Femme. We are femme. The future is femme. For we are women who no longer need to listen to orders, but we lead the way to our future and as time has passed so has our history. Our faces are not just for looks but for others to remember us and know that we can also make a change in our history books.
So how has women changed history? Women have been a part of social movements to strive for justice since the 1800s, and we continue to be leaders in these movement whether it is for our own justice or for the justice of others. Here are some great examples powerful women in movements.
Susan B. Anthony
One of the most known is women’s rights activist, Susan B. Anthony. She was born in 1820 into a Quaker family, and she was raised to believe both genders are just as equal. Her voice stood for the freedom for women to vote. Anthony and her partner Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866 for equal rights given regardless of race or sex. She published a weekly newspaper called The Revolution that lobbied for women’s right. Their motto was, “Men their rights, and nothing more; women their rights, and nothing less.” In 1869, the partners established the National Woman Suffrage Association and three years later, Anthony voted illegally in the Presidential election and was arrested with a $100 fine, which she refused to pay. Anthony never stopped fighting, but it wasn’t until after her death in 1920, that the 19th Amendment would pass that allowed all adult women the right to vote.
https://www.biography.com/people/susan-b-anthony-194905
Victoria Claflin Woodhull
Victoria Claflin Woodhull was born in 1838 and would become the first woman to run for Presidency in the United States before women were even given the right to vote in 1872. Woodhull was also a leader in the women’s suffrage; she was the first female to address a congressional committee on the issue. In 1870, Victoria and her sister, Tennessee, published a radical publication called Woodhull and Clafin’s Weekly. The publication would include topics of social reform, birth control, and free love. Victoria later moved to England and continued her activist writing.
https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-should-know-about-victoria-woodhull
Margaret Higgins Sanger
Born in 1879, Margaret Higgins Sanger was one of the earliest leading advocates for birth control. Starting her campaign on sex education in 1912, she wrote “What Every Girl Should Know” for a newspaper column. She continued her campaign in lower-class neighborhoods and treated those who been through back-alley abortions or tried to self-terminate their pregnancies. She dreamt of a “magic pill” that could control pregnancy and fought for access to birth control information and contraceptives. In 1914, Sanger would create a female publication, The Woman Rebel, in order to promote information on birth control. Under the Comstock Act of 1873, the publication was found illegal as it would have been considered “obscene and immoral material.” Sanger was to serve five years in jail for her crime but fled to England where she researched other forms of birth control methods that she would later smuggle back to the United States. A year after her return to the United States, Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916. In 1921, Sanger established the American Birth Control League which has become Planned Parenthood.
https://www.biography.com/people/margaret-sanger-9471186
Rosa Parks
Famously-known for refusing to give her seat up to a white passenger in 1955, Rosa Parks was an iconic woman in the civil rights movement. In Parks’ young age, she would noticed the segregation between black and white. She was denied the right to vote twice and kicked off a bus earlier for refusing to enter through the back door. Rosa Parks became secretary for the NAACP Montgomery chapter and trained to be a leader, while also being an advisor to the NAACP youth council. Though, Rosa Parks intended for her action to be minor she did not realized the great impact it would make as the action led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted 381 days and allowed more efforts to end segregation for public facilities nationwide. Eventually, the result led to “lift the law requiring segregation on public buses” for the city of Montgomery. She received the NAACP’s highest award, the Spingarn Medal, along with many awards in her lifetime.
https://www.biography.com/people/rosa-parks-9433715
Linda Sarsour
Linda Sarsour is an award-winning civil rights activist. Sarsour is co-chair of Women’s March and founder of the first Muslim online organizing platform, MPOWER Change. Born and raised in New York, Sarsour has been fighting to for social justice such as ending race and religious profiling. In 2011, she was honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change” and named American Muslim Year by the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States. She was invited to speak at the 20th Anniversary of the Million Man March. Sarsour co-chaired the March2Justice in 2015 the led almost 100 marchers through five states and 250 miles from New York to Washington, DC. Currently, Linda Sarsour continues to fight for civil rights and has yet to give up the fight.
https://www.womensmarch.com/team/
Opal Tometi
Opal Tometi is a current strategist and community organizer who co-founded the #BlackLivesMatter movement along with Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors. Starting the campaign after the murder of Trayvon Martin, the campaign was meant to confront anti-black racism and protect black lives. Tometi founded the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) in 2006, educating and advocating for immigrant rights and racial justice together. Her actions led to the “first ever Black-led rally for immigrant justice and the first Congressional briefing on Black immigrants in Washington DC.” In 2015 she was named “New Civil Rights Leader” but the Los Angeles Times and still today she continues to lead the movements for social justice.
http://opaltometi.com/meet-opal-tometi/
Women have been changing history since the start. We have become our own leaders and continue to lead for others until equal justice is serve for all. Leaders are who we are. We should be proud to be femme because we run the world.