Born in El Paso, Texas and spent most of her childhood in her family’s ranch in Arizona. The schooling options in the area were limited, so she moved to live with her grandparents, where she studied at Radford School for Girls. O’Connor finished high school two years early, and at sixteen, she was admitted to Stanford University and earned her BA in Economics. By the age of 22, she already earned her law degree from Stanford University. Though she had impeccable qualifications, O’Connor had a hard time finding a job as an attorney due to bias and discrimination against women in the legal field. She turned down a paying job offer as a secretary and worked for free for the county attorney of San Mateo County, California. When she was only 24 years old, O’Connor moved to Frankfurt, Germany, to work as a civilian attorney for the US Army Quartermaster Corps for three years. When she returned to the USA, she opened her own law firm. At 35, she began working as the Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, and four years later she was appointed to the Arizona State Senate as a Republican to fill a vacate seat. After one year in this position, she was elected to the State Senate for a full term. O’Connor was reelected twice and served as the first female majority leader of any state senate. At the age 45, she was elected as a Superior Court justice in Maricopa County and afterward, was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in Phoenix. At the age of 51, O’Connor was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, becoming the first female justice to serve on the United States Supreme Court. As a Supreme Court justice, she emphasized the significance of equal-protection, promoted women’s interests, amended inequalities against women, and was a swing vote in cases regarding abortions and harassment against women. After 25 years of serving as a supreme justice, O’Connor retired to care for her husband, but she remained active both in court and in advocating for civic education for the youth. Read more...

Catharine Alice MacKinnon was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She attended Smith College, graduating magna cum laude with a B.A. in government, continued her education at Yale University, earning her J.D. in 1977 at the age of 31, and her Ph.D. in political science at 41 in 1987. During the 70s, MacKinnon became an active member of the newly formed women’s liberation movement. While in graduate school, she initiated a course that later will develop into Yale’s women’s studies program. As part of her law studies, MacKinnon wrote a paper in which she argued that sexual harassment in the workplace is a form of sex-based discrimination. That paper was the foundation of her first book, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination, published in 1978. In the book, MacKinnon categorizes two types of sexual harassment – sexual compliance in exchange for benefits and sexual harassment as a persistent condition. In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission adopted MacKinnon’s guidelines and prohibited both kinds of sexual harassment, and in 1986 the Supreme Court ruled in favor of MacKinnon’s argument in its first sexual harassment case. During the 80s, MacKinnon focused on legal issues in the sex industry, fighting it as a form of sex discrimination and human trafficking, arguing it as a civil rights violation. Alongside activist Andrea Dworkin, MacKinnon wrote an ordinance that allows women harmed by trafficking in pornography to sue the producers for damages. In 1998, MacKinnon’s and Dworkin’s law against prostitution passed in Sweden and was termed as the Swedish Model, and later was adopted in various countries, including Canada, France, Norway, and Ireland. In 1993, MacKinnon represented Bosnian survivors of Serbian sexual atrocities and achieved legal recognition of rape as an act of genocide. She continued to advocate against prostitution and trafficking crimes as a Special Gender Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and practiced nationally and internationally with organizations such as Equality Now, the ERA Coalition, and the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Throughout her career, MacKinnon served as a professor at several law schools; among them are Yale, Stanford, the Hebrew University, and the University of Basel. She was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. She is also a Roscoe Pound Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and an Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. MacKinnon published 17 books about sexual harassment, pornography, and prostitution, helping to change the legal system in the U.S and abroad in gendered-based sex crimes.   Read more...

Millicent Garrett Fawcett was born in Aldeburgh, England. At 12, she left her family to attend a boarding school in London. There, she met the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who introduced her to women’s rights activists, including Henry Fawcett, a Member of Parliament who was 14 years older than her, and in 1867 the couple got married. After the wedding, she worked as her husband’s secretary and started her writing career. She published articles and essays discussing women’s issues and her beliefs on equal opportunities for women and specifically women’s education. At 22, Fawcett attended her first suffrage movement meeting and soon joined the London Suffrage Committee. In the following year, she gave a speech at the first public pro-suffrage meeting, after which she became one of the leading speakers of the movement, giving lectures on the importance of women voting rights, mostly in schools for girls, women’s colleges, and adults education centers. In 1870, 23 years old Fawcett published the textbook Political Economy for Beginners, which became an immediate success, running through ten editions, translated into several languages, and aspired two novels. Two years later, she and her husband published a collection of essays titled Essays and Lectures on Social and Political Subjects. In 1875, she co-founded a college for women at the University of Cambridge, Newnham Hall, and served as its council. After her husband died in 1884, Fawcett sold her houses and moved in with her sister at Gower Street, Bloomsbury. She took a year off from public speaking. On her return to the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage, they asked her to administer the joint meetings of the suffrage societies that merged into the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) in 1897. In 1907, she was appointed president of the NUWSS. Her campaign’s approach to achieving women’s right to vote was moderate and peaceful, in contrast to the militant position of the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), led by Emmeline Pankhurst. She gave lectures, wrote articles and pamphlets. During WW1, Fawcett harnessed the NUWSS activities for the war efforts, supporting the services of hospitals in training camps in Scotland and Russia. The organization continued to campaign for women’s suffrage by emphasizing the contributions of women during wartime. Fawcett’s plan worked, mainly due to the movement’s actions during the war, the Representation of the People Act passed in 1918, giving women limited voting rights. Shortly after, when she was 72, Fawcett retired from her position as the president of the NUWSS, dedicating her time to writing. She also continued to launch and support other human rights campaigns, such as equal divorce rights, criminalizing incest, raising the age of consent, women’s access to the legal profession, stopping the white slave trade, and regulating prostitution in India. One of her most notable campaigns was against the Contagious Diseases Act, which required prostitutes to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases and imprisoned if positive, while the clients who infected the women were not required to get tested. She argued that the double standards of this and similar laws would continue to exist until women would be part of the decision-making process. Fawcett died at the age of 82 after dedicating her life to giving women a voice and promoting their rights, paving the way for generations of activist, feminist women. Read more...

Judith Sylvia Cohen was born in Chicago, Illinois. Her mother inspired her passion for art, and by the age of three, she began to draw and attend classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. In college, she studied Fine Arts at UCLA and was active at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, designing posters for the organization and serving as its corresponding secretary. At 20, she met Jerry Gerowitz, they got married in 1961, but two years later, he died in a car accident. Widowed at 23, she had an identity crisis, which eventually led her to change her last name from Cohen to Chicago, freeing herself from being connected to a man, by heritage, or by marriage. In her art, Chicago experimented with different media types, from drawing and sculptures to acrylic plastic and even fireworks and pyrotechnics. At the age of 26, she had her first solo show at the Rolf Nelson Gallery in LA, been one of only four women to display their work in that event. In that same year, Chicago married the sculptor Lloyd Hamrol and stayed married for 14 years. At 31, she took a teaching position at Fresno State College. She opened a women-only class, which soon became a full Feminist Art Program – the first feminist art program in the US. She rented a studio off-campus with her students, and in addition to art collaborations, they held reading and discussion groups, exploring their experiences and translating them into art. In 1972, together with Miriam Schapiro, Chicago founded the Womanhouse – a Hollywood mansion which was turned into a workshop and exhibition space, where women can create and display their art. In 1978, she founded the “Through the Flower” – a non-profit feminist art organization for educating about the importance of art and promoting it as a tool for emphasizing women’s achievements. In 1979, Chicago exhibited her most known work for the first time – “The Dinner Party.” The piece is a large triangle table, set for 39 places, each one commemorates a mythical or historical female figure, such as Virginia Woolf, Sojourner Truth, and Empress Theodora of Byzantium. The artwork symbolizes the struggle for equality women face in male-dominant societies. In 1980, she began to work on the installation – Birth Project, in which she reinterpreted the Genesis creation narrative by using images of childbirth, emphasizing women’s role in giving life. In 1985, she returned to work independently in her studio. In her next piece, “PowerPlay,” she explored the construct of masculinity by replacing the male gaze with a female’s one. In the same year, she married photographer Donald Woodman, with whom she collaborated on “The Holocaust Project: From Darkness into Light,” in which she examined her Jewish identity by exploring masculine power in the context of the Holocaust. Chicago continues to create and experiment with materials. In her art, she is challenging not only the male-dominated art world but also the conventional conceptions about society and women’s role in it. Her art has been exhibited all around the world and is on display in permanent collections in museums around the globe. Read more...

Bertha Sophie Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner was born in Prague, then in the kingdom of Bohemia, part of the Austrian Empire. Her father was from an aristocratic family, and her mother was of an untitled nobility, so Bertha was not considered part of the Austrian high nobility because of her “mixed” descent. Soon after she was born, her father died, and she and her mother moved to Brno to live with her maternal family. There, Bertha was introduced to literature and philosophy by her cousin Elvira. She also studied French, Italian, and English and became an accomplished pianist and singer. In 1856, after her mother gambled all their money, they moved to Vienna for a few years before relocating to Klosterneuburg, where Bertha published her first work, the novella Erdenträume im Monde. Due to their financial situation, Bertha tried to become an opera singer and took intensive vocal lessons. However, her stage fright impacted her performance, and she couldn’t secure a job. In 1873, at 30, Bertha began to work as the governess of the four girls of the von Suttner family. She and the girls had a close connection, and later she used the nickname they gave her, “Boulotte” (fatty), as her pseudonym B. Oulot. During that time, she developed a romantic relationship with the girl’s elder brother, Arthur Gundaccar von Suttner. In 1876, encouraged by her employers, who opposed her relationship with their son, Bertha applied and accepted a position as Alfred Nobel’s secretary-housekeeper at his Paris residence. After only one week, she returned to Vienna to secretly marry von Suttner. They eloped to Georgia and settled in Kutaisi, where they lived in poverty and worked as music and language teachers to the children of the local aristocracy. To supplement their income, both worked as writers, he covered the Russo-Turkish War, and Bertha contributed to the Austrian press and began working on her first novel, Es Löwos, published in 1906. In 1882, the couple moved to Tbilisi, where Bertha focused on her writing. The following year, she published her first significant political work, Inventarium einer Seele (Inventory of the Soul), claiming that world peace is inevitable because of technological advancement. In 1885, at 42, the Suttners returned to Austria, living in Harmannsdorf Castle in Burgschleinitz-Kühnring. For the next few years, she continued to work mainly as a journalist, writing primarily about peace and war issues. In 1889, Bertha published the pacifist novel Die Waffen nieder! (Lay Down Your Arms!). The book was translated into 12 languages and published in 37 editions, making her a leading figure in the peace movement. She used her rising status to promote pacifist ideas by any means possible. Among her many actions, she founded and chaired the German Peace Society, established the international pacifist journal Die Waffen nieder!, helped to fund the establishment of the Bern Peace Bureau, presented Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria a petition to establish an International Court of Justice, and participated in the First Hague Convention in 1899. To support herself financially, she continued to write novels in which she incorporated her pacifistic ideas. In 1904, 61 years Bertha embarked on a seven months tour across the US to promote universal peace and to attend the International Peace Congress in Boston. Her main argument was that the right to peace needs to be enshrined in international law, as it is an evolutionary necessity. In 1905, Bertha and her comrade Tobias Asser were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their contribution to developing an international order based on peace rather than war. She became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie), and the first Austrian laureate. She continued to campaign for international peace and against armament, and in 1911, at 68, Bertha was appointed a member of the advisory council of the Carnegie Peace Foundation. During the last months of her life, she worked on organizing the next Peace Conference, intended to take place in September 1914. She died of cancer in June of that year at 71. The conference was canceled; ironically, a week after it was supposed to take place, the heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, an event that triggered WWI. Read more...

Luce Irigaray was born in Blaton, Belgium. Not much is known about her upbringing and personal life because she believes that revealing details in the male-dominated academic establishment was usually used to challenge and criticize the works of women. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Catholic University of Leuven and later worked as a high school teacher in Brussels. In 1960, at 30, she moved to Paris to further her education, receiving a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Paris VIII in 1968. Her dissertation, an attempt to establish the grammar of dementia patients, was the basis of her first book Le Langage des déments, published in 1973. During the 1960s, she studied to become a psychoanalyst at Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic seminars at the École Freudienne de Paris (Freudian School of Paris). She then held a research position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Centre for Scientific Research). Combining her knowledge in both psychology and linguistics, she researched gender differences in language and concluded that speech is never neutral but always marked by sexual differences. In 1974, Irigaray published her second doctoral thesis, Speculum of the Other Woman, criticizing the roots of Western psychoanalysis. In this pioneering text, she argued that because Freud always used a boy as his paradigm of psychosexual development, the masculine was the norm, and girls and women got reduced to being inferior to males and functioned as commodities. She also claimed that in a culture where the line of descent goes from father to son, whose symbolism takes no account of the mother-daughter line, women do not exist as women but only as mothers subordinate to a patriarchal order, preferably as the mothers of sons. Her work received much criticism from Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, and she got dismissed from her teaching positions at the University of Vincennes. In 1977, she published the book This Sex Which is Not One, arguing that in a phallic-centered economy, women were a commodity because all forms of transactions were done and managed only between men. She played on the two meanings of “One” in the book title. The female was not sex because women got demoted to being nothing more than inferior men and did not exist in their own right, and the sex of women was not one because it was not reducible to one organ as men. In 1982, at 52, Irigaray began to serve as head of the Philosophy department at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. There, she worked on research that resulted in her 1984 book, An Ethics of Sexual. The book, in which she stated that Western culture is unethical because of gender discrimination, established her as an influential continental philosopher. She is also considered to be one of “The French Feminism,” together with the philosopher Helen Helene Cixous and others. Over the following decades, in addition to giving seminars and lectures throughout Europe, Irigaray continued to explore the differences between men’s and women’s languages. Through this research, she discovered a correlation between the language of men and women and the suppression of female thought and that gendered language patterns indicate subjectivity in women and male dominance. Her later work delved into the possibility of creating a female imagination that would allow women to speak as women and not as “lesser to men” and incorporate utopian speculation about possible ethics of sexual differences, in which she implied a recognition of a distinct male and female psychosexual economics that can coexist without one being reduced to the other. Read more...

Betty Naomi Goldstein was born in Peoria, Illinois, to a Jewish family. From a young age, she was active in Jewish and Marxist circles. In high school, she wrote for the school newspaper, but after her request to write a column was declined, she founded, with six other friends, a literary magazine which dealt with subjects relating to home life. After high school, she attended the all-female Smith College, and won a scholarship for her academic achievements. She published poems in the campus publications and became editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, which became more political under her leadership. After graduating summa cum laude with a major in psychology, she received a fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. At age 22, she started to write for left-wings and labors publications, first at Federated Press and then at UE News. At the time, she married Carl Friedan, and the couple had three children before their divorce in 1969. At the age of 31, she was dismissed from the newspaper because she was pregnant with her second child. Though she wrote as a freelance for several magazines, she was mainly a housewife, taking care of her family and doing household chores. She became restless and felt restrained and wondered if other women feel as she did. In 1957 she surveyed her fellow college graduates, asking about their experiences and satisfaction with their lives. The conclusions of the survey led her to write articles on the subject, which she called “The problem that has no name.” Those publications were the basis of her groundbreaking book – “The Feminine Mystique.” Published in 1963, the book explores the roles of women in society, their self-identity as homemakers, and finding fulfillment in life. It challenged the perception of sexism in US society and changed the context of the meaning of “women’s rights.” Not only it became a bestseller, but it also sparked the second wave of the women’s movement in the US. In 1966 Friedan co-founded the National Organization for Women and became its first president. The organization lobbied for equal rights matters, such as the outlaw of discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, enforcing civil rights laws against workplace discrimination, equal access to public places, establishing national daycare system and the legalization of abortion. Throughout the years, she founded various organizations focusing on women’s needs and women’s rights, including the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, the First Women’s Bank and Trust Company, and the National Women’s Political Caucus. She published six books, including The Second Stage and The Fountain of Age, and lectured at universities as well as women’s conferences around the world. She died at the age of 85 due to heart failure. To this day, she is referred as the “mother” of the modern women’s movement. Read more...

Anna Pauline Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents of mixed racial origins. At age 3, her mother had died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and not long after, her father also passed away in tragic circumstances. She was raised by her mother’s family in North Carolina and then New York City. Her application to Columbia University was declined because of her gender, so she attended Hunter College, as one of few students of color, and earned a degree in English. At the time, she secretly married William Roy Wynn, but she soon regretted that decision, disgusted by the act of having sex, and they parted a few months after. At 28, she applied to the University of North Carolina, this time she was rejected because of her race. Trying to change the university’s position, she wrote to various officials, from the university president to the US President. While on a bus at Petersburg, Virginia, she and her friend moved from the broken seats in the black section and sat in the white section. Refusing to return to the back, they were arrested and convicted of disorderly conduct (15 years before Rosa Parks). The Workers’ Defense League paid for their release. Murray’s personal experience with injustice led her to pursue a career in civil rights law, and at the age of 31, she began to study law at Howard University. Being the only woman in her department, she became utterly aware of sexism and discrimination against women, especially black women. She labeled this behavior as “Jane Crow,” by which she emphasized the struggle of African-American women for racial and gender equality. Murray graduated first in her class, but because of her gender, she was denied the fellowship at Harvard University, traditionally given to the class’s valedictorian. Instead, she did her post-graduate studying at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. At the age of 36, one year after passing the bar exams, she was hired as the state’s deputy attorney general and became the first African-American person to serve in this position. In that year, she was named “woman of the year” by the National Council of Negro Women.   In 1950, Murray published the book “States’ Laws on Race and Color” – an examination of the segregation laws in the US, in which she encouraged civil rights lawyers to claim segregation laws as unconstitutional instead of unequal. Later the book was credited as “The bible of the civil rights movement” and became a turning point for assessing segregation cases. After coining the term 20 years earlier, in 1965, she published the article “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” in which she examines Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its implications on women, comparing discriminatory laws as applied to women and men under Jim Crow Laws. The next year, she co-founded the National Organization for Women, as a parallel organization to the NAACP, focusing on women’s rights. In 1966, alongside Dorothy Kenyon, she argued a case in which the court ruled that jury selection cannot be discriminated by race or sex. Throughout her life, although she struggled with her sexual and gender identity, she was open about being a gender-nonconforming person, claiming she has an “inverted sex instinct.” She shortened her name to the gender non-specific “Pauli” and wished for a monogamous married life in which she was the man. She cut her hair short and wore pants instead of skirts. During the 1940s, she pursued hormone treatments to correct what she referred to as “personal imbalance,” and she even asked for an abdominal surgery to test if she had hidden male sex organs. Today she is recognized as one of the earliest transgender figures in US history. At the age of 62, Murray resigned from her academic position and enrolled in a General Theological Seminary. Five years later, she became the first African-American woman priest to be ordained by the Episcopal church. For the next seven years until her death in 1985, she ministered to the sick at a parish in Washington, DC.     More About Pauli Murray: Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice Pauli Murray In Her West End Neighborhood Walking Tour   Read more...

Jeanne Baret was born in La Comelle, France. Little is known about her early life, though she claimed that her mother had died soon after she was born and her father when she was 15. In her early 20s, Baret worked as a housekeeper to the naturalist Philibert Commerson, and the two developed an intimate relationship. In 1764, the two moved to Paris, where she gave birth and placed her child with a foster mother. In 1765, Commerson got invited to join as a botanist to the first French circumnavigation of the globe, led by the admiral and explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville. Wanting her by his side, Commerson enlisted Baret to the voyage as his valet and assistant. However, women were prohibited on French navy ships, so she disguised herself as a man. In December 1766, the ship Étoile left the port of Rochefort toward South America with Baret on board. Since Commerson had a lot of equipment to collect specimens, the ship’s captain gave up his big cabin to Commerson and his assistant, allowing Baret more privacy. Early in the voyage, Commerson suffered from seasickness, and an ulcer on his leg, so Baret spent much of the time attending him. While on shore, she did the heavy labor of carrying the equipment and collecting specimens. Along the journey, the ship stopped in Montevideo, Uruguay, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where Baret collected plants, shells, and stones; while sailing, she helped Commerson to catalog their findings. For two years, Baret managed to keep her true identity a secret, though there were rumors that she was, in fact, a woman. There are different versions of how her gender got revealed. One story claims that when reaching Tahiti in April 1768, the islanders immediately recognized that she was a woman, and they surrounded and threatened her until she had to be rescued back to the ship. Another record claims that in July 1768, while stopping in New Ireland (today part of Papua New Guinea), Baret was discovered by crew members who confronted and sexually assaulted her. Either way, when anchoring in Mauritius for supplies, Baret and Commerson decided to leave the ship and stay on the island as the governor’s guests. There, she continued to assist Commerson and went with him on collecting expeditions to Madagascar and Bourbon Island. By 1770, Baret gained independence and was granted property in Port Louis, where she ran a tavern. Commerson died in 1773, and in the following year, at 33, Baret married Jean Dubernat, a non-commissioned officer in the French Army. Soon after, they returned to France and settled in Saint-Aulaye. In 1785, the Ministry of Marine granted Baret a pension of 200 livres a year. The pension document acknowledges her achievement of circumnavigating the globe and her devotion and assistance to Commerson while recognizing she was a woman disguised as a man. She died at the age of 67. Read more...

Taylor Alison Swift was born in Reading, PA, and spent her childhood in her father’s Christmas tree farm. Her interest in music started at a young age, inspired by her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who was a professional Opera singer. By the age of 9, Swift was already performing at local productions and events and learned vocal and acting lessons in NYC. Not long after, she learned to play the guitar and began to write her own songs. At age 14, she moved with her family to Nashville, TN, so that she can pursue a career in country music. Two years later, she released her debut single “Tim McGraw.” At 19, Swift had released her second album “Fearless” and became the highest-selling country artist of the year as well as the youngest artist to win the Grammy Award for “Album of the Year.” In the following years, she has released two more albums – “Speak Now” and “Red,” for both she received multiple awards and recognition. Only 23 years old, Swift was ranked by Forbes magazine as the highest-paid celebrity under 30, with earnings of $57 million. Over time, Swift, who began her career as a country musician, became more pop-focused, as reflected in her 5th album “1989,” which includes the #1 hits “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space.” For this album, she won the Grammy Award both for “Album of the Year” and “Best Pop Vocal Album.” A few days before the release of her 6th album, “Reputation,” the track-list was leaked. Swift’s response was to post the complete 15 songs list on her Instagram page. Eventually, the album was the top-selling album of that year. Her tremendous success was accompanied not only by talent and hard work but also with an image of a “good girl.” Then, a memorable moment happened in 2009 when while she was attempted to accept her VMA award for Best Video by a Female Artist, Kanye West stormed the stage and told her that “Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.” She shook herself up and worked even harder, determent to rise to superstar status. Another turning point in her life and career happened after winning a sexual assault lawsuit against former radio host. Swift deserted the “good girl” position and started to speak her mind, sharing her social and political beliefs with her millions of fans. By 2018 she was described by the media as a political animal, interviewing on behalf of Democrats in a midterm election in her home state of Tennessee. Since then, in addition to being a super successful musician with many records and “Firsts,” Swift is also known as a philanthropist, human rights activist, a gender equality activist, and an advocate for LGBTQ rights. She founded an education center at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and donated money for various causes, such as children protection, and legal defense for women who’s been assaulted. Read more...