Japanese novelist and poet Murasaki Shikibu served as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period, in the late 900s and early 1000s CE. While she is best known for the three-part novel The Tale of Genji, 128 of her poems were gathered into a collection of Poetic Memoirs, and her diary serves as a fascinating look at court life in this period.
1600s Italian scholar, one of the first women to receive an academic degree from a university and the first to receive a Doctor of Philosophy
Chinese historian, philosopher, and politician, the earliest known female Chinese historian
Syrian-Mexican essayist, fiction writer, and poet
1300s and 1400s Italian-born French writer, philosopher, composer and feminist
In 1905 she served as the first female President of the American Psychological Association and in 1908 was ranked twelfth on a 1908 list of the top 50 psychologists in the country. Calkins also served as President of the American Philosophical Association in 1918.
An influential lesbian feminist and avant-garde writer, Monique Wittig (1935-2003) challenged the heteronormativity of early Second Wave French feminists and was an active novelist, philosopher, and activist.
Danuta Gierulanka was a Polish mathematician, philosopher and psychologist. She wrote interesting works on mathematical education and on the philosophy of mathematics.
American activist who worked tirelessly for women’s rights, especially suffrage and the abolition of slavery.
French intellectual and advocate for the downtrodden