7 Feminist Human Rights Icons Who Changed the World
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7 Feminist Human Rights Icons Who Changed the World
Happy International Human Rights Day! In celebration of the United Nations General Assembly’s 64-year-old commitment to “bring to the attention ‘of the peoples of the world’ the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations,” the Ms. Blog compiled a short list of some of our favorite feminist human rights activists from around the world.
Malala Yousafzai
After suffering a gunshot wound to the head in 2012 at the hands of the Taliban, Yousafzai recovered and rose to prominence as an education and children’s rights activist in her native Pakistan and around the world. This year, at just 17, Yousafzai become the youngest award recipient ever of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Shirin Ebadi
Here are just a few of Ebadi’s achievements: she founded Iran’s Defenders of Human Rights Center; she was one of the first-ever women judges in Iran; the first Muslim woman awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; and the first recipient to have the award confiscated by state authorities. In addition to Ebadi’s work on behalf of women, children and refugees as a judge and university professor, she led Iran’s One Million Signatures Campaign in an effort to thwart legal discrimination against women under Iranian law. In 2006, Ebadi and other Nobel laureates established the Nobel Women’s Initiative to help strengthen work being done in support of women’s rights around the world.
Vandana Shiva
When Mother Earth is unhappy, everyone is unhappy. But eco-feminist Shiva believes women can put a spring back in her step. After founding the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in 1987, Shiva nurtured the organic farming and fair trade movement through her organization Navdanya in her native India. In direct opposition to the “patriarchal logic of exclusion,” Shiva advocates for the active engagement of women in the farming process as a means of protecting biological and cultural diversity. Currently, Shiva is working to make Bhutan the first 100 percent organic country.
Tawakkol Karman
Dubbed the “iron woman” and the “mother of the revolution” by supporters, Yemeni journalist Karman co-founded Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005. Six years later, she embraced her role as the public face of the Yemeni uprising. Shortly thereafter, she shared the Nobel Peace Prize with two other rockstar peace activists, Leymah Gbowee and Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.” Karman is the first Arab woman to win the prize.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/12/10/7-feminist-human-rights-icons-who-changed-the-world/
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