African Women Who Fought for Gender Equality
9 women in the archive worked for gender equality. They came from different countries and different centuries, but each of them saw a wrong that others accepted and set out to change it. Read their stories to see how the same cause looked from very different lives.
9 women in the archive
ContemporaryCaster Semenya
South African middle-distance runner who won Olympic gold in the 800m at Rio 2016 and is a two-time World Champion. She has been forced to fight World Athletics testosterone regulations and has become a global symbol of bodily autonomy and the right of women athletes to define themselves.
ContemporaryChimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Award-winning Nigerian novelist and feminist icon. Author of Purple Hibiscus, Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah, and the viral TED talk 'We Should All Be Feminists', which reached hundreds of millions of listeners after Beyoncé sampled it. One of the most influential voices on feminism, race, and African identity in the world today.
ContemporaryDerartu Tulu
Ethiopian long-distance runner who became the first Black African woman to win an Olympic gold medal, at Barcelona 1992. Her victory lap with white South African Elana Meyer became a symbol of post-apartheid reconciliation.
ContemporaryGertrude Mongella
Tanzanian stateswoman who served as Secretary-General of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women, the summit that produced the world's defining gender-equality blueprint, and became the first President of the Pan-African Parliament.
ContemporaryGrace Mary Mugasa
Ugandan politician and the first woman to serve as Mayor of Hoima, who guided the oil-rich municipality through its elevation to city status and later became a State Minister while championing gender equality and clean urban environments.
ColonialJosina Machel
Mozambican revolutionary and women's rights activist who organised women within FRELIMO's liberation struggle, creating social programmes for orphans and displaced women during the war for independence.
ContemporaryPhumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka
South African politician and activist who became the first female Deputy President of South Africa (2005–2008) and served as Executive Director of UN Women (2013–2021). She has championed the Generation Equality Forum and the global women's rights agenda.
ContemporaryTheresa Kachindamoto
Malawian paramount chief who has annulled over 3,500 child marriages in her district, sending girls back to school and challenging deeply entrenched traditions that rob girls of their futures.
ContemporaryVanessa Nakate
Ugandan climate justice activist who became the leading voice for Africa and the Global South after being literally cropped out of a photo with white activists. She turned that act of erasure into a platform heard at the UN, at Davos and at every major climate summit.