The Periodic Table of Feminism

How the table works

So what’s feminism got to do with the periodic table? Well, for starters, the language of chemistry lends itself readily to the lives of the women in the table; they are explosive free radicals, conductors and catalysts. They are reactionary, elemental, precious. They come together and create new, incredible things. If chemistry is the science of how things relate to one another and the world around them, then a feminist periodic table seems like a fine fit.

On the table itself, you will find like-minded individuals next to one another, grouped by the nature of their activism and their approach to the movement. Through the table you will see how women’s ideas spoke to one another and connected with each other, across countries and across ideologies and across generations. From the table, you will see the ways in which the movement came together and pulled apart; and the way it was full of individuals who held very different beliefs, yet shared a common goal. The table is not a list of the “best” feminists, but the story of feminism. As Gloria Steinem has said of women and the fight for equality, “We are linked, not ranked.”

The table is also categorized by waves. Caitlin Moran has said we’re “post wave” and Julie Bindel once said, “there’s enough waves in the sea, we don’t need them in feminism,” but it wouldn’t be feminism if everyone was happy. The “waves” are just rough guidelines to help historically shape the periods we’re talking about. Obviously, there aren’t neat beginnings and endings—and plenty of women existed in between the ebbs and flows—but I hope they serve to show a broader sea change, not a precise science.

Finally, this table is just the beginning—it is the front of a march, the voices of those with the loudest megaphones. Follow these women to wherever they take you and then dare to go even further.

Proto-Feminists

1. Bathsua Makin, 1600–1675

The middle-class Englishwoman was part of an emerging criticism of women’s role in both society and at home. In 1673 she wrote, An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentle-women, in Religion, Manners, Arts & Tongues, with an Answer to the Objections against this Way of Education.

2. Christine de Pizan, 1364–1430

The medieval Italian-French author wrote poetry and prose as well as practical advice for women. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that Pizan is “the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defence of her sex.”

3. Mary Astell, 1666–1731

Often described as the first English feminist, Astell was a writer who argued for equal education opportunities for women and that women were as rational as men. In 1694, she published A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest, which included a plan for an all-female college.

4. Aphra Behn, 1640–1689

The playwright, poet and fiction writer was one of the first women to earn a living writing. Virginia Woolf wrote of her, “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn… for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”

5. Olympe de Gouges, 1748–1793

The revolutionary French feminist and abolitionist published Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791. She argued for the equality of the sexes and she challenged male authority.

6. Toshiko Kishida, 1863–1901

One of Japan’s first feminists, Kishida gave speeches including her most well-known, “Daughters in Box,” which saw her arrested. Kishida argued that Japanese families were harming their daughters’ freedom.

7. Bibi Khanoom Astarabadi, 1858–1921

Pioneering the Iranian women’s movement, she founded the first school for girls in the modern history of the country. In 1895 she published The Imperfections of Men, considered by some as the first declaration of women’s rights in the recent history of Iran.

8. Marie de Gournay, 1565–1645

“Happy are you, reader, if you do not belong to this sex to which all good is forbidden,” wrote the French essayist in 1622 in her proto-feminist work The Equality of Men and Women.

9. Ching Shih, 1775–1844

A Chinese feminist pirate lord, she rose from prostitute to commanding 80,000 outlaws. Under her rule, rape was punishable by death.

10. Queen Nzinga, 1583–1663

The fearless African queen was the ruler of modern-day Angola and a shrewd international power player.

“Votes for women!”

This was the First Wave’s rallying cry against a backdrop of modernizing industrialization, the spread of liberal ideas and mounting challenges to political and social order.

While we are right to think of the First Wave through a purple, white and green haze, the fight for suffrage was the pinnacle of a wider struggle for personhood; for ownership of women’s own lives and identities; for their voices, ambitions, needs and ideas to be heard and acknowledged.

In this chapter you will meet a generation of “firsts”: radicals, pioneers and visionaries who bravely reimagined what a woman’s life could look like, and did whatever they could to make it a reality.

You will meet women who fought to take legal possession of not only themselves but of their children and money.

You will meet women who fought for access into the realms from which they had been excluded: the worlds of science, law, medicine, government and journalism.

You will meet women who fought to make the lives of their working sisters better, demanding eight-hour days, free education and childcare.

You will meet women who dedicated their lives to making birth control readily available to any who wanted or needed it.

You will meet African-American women, some born into slavery, who understood the intersectional nature of their oppression and articulated it over a century before Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term.

And, from meeting these women, you will understand how the tectonic plates of the world shifted from one century to another. From falling monarchs to rising empires, from unification to the growth of fascism and socialism, the world changed and the fight for women’s rights shifted with it.

The women you will meet here are only the tip of a feminist iceberg that began to dislodge patriarchal convention and oppression. History has a nasty habit of forgetting brilliant women, and yet the following pages cannot pay tribute to every single woman who fought to change the world. These are just a few of them, the ones whose stories tell the narratives that shaped this period. The women included here will make your heart race with their dedication, their fight, their relentless vision and their refusal to give in.

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

Visionary philosopher, writer and teacher UK; 1759–1797

The “mother of feminism” Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the founding western feminist texts, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in 1792.

A passionate call to arms, the short pamphlet demanded women reject the oppressive conventions of society, based on superficial ideas of beauty and femininity, and educate themselves to independence with reason and intellect, traits they had been wrongly told belonged to men, and men only.

It could be argued that the seeds of Wollestonecraft’s feminism were sown in her childhood. As a girl, Wollestonecraft often slept in front of her mother’s door to protect her from her drunk, violent father. She was outraged by the fact her brother spent more time at school than she did, and that he would inherit more. These personal experiences, along with the Enlightenment thinking she was exposed to throughout her life, led Wollstonecraft to believe that only education could keep women safe from the pitfalls and prejudices of men.

So, aged 25, Wollstonecraft set up a school for girls with her sister. During this time, she also made friends with key thinkers of the day, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, no less. Wollstonecraft began to publish her writings later in life, including A Vindication of the Rights of Men, a riposte to Edmund Burke’s damning take on the French Revolution, followed by A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which Virginia Woolf famously wrote inspired new “experiments in living.”

Over 100 years after it was written, this text was used to propel the suffragette movement and it is still published around the world to this day.

EMMELINE PANKHURST

Passionate and radical suffragette UK; 1858–1928

Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the British Suffragette movement.

Born in a Manchester suburb to political parents, she founded the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903, a nonpartisan group that included women of all classes and ages in the struggle for the vote.

The WSPU was born from Pankhurst’s frustration. She could see little progress being made by the constitutional approach of the Suffragists. Instead, Pankhurst believed radical action was needed. Along with her three daughters, Christabel, Sylvia and Adela, the WSPU decided that they would do whatever it took to achieve votes for women.

They insisted on “deeds not words,” a belief which led them to civil disobedience and vandalism, such as throwing stones through windows and setting alight letterboxes. Pankhurst once said “the argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in politics.”

After numerous arrests, hunger strikes, force-feeding and Christabel Pankhurst fleeing the country, the movement dispersed on the eve of the First World War. Tragically, Emmeline Pankhurst died on June 14, 1928, just weeks before the Equal Franchise Act was passed on the July 2, which gave the vote to all women over 21.

The lengths Emmeline Pankhurst went to to reach equality have rightfully earned her a place in history, and in 1999, on the eve of the millennium, Time magazine named Pankhurst “one of the most important people of the 20th century.” Pankhurst inspired countless women when she was alive, triggering the fight for the vote around the world, and she continues to inspire 89 years later, with an urgency that feels relevant today.

EMILY WILDING DAVISON

Daring political prisoner UK; 1872–1913

Emily Wilding Davison’s death—killed as she ran in front of the King’s horse in 1913—has become the ultimate symbol of Suffragette sacrifice.

However, long before that moment, Davison displayed her commitment to the Suffragette cause. She was arrested nine times and force-fed 49 times while in prison—a tactic that became synonymous with the militant suffragette movement.

On the night of the April 2, 1911, Davison hid in a cupboard in the Palace of Westminster during the census in order to claim the House of Commons as her residence on her census form and protest the political exclusion of women from voting and from Parliament itself. Today, thanks to the late Labour MP Tony Benn, the cupboard bears a plaque and picture to remember her.

Two years on from this census, on June 4, 1913, Davison was trampled to death by the King’s horse at the Epsom races. For decades, it was unclear whether her death was accidental—a stunt gone wrong, or political martyrdom? (A return train ticket was found on her person.)

In 2013, new technology was able to reexamine the footage from the three surviving newsreels of the race, revealing that Davison had actually been trying to tie a scarf of the Suffragette colors to the King’s horse. It was a tragic accident.

Her death was not in vain; her act has become the ultimate symbol of Suffragette sacrifice.

HENRIETTA DUGDALE

Relentless fighter Australia; 1827–1918

Henrietta Dugdale was a tireless fighter for women’s rights, helping to make Australia the second country in the world to grant women the right to vote in 1902.

In 1884, Dugdale formed the first Women’s Suffrage group in Victoria. However, her campaign really began back in 1869 when she wrote to a local newspaper about the Married Women’s Property Bill: “Some there are who say, ‘If we permit woman to go beyond her sphere, domestic duties will be neglected.’ In plainer language, ‘If we acknowledge woman is human, we shall not get so much work out of her.’”

Alongside this, Dugdale campaigned for women’s dress reform, access to university and education for the working classes. She also called for the eight-hour working day. By 1886, Dugdale’s suffrage group had over 300 members. She was 75 when Australia gave women the vote.

While this was a triumph for Women’s Suffrage in Australia, it’s important to note that it wasn’t until 1962 that Aboriginal men and women were given voting rights.

VIDA GOLDSTEIN

Parliamentarian Australia; 1869–1949

Vida Goldstein was the first woman in the British Empire to stand for election to a national parliament.

Her first foray into politics came when she helped her mother, an Australian Suffragist, collect signatures for the so-called “Monster Petition” in 1891 calling for women’s suffrage. Although it failed initially, it sparked Goldstein’s interest in the movement. As a result, Goldstein turned down offers of marriage to dedicate her life to the cause. She became one of the leaders of the movement, got involved with workers’ rights via the Anti-Sweating League, founded a newspaper called The Woman Voter, and went to the first international suffrage conference in Washington DC in 1902, where, according to one historian, she was treated like a rock star on arrival.

One of the reasons for the reception was presumably because Australia had just become the first country in the world to give women both the right to vote in federal elections and also the right to be elected to Parliament on a national basis.

This was Goldstein’s chance and although she was never elected, she ran for Parliament four times in total.