Despite significant social shifts over the past few decades, feminism and the fight for gender equality persist today. Rooted in the belief that women’s perspectives have been largely oppressed, feminists advocate for political, economic, personal, and social equality. Early feminists laid the groundwork for later feminists to reduce the gender gap and advocate for the better treatment of women. Here are 10 early feminist quotes that remind us what we are fighting for.
Jane Austen
Like many female writers of the time, the 18th-century English novelist published her work anonymously. Jane Austen’s name only appeared in her novels after her death. She is considered a proto-feminist for her subtle critique of societal norms. Her heroines, like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, often challenge the status quo. Austen’s quote solidifies her status as an early feminist: “I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
Susan B. Anthony
One of the most famous figures in women’s suffrage, Susan B. Anthony was a feminist before the term was coined. She advocated for women’s rights through speaking engagements, organizing campaigns, and founding the National Woman Suffrage Association. Her quote on equality echoes the 19th Amendment: “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”
Emma Goldman
The Lithuanian immigrant was a 19th-century anarchist who advocated for women’s rights and dismantled government hierarchy. She viewed the hierarchical system in society as oppressive and pushed to destroy social constructs such as gender roles. She says, “The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.”
Helen Keller
Helen Keller’s story has long served as inspiration. She overcame adversity and became the first person with blindness and deafness to graduate from college. She became a world-renowned speaker and author advocating for people with disabilities and other victims of oppression, including women. She believed women’s voices were needed to help shape policies and laws. “I think the degree a nation’s civilization may be measured by the degree of enlightenment of its women.”
Jane Addams
Jane Addams was an early 19th-century activist and social reformer who co-founded Hull House, a Chicago settlement house providing impoverished residents shelter and education. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 for her advocacy for marginalized communities, including women. “I do not believe that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor corrupted legislature, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then we must remember that we have not had the chance.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Based on her own experience as a wife and having witnessed the negligence of abused women (her father was a lawyer), Elizabeth Cady Stanton became a prominent figure in the women’s rights movement. She penned important documents for the cause, collaborated with Susan B. Anthony, and co-organized the first women’s rights conference in 1848. “The world has never yet seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of women, the very fountains of life are poisoned at their source.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments, which expanded the Declaration of Independence to include women’s rights. She also wrote The History of Women’s Suffrage, The Women’s Bible, and an autobiography, Eighty Years and More. Her quote echoes her commitment to equality: “Womanhood is the great fact in her life; wifehood and motherhood are but incidental relations.”
Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone was an extraordinary figure who advocated for race and gender equality. In 1847 she became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a degree and in 1869 she co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association. “We want rights. The flour-merchant, the house-builder, and the postman charge us no less on account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these, then, indeed, we find the difference.”
Lucy Stone
Stone founded the Women’s Journal, a newspaper that advocated for women’s rights. In protest to inequality, she refused to pay taxes since she couldn’t vote. Stone also went against legal tradition and kept her last name instead of taking that of her husband’s. Her firm commitment to women’s rights paved the way for future feminists: “I believe that the influence of women will save the country before every other power.”
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass is one of the most famous activists from the 19th century. Highly educated, Douglass saw the inequalities that oppressed enslaved people and women, believing that everyone should have the same rights regardless of sex or race. His activism and advocacy for women’s rights made him an early feminist. “Woman should have justice as well as praise, and if she is to dispense with either, she can better afford to part with the latter than the former.”
