The first wave of the feminist movement started at the end of the 19th century and lasted until the 20th. In this period the main goal was fighting for women´s basic rights, such as the right to vote, access to better education, and the abolition of feminist slavery.
Since that period, the movement just got bigger and, by the time the Soviet Union ended, women had to deal with new issues. With events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of dictatorships in Latin America, the movement took as its main theme the presence of women in culture, entertainment, and politics, without neglecting any of the topics discussed previously.
We already know that feminism is growing a lot day after day, but do you know who are some protagonists of this fight in the modern world? Let´s know them!
- Malala Yousafzai
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The 24-year-old feminist was born and raised in Mingora, the largest city in the Swat Valley, a very conservative region of Pakistan. Malala became famous after being a victim of a notorious outrage in which she was hit by a bullet in her head when she was just fifteen years. This action was made by the Taliban, an Islamic terrorist organization, and they were motivated by the teenager’s fight to defend women’s right to go to school in her country. After that, she got famous, and with all the support and recognition that she conquered, she won a Nobel prize.
In 2020, eight years after suffering the attack, with 22 years, Malala graduated from the Faculty of Political and Economic Philosophy at the University of Oxford. Today, she is still out there fighting for all women’s rights, becoming a huge symbol for the feminine movement.
- eMMA gONZÁLEZ
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Emma is an 18 years old North American student that was born in Cuba, and is nowadays one of the most famous names of feminism in the USA. But she only started to be recognized after surviving an attack in her school – Stoneman High School, that is located in Florida – in which an old student invaded the institution and killed 17 people.
On February 18th, at a protest in Fort Lauderdale, Emma gave a speech calling for gun control that went viral. She spoke about the fear and pain of those who saw their colleagues die and bravely faced the rhetoric for the right to have a gun from the current U.S President, Donald Trump.
Today, Emma still organizes protests and movements against the right of carrying weapons in the USA. She was included in Time magazine´s 100 Most Influential People of 2018.
- Fernanda Concon
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The 19 years old digital influencer is famous in Brazil, her native country, for acting in a soap opera named “Carrossel”, which was released in 2012 on broadcast television.
In 2022, Fernanda is studying international relations and uses her account on Instagram with 3.2 million followers to talk about politics, economy, and feminism, always supporting women’s rights.
Via Instagram - Amika George
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Amika George is from Edgware in north-west London but also has Indian heritage. She was inspired to take action after reading an article describing how many poor British women missed school due to stigma around menstruation and/or being unable to afford sanitary products such as tampons.
In 2017, Amika was still in secondary school and founded the #FreePeriods organization. As part of her campaigning, she has organized protests witch aimed convincing the UK government to provide free sanitary products to schoolchildren.
George was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to education. At 21, she was the youngest recipient on the list. She said she initially felt “quite uncomfortable” about accepting her MBE and she described the British Empire as “a horrific and exploitative endeavor”.The modern feminist said she decided to accept the award because young people of color are underrepresented in politics and activism.
- Maísa
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An internet icon, the young Brazilian, Maísa Silva, started her career in entertainment at only four years old! Today, with 19 years, on Instagram, her posts reach an audience of almost 38 million people; on Twitter, the actress and presenter, as is described in her profile, is followed by more than 10 million users. So, as many people are reading what she says, Maísa uses her influence and space in social media to talk about important subjects such as feminism.
The influencer was 14 years old when she tweeted how cool it would be if all women at least had contact with a “small text about feminism” to learn about the ideals of the movement and give them opportunities to express themselves and their ideas. After that, she won a lot of support from women around the whole world and started to do posts about feminism, gender matter, body acceptance…
Meeting and studying these young feminists and a lot of others who fight for equal rights is such important as defending the cause, because they are the ones who represent us and give us the strength to keep going with our movement.
The article above was written by Isabela Rodrigues and edited by Lorena Lindenberg.
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