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5 Women Activists to Know

Are Women Better at Protesting?

When it's a given that men are traditionally in more positions of power in today’s society than women are, imagine how much more oppression women of centuries ago faced and how much more praised and focused on the men were in history’s patriarchal society. According to the U.S. Census, in 2018, a full-time working woman earned 81.6 cents for every dollar a full-time working man earned, and women’s median annual earnings were $9,766 less than that of men’s. Additionally, women were not given the right to vote until 133 years after the Constitution had been ratified. Why is it that men predominantly hold more authority and control when time and time again, women have shown to be more effective in creating social and political change? Not to undermine achievements made by men historically or currently, but women’s accomplishments should also be shined upon and not overlooked because they are of equal or more importance.


Erica Chenoweth, a political science professor at Harvard studying civil resistance, found through a transnational study of revolutions from 1945 to 2014 that a large presence of women at political movements or protests makes those campaigns more successful[1]. Why is that? A few factors are that 1) more women means more people, simply meaning a higher chance of a movement’s success, 2) women are more sensitive to and sensible about the best tools needed to create a social change due to their role in society: one that forces women to constantly think of new ways of improving their lives and status when discriminated against, and 3) women are connected with non-violence and tend to stop participating in a movement once it becomes violent, which may be because there are more people in society that rely on women than on men, driving women to protect themselves from danger[1].


If you’re still not convinced that most women can handle revolutions and movements better than men can, read on to learn about a few women who have either single-handedly created a difference or worked with other women and men around them to create a wall of defiance.


This is HERstory.


Jovita Idár

[2]

During the late 1800s and early 1900s in America, the rights of Mexican-Americans in South Texas were discriminated against by Jim Crow laws that enforced and encouraged racial segregation[3]. In restaurants, it was not uncommon to see signs displaying, “No Negroes, Mexicans, or dogs allowed,” clearly categorizing humans as mere animals[3]. Mexican-Americans were often harassed and abused by law enforcers, and residents were sent to underfunded and underprivileged schools where speaking Spanish was discouraged[3].


Jovita Idár was born to a relatively privileged family of Mexican-Americans and therefore had access to a higher level of education that most Mexican-Americans did not have[3]. When she earned her teaching certificate, Idár was excited to teach young children in southeast Texas, only to be shocked by the dilapidated condition of the school buildings and supplies[3]. This prompted her to become an activist writer to better help her own people, and she used several pen names to write and report not only about the Mexican Revolution and the violation of the rights of Tejanos, those who lived in Texas before the border with the U.S. was made, but also about equality for women by encouraging women to become educated and independent[3].


Even when Texas Rangers tried to shut down her newspaper office because Idár criticized President Woodrow Wilson for sending troops to the Texas-Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution, Idár stood her ground by arguing that they were violating her First Amendment right, which guaranteed the freedom of the press[3]. Though they returned the next day to destroy her office and materials while she was gone, Idár continued to relentlessly write for justice[3].


She then joined the First Mexican Congress to organize Mexican-American activists and started Liga Femenil Mexicanista, or the League of Mexican Women[3]. Idár also sought to educate poor children and teach Mexican-American children their own history rather than just history from America’s perspective[3]. She did not want their own culture to be forgotten and advocated for schools to teach Spanish so that the language would not be changed or forgotten but instead spoken and cherished[3].


Later in her life, Idár established a free kindergarten, worked as an interpreter at a hospital, and taught women about infant care[3]. Though she worked her entire life to especially improve the lives of Mexican-American children through education, Idár did not have any children of her own but raised the children of her sister, who died giving birth[3].


Ida B. Wells-Barnett

[4]

Born into slavery during the Civil War, Ida B. Wells had parents who taught her that education was extremely important, and once the war was over, her parents were both involved in the politics of the Reconstruction Era[5]. At 16 years old, she lost her parents to the yellow fever outbreak, so she lied about her age and became a teacher to take care of her siblings[5].


In 1882, Wells was on a train ride from Memphis to Nashville with a first-class ticket, yet she was forced to move to the car for African Americans[6]. She however refused and even bit a crew member before being removed from the train[6]. For the incident, she sued the railroad and won a five hundred dollar settlement, but the decision was overturned by the Tennessee Supreme Court[6].


The railroad incident had been a watershed moment for Wells, who was motivated to start writing about race and politics under the pen name “Iola[6].” In 1892, after her friend and his two business associates were lynched, she started writing about anti-lynching, even risking her life to travel to the south and gather information[6]. However, white mobs stormed and destroyed her office while Wells was staying in New York, which probably spared her life[6]. In the north, Wells continued her anti-lynching campaign and called President McKinley for reforms[6].


In 1895, Wells married a famous African American lawyer, Ferdinand Barnett, and she was one of the first American women who kept her maiden name after marriage[6].


Additionally, Wells created the National Association of Colored Women, and though she was often ostracized by white women in the suffrage movement, she remained an active fighter for women’s suffrage[6]. For example, when her Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago planned a march in the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., the organizers asked women of color to march at the back because they were afraid of offending white suffragists, but Wells refused to and joined the parade at the front, making the white women march in the back[6].


In 2020, Wells was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her courage and reports on the violent lynching against African Americans[6].


Ryu Gwan Sun

[7]

Ryu Gwan Sun, at the age of just 16, became the face of her nation’s desperate cry for freedom. In 1904, what was then the Korean Empire allied with Japan during the first Russo-Japanese war, lending Korean land to the Japanese to execute military operations[8]. However, the Japanese took advantage of Korea and in 1910, annexed the peninsula as one of their colonies and started occupying the territory[8]. Koreans were stripped of not only their nationality but also their freedom as many were used as forced labor and test subjects for inhumane laboratory experiments, could not speak their own language, and were tortured or killed if they did not follow strict rules.


On March 1, 1919, Korea’s independence movement started as peaceful protestors organized to gather more support and strengthen the peoples’ morales[8]. Attending Ewha Women’s University, the first modern institution for women created by American missionaries, Ryu and her classmates joined the protestors, crying out “Mansae!” which means “Long live Korean independence[8]!”


On March 10, in response to students joining the protests, the Japanese colonial government ordered all schools to shut down[8]. However, this did not stop Ryu, who returned to her hometown and spread information about organizing protests[8]. At a later protest, Ryu passed out Korean flags and spoke out about Korean independence, but the Japanese military police arrived and killed 19 people, including Ryu’s parents[8].


Ryu was arrested and offered a lighter punishment if she admitted to being guilty, but she refused because she was resolute that she had committed no wrong[9]. To force Ryu to give up the names of collaborators or safe houses, the police tortured her, but she stood her ground and never opened her mouth[9]. As Ryu continued to advocate for independence, she was brutally and endlessly tortured, and on September 28th, 1920, Ryu Gwan Sun died in prison due to her injuries[8].


More afraid of the pain of losing her own country than the pain of her body being crushed, Ryu completely devoted her body and mind to protecting her nation and people. Korea was not able to gain independence from Japanese control immediately after the March 1st Movement, but this movement symbolized the nation’s unity and sparked similar movements to propel the resistance. In South Korea today, March 1st is a national holiday, and many celebrities, the media, and people post an image of Ryu Gwan Sun with the national flag to honor her for her courageous sacrifice for her nation.


Blanca Canales


[10]

Blanca Canales grew up in a Unionist family, but as she became older, she was drawn to the Nationalist Party that had a more militant stance on independence and joined in 1931[11]. Later that year, she helped found the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party’s women’s branch, Daughters of Freedom[11].


After World War II and the Korean War, the United States emerged as a global superpower and started tightening control over Puerto Rico, increasing hostilities between the two nations[11]. Additionally, the Ley de la Mordazo, or Gag Law, similar to America’s Smith Act, made printing and publishing materials protesting the Puerto Rican government illegal[11]. In response to this, Nationalists argued that the law violated their First Amendment rights and staged uprisings in several towns[11].


Canales was the only woman in her group of twenty other men, and she led her group to her house in Jayuya with their arms and ammunition[11]. They attacked and set fire to the police station and raised a Puerto Rican flag, which was illegal at the time[11]. For three days, the Nationalist group held the town before surrendering due to the National Guard’s arrival. This protest against the United States’ imperialism is called the Jayuya Uprising[11].


Witnesses claimed that Canales had killed a police officer, which gave her a life sentence, and she also was given an eleven-year sentence for burning the post office[12]. However, after seventeen years in jail, Governor Sánchez Villela pardoned the rest of her sentence, and Canales continued her life as an advocate for justice until her death in 1996[12]. Today, her house is a museum, and she is recognized with a memorial plaque in Jayuya honoring women Nationalists; her name is listed second on the third plaque[11].


Malala Yousafzai

[13]

Perhaps the most well known female activist today, Malala Yousafzai can not be missing on this list. As the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, she is a passionate young woman who has gone through a miracle and created a miracle herself.


Born in 1997, Malala loved to learn and gain knowledge from a young age, and the learning institution run by her father, an advocate for education as well, was a big part of her and her family’s lives[14]. At ten years old, however, Malala’s days of freely learning were over as the Taliban started controlling the Swat Valley and banning Pakistani girls from attending school through their terror campaign and destruction of schools[14].


Malala and her father strongly believed in everyone’s right to education, and at only 11 years old, she started blogging anonymously on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) with the pen name “Gul Makai” about life under Taliban control and her desire to go to school[14].


One day, on the way home from school, two Taliban members stopped the bus and asked for Malala[14]. She was fired at with three bullets, one of which passed through her head and embedded in her shoulder[14]. In critical condition, she was airlifted to a Pakistani military hospital and later to an intensive care unit in Birmingham, England[14]. Doctors did not know whether or not Malala would live, but miraculously, she survived with no major brain damage[14]. From then, Malala received international praise and support for her recovery and spirit in her fight against the Taliban[14]. On her 16th birthday, she spoke at the United Nations in New York and published her autobiography, “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban[14].”


In 2014, Malala created the Malala Fund with her father to continue helping girls acquire their right to education by meeting Syrian refugees and Kenyan female students and speaking about the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, another terrorist group similar to the Taliban[14]. Later in that year, she received the Nobel Peace Prize.


Today, Malala continues to advocate for quality education for all girls globally, and through the Malala Fund, empowers and inspires girls to be strong and fearless leaders.


What Can You Do?

Above are the stories of five women who had the courage to risk their lives to stand up for justice even when the majority were afraid to and advocated for an improvement in the lives of their people and anyone who was denied respect or treated inferiorly. Attacks by law enforcement and discrimination by fellow women who supposedly had the same goal did nothing to stop these five women because they knew that the change they were fighting for was worth the struggle.


Though societal standards regarding gender equality have progressed much, thanks to courageous activists like the ones discussed in this article, there is still space to go higher and achieve what we truly want: equal credit and representation of all genders and their achievements. Whether you are a female or male reading this, I hope you realize that it really does not take much to believe in yourself and unleash your potential! Of course, there may not be a civil war or another country occupying yours, but you can take what you hopefully learned and realized from reading this and apply it to your own dreams. You know that you will have to face obstacles and roadblocks along the way if you want to achieve your goals, so do not be afraid to take another step because by doing that, you are fighting for yourself. In addition, in today’s society, there are countless issues, whether political, social, environmental, or cultural, that you can raise your voice for and fight for!



Below are links to buy Malala’s book and four other books about other historical revolutionary women not mentioned in this article (you can also borrow ebook versions from libraries using apps like Overdrive and Libby):

In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez: about sisters opposing Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominion Republic[15]

Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, by Annette Dumbach & Jud Newborn: about Sophie, her brother, and her friends, who formed an anti-Nazi resistance movement called the White Rose[15]

The Trung Sisters Revisited, by Nghia M. Vo and Nguyen Ngoc Bich: about two sisters who led a rebellion against the Han and ruled over an independent state between modern Vietnam and China[15]

Tales of the Lavender Menace: A Memoir of Gay Liberation, by Karla Jay: about author’s experiences in the lesbian movement against the fact that mainstream women’s liberation movements refused to include LGBTQ issues in fear of being unsuccessful[15]



Works Cited

1 Ralph, Elizabeth. “How Women Make Protests More Successful.” POLITICO, 12 June 2020,

2 “Jovita Idár.” National Women's History Museum,

3 Medina, Jennifer. “Overlooked No More: Jovita Idár, Who Promoted Rights of

Mexican-Americans and Women.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 7 Aug.


4“Ida B. Wells.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ida_B._Wells.


5 Norwood, Arlisha R. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett.” National Women's History Museum,


6 “Ida B. Wells (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the


7 “Yu Gwan Sun”, My Hero, myhero.com/Yu_GwanSun_chs_US_2009_ul.


8 Kang, Inyoung. “Overlooked No More: Yu Gwan-Sun, a Korean Independence Activist Who

Defied Japanese Rule.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2018,


9 Er. “Yu Gwan Sun-  Korea's Joan of Arc.” Naked History, 6 Oct. 2016,


10 “Blanca Canales.” Women's Activism NYC, 2019, www.womensactivism.nyc/stories/2859.


11 Zwickel, Daniel B. Blanca Canales, www.peacehost.net/WhiteStar/Voices/eng-canales.html.


12 Beck, Abaki. “Feminist Hero Friday: Blanca Canales, Puerto Rican Revolutionary.” POC

Online Classroom, POC Online Classroom, 6 May 2016,


13 “Malala Yousafzai.” New York Post, 2019,


14 “The Nobel Peace Prize 2014.” NobelPrize.org,


15 Colyard, K.W. “15 Books About Women Who Led Revolutions.” Bustle, Bustle, 8 Mar. 2017,


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