THE REAL

WONDER
WOMEN
Some influential and pioneering
women through time
 “Male and female
citizens […] must be
equally admitted
[…] without other
distinctions besides
those of their virtues
and talents” OLYMPE DE GOUGES
1748-1793 
- Born as Marie Goueze 
7 May 1748- 3 Nov 1793 (aged 45).
- French playwright and political activist whose feminist
and abolitionists writings reach a large audience.
Became an outspoken
advocate for improving
the condition of slaves
in the colonies of 1788 

Best known as an early

feminist who demanded
that French women be
given the same rights as
a French men
Her most important work
Declaration of the Rights of
Women and Female Citizen
(1791), she challenged the
practice of male authority and
the notion of the male-female
inequality. 

She was executed by guillotine

during the Reign of Terror for
attacking the regime of the
Revolutionary government and
for her close relation with the
Girondists. 
“The extension of
women's rights is
the basic principle
of all social
progress”.
CHARLES FOURIER
1772-1837
French utopian socialist and philosopher.

The French Revolution and The Industrial Revolution 

His system came to be known as Fourierism and attracted a
number of converts in France and later in the United
States.
Natural passions of man
Twelve fundamental human passions
Five of the senses
Four of the soul 
Three that he called “distributive”
A society organized in “phalanxes”
• Fourier also advocated the emancipation of
women and coined the word féminisme in
1837.
 “In the true married
relationship, the independence
of husband and wife will be
equal, their dependence mutual,
and their obligations reciprocal”
LUCRETIA MOTT
1793-1880
• Women's rights activist,
abolitionist and religious
reformer.
• Lucretia Mott was born
Lucretia Coffin on
January 3, 1793, in
Nantucket,
Massachusetts.
• A child of Quaker
parents, Mott grew up to
become a leading social
reformer. 
•  At the age of 13, she
attended a Quaker
boarding school in New
York State. She stayed on
and worked there as a
teaching assistant.
• While at the school, Mott
met her future husband
James Mott. The couple
married in 1811 and lived
in Philadelphia.
• Advocated not buying the
products of slave labor, which
prompted her husband, always her
supporter, to get out of the cotton
trade around 1830. 

• Mott died on November 11, 1880,

in Chelton Hills (now part of
Philadelphia), Pennsyvlania.
“What a revolting contrast
exists in England between
the slavery of women and
the intellectual superiority
of women writers” FLORA TRISTAN
1803-1844
• French writer, of Peruvian ancestry, who became an
important symbol for modern feminism.

• She is also grandmother of impressionist painter

Paul Gauguin.

• Illegitimate daughter of Peruvian Colonel Mariano

de Tristán y Moscoso and French Thérese Lesnais.

• At the age of 5, her father died, leaving her and her

mother in total poverty.
 YOUTH

• At the age of 17, she was forced by her mother to marry André
Chazal, the owner of lithography workshop where she worked.
• With Chazal she had two children: Ernest and Aline (future mother
of Paul Gauguin).
• Her husband turn out to be extremely jealous and abused of her.
She ended up abandoning him, however she had to run away from
him and became was judge by society.
• When she was 30 years
old, she went on a
journey to Peru, leaving
her daughter in Paris; to
seek for her father’s
inheritance.
• Her uncle denied her any
inheritance but agreed to
pay her a monthly JOURNEY TO PERU
allowance.
• In this trip she realized
that women conditions
were equally unfair in
America and in
Europe.
• From this experience
she wrote
“Peregrinations d’une JOURNEY TO PERU
paria”
• As she arrived once again to France, she
dedicated her efforts fighting for employee
rights, women emancipation, abolition of
slavery and death penalty.
• In a trip to London she got the opportunity to
observe precarious work conditions, which
inspired her to write “Promenades dans
Londres”.

SOCIAL RIGHTS
• She was victorious on getting a divorce and her
children’s custody.
• Her ex-husband Chazal, in despair, tried to killed
her.
• Flora became more famous than ever and her
books were sold everywhere.
• Chazal was convicted to 20 years of hard labor.

SOCIAL RIGHTS
• She wrote titles as “L’Union
Ouvriere” or Méphis.
• She died at the age of 41, of
thifus.
• Her last unfinished work
named “Women’s
emancipation” was published
after her dead.
• Mario Vargas Llosa, peruvian
author published on 2003, a
biographic novel of Flora
Tristán and Paul Gauguin.
“Harmony! I
don’t want
harmony. I
want truth.” ABBY KELLEY
1811-1887
 American abolitionist and
radical social reformer
active from the 1830s to
1870s.

She became a fundraiser,

lecturer and committee
organizer for the influential
“American Anti-Slavery
Society”, where she worked
closely with William Lloyd
Garrison and other radicals.
• She married fellow abolitionist and lecturer Stephen Symonds
Foster, and they both worked for equal rights for woman and
for slaves / African Americans.
• Abby lectured throughout the country, forcefully promoting
her causes of freedom for slaves and Women’s Rights.
 During her remarkable life, Abby Kelley
Foster helped develop plans for the first
National Woman’s Rights Convention
(October 1850) held in Brinley Hall,
Worcester, MA, was an organizer of the
founding convention of the New England
Woman Suffrage Association and under the
auspices of the American Anti-Slavery Society
undertook the effort of organizing and
financing passage of the 15th Amendment.
• In 1843 Abby Kelley arrived in Seneca Falls for a week-long series
of speeches intended to convert as many souls as she could to the
antislavery cause.
• She called for the Christians in the village to take a public stand
against slavery in their local churches.
• Before her death in 1887, Abby refused to pay property taxes
because, as a women, she was not allowed to vote.
 “We have to free
half of the human
race, the women,
so that they can
help free the other
half.” EMMELINE PANKHURST
1858-1928
 Eldest daughter of 10 children, grew
up in a politically active family.
Her parents were both abolitionists and
supporters of female suffrage.
However, Goulden chafed at the fact
that her parents prioritized their sons'
education and advancement over hers.
After studying in Paris, Goulden returned to
Manchester, where she met Dr. Richard
Pankhurst in 1878. Richard was a lawyer who
supported a number of radical causes,
including women’s suffrage. Though he was
24 years older than Goulden, the two married
in December 1879, and Goulden became
Emmeline Pankhurst.
In 1903 she decided to create a
new women-only group
focused solely on voting
rights, the Women's Social and
Political Union. The WSPU’s
slogan was “Deeds Not
Words.”

In 1905, Pankhurst’s daughter

Christabel and fellow WSPU
member Annie Kenney went to a
meeting to demand if the Liberal
party would support women’s
suffrage. After a confrontation
with the police, both women were
arrested. 
Feeling that suffragettes needed to make sure they had a country to vote
in, Pankhurst decided to call for a halt to militancy and demonstrations.
The government released all WSPU prisoners, and Pankhurst
encouraged women to join the war effort and fill factory jobs so that
men could fight on the front.
The contributions of women during
wartime helped convince the British
government to grant them limited
voting rights, with the
Representation of the People Act of
1918. Later that year, another bill
gave women the right to be elected
to Parliament.
 Pankhurst still desired
universal women’s suffrage,
but her politics changed
focus after the war. She
worried about the rise of
Bolshevism and eventually
became a member of the
Conservative party.
Pankhurst even ran for a
seat in Parliament as a
Conservative, but her
campaign was disrupted by
illness.
• Pankhurst was 69 when she died in London on June 14, 1928.
• Pankhurst did not live to see it, but on July 2, 1928, Parliament
gave women voting rights along with men’s.    
 “To gain the supreme
victory, it is necessary,
for one thing, that by and
through their natural
differentiation men and
women unequivocally
affirm their
brotherhood”. SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
1908-1986
 French writer, laid the
foundation for the modern
feminist movement. 
De Beauvoir also lent her voice
to various political causes and
traveled the world extensively.
• At the age of 14, De Beauvoir had a crisis of faith and declared
herself an atheist.
• In addition to her work, de Beauvoir had a lifelong polyamorous
relationship with fellow existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.
• Based on their belief in radical freedom, de Beauvoir characterized
their love as ‘essential’ with an emphasis on emotional honesty.
“You must never
be fearful about
what you are
doing when it is
right”
ROSA PARKS
1913-2015
In 1932 she married Raymond Parks, who
encouraged her to return to high school and
earn a diploma. She later made her living as a
seamstress. In 1943 Parks became a member of
the Montgomery chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP), and she served as its
secretary until 1956.
On December 1, 1955,
she was arrested for
refusing to give her bus
seat to a white man, a
violation of the city’s
racial segregation
ordinances. The ignited
the U.S. civil rights
movement.
 RACIAL SEGREGATION
Martin Luther King, Jr., a boycott of the
municipal bus company (African Americans
constituted some 70 percent of the ridership.)
On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme
Court upheld a lower court’s decision
declaring Montgomery’s segregated seating
unconstitutional
For her role in igniting the successful
campaign, which brought King to national
prominence, Parks became known as the
“mother of the civil rights movement.”
In 1957 Parks moved with
her husband and mother to
Detroit, where from 1965 to
1988 she was a member of
the staff of Michigan
Congressman John
Conyers, Jr. She remained
active in the NAACP, and
the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference
established the annual Rosa
Parks Freedom Award in
her honour.
In 1987 she cofounded the
Rosa and Raymond Parks
Institute for Self
Development to provide
career training for young
people. She was the recipient
of numerous awards,
including the Presidential
Medal of Freedom (1996) and
the Congressional Gold
Medal (1999). Her
autobiography, Rosa Parks:
My Story (1992), was written
with Jim Haskins.
 “Rules of taste
enforce structures
of power”

SUSAN SONTAG
1933-2004
Susan Sontag was born on
January 16, 1933 in New
York, New York to Mildred
and Jack Rosenblatt, with
the couple later having a
second daughter, Judith.
Sontag’s father was a fur
trader and her parents lived
overseas for his business
while Sontag lived with her
grandparents in New York.
Upon the death of her
father when Sontag was
still a child, her mother
moved the family to milder
climates because of
Sontag’s asthma, eventually
relocating to California. In
1945, Mildred married Air
Corps captain Nathan
Sontag, from whom a pre-
teen Sontag would take her
surname.
Sontag returned to the
states by the late 1950s.
She worked as a college
instructor and began to
make a name for herself as
an essayist, writing for
publications like The
Nation and The New York
Review of Books. A piece
she wrote for The Parisian
Review, “Notes on Camp,”
earned her accolades.
As an intellectual and a
woman in what was still too
often a boys’ club, Sontag
challenged traditional
notions of how art should
be interpreted and
consumed as well as what
cultural tropes could
receive serious scrutiny.
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
Sontag continued to publish nonfiction
works like Where the Stress
Falls (2001) and Regarding the Pain of
Others (2003) as well as the play Alice
in Bed(1993) and the novel In
America (2000), for which she won a
National Book Award. 
Sontag was diagnosed with an
aggressive form of breast
cancer in 1975. She detailed
how myths around the disease
can derail effective treatment in
the book Illness as
Metaphor (1978), later
followed by another book about
health and stigma, AIDS and Its
Metaphors (1989). 
Sontag died from a form of
leukemia on December 28,
2004 in New York City.