1. Malala Yousafzai
   Nawal El Saadawi
2. Taslima Nasrin
   Sabeen Mahmud

A fierce advocate for human rights advocacy and the education of women, 21-year-old Malala Yousafzai is truly a modern-day feminist icon. Though she started by promoting education in her native Swat Valley, where the Taliban banned girls from school, her impact has since stretched worldwide.

1. Betty Friedan
   Gloria Steinem
2. Dorothy Parker
   Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which historians often deem the first women's rights and suffrage movement in the U.S. She headed the National American Woman Suffrage Association and also was as a prominent abolitionist.

1. Naomi Wolf
   Margaret Fuller
2. Betty Friedan
   Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer's 1970 book, "The Female Eunuch," sparked considerable controversy at its release and still remains relevant to this day. In the book, Greer argues that women are forced to serve submissive roles in society in order to fulfill male fantasies.

1. Rebecca West
   Audre Lorde
2. Naomi Wolf
   Alice Walker

Audre Lorde's extensive collection of poetry and prose explores issues like feminism, lesbianism and civil rights. She also discussed the lack of intersectional feminism in the U.S., an issue that remains contentious and relevant to this day. In one famous statement, she specifically addressed those "who stand outside the circle of society's definition of acceptable women."

1. Linda Bellos
   Alice Walker
2. Susan Sontag
   bell hooks

bell hooks' 1981 book "Ain't I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism" criticized the rampant racism in second-wave feminism. She also wrote several more vital works, including the extremely popular 2000 book, "Feminism is for Everybody," which calls for unity to combat inequality.

1. Emma Goldman
   Andrea Dworkin
2. Linda Bellos
   Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay's collection of essays also explores what it means to be a feminist while simultaneously enjoying things that may seem contradictory to this ideology. She also encourages people to stop deriding feminism when it falls short of society's expectations; instead, criticize the "flawed people who act in the name of the movement."

1. Angela Carter
   Susan B. Anthony
2. Emma Goldman
   Simon de Beauvoir

Born into a Quaker family, Susan B. Anthony founded several women's rights and anti-slavery institutions. In 1872, police arrested Anthony for voting in Rochester, NY. In response, Anthony and Stanton organized the presentation of an amendment granting women the right to vote, which Congress introduced. In 1920, it became the 19th Amendment.

1. Erin Pizzey
   Simone de Beauvoir
2. Christine de Pizan
   Pauli Murray

Simone de Beauvoir's magnum opus, "The Second Sex," explored the subordination of women and woman as "the other." Her famous quote, "One is not born a woman, but becomes one," remains highly cited in contemporary trans-feminist theory.

1. Helena Kennedy
   Margaret Sanger
2. Ruth Bader Ginsberg
   Eleanor Rathbone

One of the only women in her law school classes, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, also known as the "Notorious R.B.G.," has become among the most highly respected justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Throughout her legal career, she strategically and effectively combated a number of gender discrimination cases, changing the law one step at a time. Her trick? She often selected male plaintiffs as a way to convince (mostly male) judges how gender discrimination harms both men and women.

1. Lena Waithe
   Tarana Burke
2. Laverne Cox
   Laura Bates

Activist and grassroots organizer Tarana Burke has worked tirelessly throughout her life to support victims of sexual assault. She started the viral #MeToo movement, which continues to enormously impact cultural discussion and actionable measures surrounding assault. She currently directs Girls for Gender Equality and in 2017, she became one of Time's people of the year.

1. Alice Walker
   Angela Davis
2. Doris Lessing
   Erin Pizzey

Author of "The Color Purple" and prominent activist Alice Walker played a fundamental role in the civil rights and radical feminism movements of the '60s and '70s. In 1983, Walker used the term "womanist," which she said means "A black feminist or feminist of color."

1. bell hooks
   Frida Kahlo
2. Linda Bellos
   María Izquierdo

Frida Kahlo's acclaimed works often explored issues related to identity, gender, race, class and post-colonialism. In the 1970s, her early 20th-century works were rediscovered and revered by Chicanos, the LGBTQ community and feminists for her unflinching portrayals of her experience as a female, indigenous and disabled woman.

1. Taslima Nasrin
   Yara Sallam
2. Samira Ibrahim
   Nawal El Saadawi

A childhood victim of female genital mutilation, Nawal El Saadawi has campaigned against the horrific practice for decades. She has also written several books on the topic of women in Islam, heads the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, and co-founded the Arab Association for Human Rights.

1. Sylvia Plath
   Susan Sontag
2. Gloria Steinem
   Caitlin Moran

Feminist, journalist and activist Gloria Steinem served as a spokesperson in the '60s and '70s feminist movement. She co-founded the feminist publication Ms. magazine and wrote several columns for New York magazine. Her 1969 article "After Black Power, Women's Liberation," propelled her to international acclaim. Today, at age 85, Steinem continues to lecture about equality.

1. Pauli Murray
   Marie Stopes
2. Rebecca West
   Emma Goldman

In the 1920s through the '40s, suffragist Rebecca West earned high acclaim for her writing, which included several bold pieces on feminism and socialism. "I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is," West once admitted, "I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."

1. Aung San Suu Kyi
   Wai Wai Nu
2. Zin Mar Aung
   May Sabai Phyu

Kyi currently is the first and incumbent State Counsellor of Myanmar, which is similar to a prime minister role. She also heads the National League for Democracy and became the first woman to serve in several high-ranking roles in the nation, including Minister for Foreign Affairs. "In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued," Aung San Suu Kyi once said.

1. Margaret Atwood
   Alice Munro
2. Ursula K. Le Guin
   Edith Wharton

Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" quickly became considered a feminist classic. While many debate Atwood's stance on feminism, the author herself once said, "Does feminist mean large, unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it's the latter, so I sign up."

1. Zadie Smith
   Edith Wharton
2. Octavia E. Butler
   Angela Carter

Angela Carter's critically praised fiction is often called feminist and magical realist. She often wrote spinoffs of fairytales, including "The Bloody Chamber," which is a series of updated takes on European classics like "Little Red Riding Hood."

1. Red Aunts
   Fifth Column
2. Riot grrrl
   Pussy Riot

Moscow-based Pussy Riot members are outspoken advocates for feminism, LGBTQ rights and opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. They have staged several guerrilla performances over the years. In 2012, Russian police arrested three members due to a performance staged inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They have since been released on amnesty.

1. Zora Neale Hurston
   Alice Munro
2. Doris Lessing
   Alice Walker

Doris Lessing's 1962 magnum opus, "The Golden Notebook," has often been hailed as a feminist text, and in 2007, she became the 11th woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. While many debate her feminist identity, critics often read her works through that lens. Of her Nobel Prize, she said, "I've won all the prizes in Europe, every bloody one, so I'm delighted to win them all. It's a royal flush."

1. Margaret Sanger
   Agatha Christie
2. Alice Walker
   Angela Davis

In 1970, political activist and university lecturer Angela Davis served 18 months in jail for aiding in the attempted escape of imprisoned black radical George Jackson, which led to activists across the states sporting "Free Angela" tees. She has also been a vocal feminist, once stating, "Feminism involves so much more than gender equality...it has to involve a consciousness of capitalism and racism and colonialism and post-colonialities."

1. Margaret Atwood
   Virginia Woolf
2. Naomi Wolf
   Alice Walker

Virginia Woolf published several acclaimed novels and essays, including the 1927 feminist work "A Room of One's Own," based on lectures she gave at the women's constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. In the essay, she states that "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

1. Sojourner Truth
   Alice Walker
2. Rosa Parks
   Ella Baker

Born into slavery in 1797, Sojourner Truth escaped with her infant daughter to the free state of New York in 1826. In 1828, she successfully fought in court to recover her son, which made her the first black woman to win a legal case in opposition to a white man. Truth famously said, ""If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them."

1. Sarah McBride
   Raquel Willis
2. Angelica Ross
   Laverne Cox

"Orange is the New Black" star Laverne Cox became the first openly transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy, to receive an Emmy nomination for acting and to be featured on the cover of Time and Cosmopolitan. "I've never been interested in being invisible and erased," Cox said.

1. Anna Valencia
   Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
2. Mary Elizabeth Taylor
   Cassandra Levesque

In spite of the ire she receives, Ocasio-Cortez has fought tirelessly to combat the status quo and to advocate for women and minorities. She proudly wore Suffragette white to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, brought feminist activist Ana Maria Archilla as her date, and sported a badge that said: "Well-behaved women seldom make history."

1. Sonia Delaunay
   Marie de Medicis
2. Marie Curie
   Christine de Pizan

At a time when society viewed writing as a near unfathomable occupation for a woman, Christine de Pizan authored several novels, served as an important political thinker and moralist, and worked as a court writer during the reign of Charles VI. Her famous 1405 novel, "The Book of the City of Ladies," challenges the era's rife misogyny in its depiction of a fictional city where important historical women lived.

1. Romana Bashir
   Taslima Nasrin
2. Nasreen Pervin Huq
   Faiza Khan

Taslima Nasrin received her medical degree in Bangladesh and soon after published several books of poetry and prose that often explored the theme of female oppression. In response to her criticism of Islam, hundreds of thousands marched in the streets demanding her execution, causing her to seek exile in Sweden. Since then, she has remained a prolific writer and activist, but not without considerable blowback.

1. Sylvia Plath
   Emily Dickinson
2. Gwendolyn Brooks
   Elizabeth Bishop

After her death at age 30, Sylvia Plath received widespread acclaim for her groundbreaking "confessional" poetry and 1963 novel, "The Bell Jar," both of which are often interpreted through a feminist lens. She once said that "Apparently, the most difficult feat for a Cambridge male is to accept a woman not merely as feeling, not merely as thinking, but as managing a complex, vital interweaving of both."

1. Ivie Okujaye
   Olufunke Baruwa
2. Funmi Falana
   Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Though she was widely criticized for comments she made on transgender women (that seemed to suggest that she doesn't deem them "real women"), Adichie nonetheless remains a very high-profile and influential feminist. She has published several acclaimed novels, tirelessly advocated for gender equality and LGBTQ rights and, in 2008, received a MacArthur Genius Grant. Of trans women, she has since clarified that "of course they are women."

1. Dorothy Parker
   Marion Reid
2. Betty Friedan
   Margaret Fuller

Reid's book argued for the advancement of women, including the right to vote and to equality in education, for the benefit of all humanity. "It is designed to show that social equality with man is necessary for the free growth and development of a woman's nature," she said.

1. Alice Walker
   Naomi Wolf
2. Rosa Parks
   Coretta Scott King

Coretta Scott King was a longtime, persistent advocate for women, minorities and the LGBTQ community. She played a central role in founding the National Organization for Women, and at the time she met her future husband, she was more politically active than he was, according to MLK's biographer. "I am made to sound like an attachment to a vacuum cleaner," King said, "The wife of Martin, then the widow of Martin, all of which I was proud to be. But I was never just a wife, nor a widow."

1. Rebecca West
   Pauli Murray
2. Alice Walker
   Linda Bellos

In 1977, Murray made history by becoming the first to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. She also was a prolific lawyer and author, always fighting for the advancement for women's rights and civil rights. Her 1950 book, "States' Laws on Race and Color," has been called a civil rights "bible." Alongside the likes of Coretta Scott King, she also co-founded the National Organization of Women.

1. Linda Bellos
   Emma Goldman
2. Julie Burchill
   Pauli Murray

Linda Bellos played a particularly important role in the radical feminist movement of the '70s and '80s. As a lesbian feminist, she argued for women's issues that take into account social class, ethnic identity, sexual identity, religion and disability. At the time, this approach was unpopular. From 1986 to 1988, she served as a labor councillor to Lambeth London Borough Council, making her the second black woman to lead a British local authority.

1. Louisa May Alcott
   Edith Wharton
2. Josephine Butler
   Virginia Woolf

This renowned 19th century writer also fought against slavery and women's inequality. She held suffrage meetings and became the first woman to register to vote in her Concord, Massachusetts' town's school election, paving the way for other women to do so. "So hard to move people out of the old ruts," Alcott said. She also attended the Women's Congress of 1875.

1. Mary Wollstonecraft
   Betty Friedan
2. Naomi Wolf
   Dorothy Parker

Another co-founder of the National Organizer for Women, Betty Friedan sparked commotion with her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique." The book dismantled the widely propagated myth that women wanted to stay at home, which helped fuel an entire movement.

1. Margaret Fuller
   Dorothy Parker
2. Rebecca West
   Andrea Dworkin

Nineteenth century journalist, author and critic Margaret Fuller organized groups for women who were denied access to higher education. In 1843, she also wrote "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," which many laud as the nation's first feminist text. In the work, Fuller claimed that humanity was on the brink of an awakening that would call for women and men to be equals.

1. Mary Wollstonecraft
   Emma Goldman
2. Erin Pizzey
   Margaret Sanger

Writer, philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft abandoned her governess position to write, had a baby out of wedlock, and when she did marry, opted to live in a house next to her husband's—all of which was nearly unheard-of at the time. Her 1792 magnum opus, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," argued that women are not inferior to men, but may appear to be because they are denied education. "I do not wish [women] to have power over men, but over themselves," Wollstonecraft said.

1. Florence Griffith Joyner
   Serena Williams
2. Venus Williams
   Maria Sharapova

Serena Williams holds the Open Era record with 23 grand slam singles titles, making her the greatest tennis player of our time. She also serves as an outspoken advocate for gender equality, particularly for women of color, and for body positivity. "As we known, too often women are not supported enough or are discouraged from choosing their path," Williams said. "I hope together we can change that."

1. Josephine Butler
   Margaret Sanger
2. Barbara Castle
   Eleanor Rathbone

In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the nation's first birth control clinic. For speaking publicly about contraception, police arrested her at least eight times. "No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body," Sanger said. "No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother."

1. Naomi Wolf
   Eleanor Rathbone
2. Susan Sontag
   Marie Stopes

Many hail Wolf's book as a benchmark of third-wave feminism. In the work, Wolf argued that women's increased social power led to more emphasis on female appearance as a way to continue to subordinate women. "A cultural fixation on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty but an obsession about female obedience," Wolf said.