygamous marriages and lack of education opportunities for women
Laure Moghaizel (1929–1997) – Lebanese lawyer and women's rights advocate
Shamima Shaikh (1960–1998) – South African activist, member of the Muslim Youth Movement of South Africa, proponent of Islamic gender equality
^Richard J. Evans: The feminist movement in Germany. London, Beverly Hills 1976 (SAGE Studies in 20th Century History, Vol. 6). ISBN 0-8039-9951-8, S. 120