This is a list of important participants in the development of feminism.

Feminists 

 Lesley Abdela, British feminist fl. 2010
 Abigail Adams (1744–1818), First Lady of the United States
 Jane Addams (1860–1935)
 Sophie Adlersparre (1823–1895)
 Alfhild Agrell (1849–1923)
 Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), author of Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex
 Catharina Ahlgren (1734–1783), Swedish journalist and feminist
 Linda Martín Alcoff
 Alan Alda, U.S. actor (M*A*S*H* and The West Wing) who campaigned for Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and early 1980s
 Soteria Aliberty, Greek educator and writer
 Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner (1874–1930), German university lecturer
 Ellen Anckarsvärd (1833–1898), Swedish feminist
 Adelaide Anderson (1863–1936), British
 Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836–1917), British physician and suffragist
 Louisa Garrett Anderson (1873–1943), British physician and suffragette
 Jane Anger, author of Her Protection for Women, London: Printed by Richard Jones, and Thomas Orwin. 1589.
 Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906), American suffragette
 Anti-Flag, self-proclaimed feminists, who have written songs including Feminism is for Everyone (With a Beating Heart and Functioning Brain)
 Gloria E. Anzaldúa
 Maria Arbatova (born 1957), leading Russian feminist
 Lovisa Årberg (1801–1881), first woman doctor and surgeon in Sweden
 Concepción Arenal (1820–1893), activist, writer, thinker, pioneer, and founder of the feminist movement in Spain
 Margery Corbett Ashby (1882–1981), British
 Ottilie Assing
 Mary Astell (c. 1666–1731), author of Serious Proposal to the Ladies
 Hubertine Auclert
 Rachel Foster Avery
 Lois W. Banner, U.S. historian
 Marie Bashkirtseff
 Anna Bayerová (1853–1924), second Czech female physician
 Lydia Becker (1827–1890), British suffrage campaigner
 Catharine Beecher (1800–1878), American educator and author
 Helen Bentwich (1892–1972), British Chair of London County Council
 Signe Bergman (1869–1960), Swedish suffrage leader
 Annie Besant
 Julie Bindel, Guardian columnist and a campaigner against male violence, sex trafficking, and rape
 Rosa May Billinghurst (1875–1953), British suffragette
 Teresa Billington-Greig (1877–1964), British founder of the Women's Freedom League
 Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910), first female physician in the U.S.
 Barbara Bodichon
 Elsie Bowerman (1889–1973)
 Anne Bradstreet
 Fredrika Bremer
 Sophia Elisabet Brenner (1659–1724), Swedish salonist and poet
 Ursula Mellor Bright
 Emilia Broomé, Swedish politician
 Flora Brovina
 Antoinette Brown
 Susan Brownmiller
 Katherine Burdekin
 Lucy Burns
 Katharine Bushnell
 Josephine Butler (1828–1906), British
 Lydia Cacho
 Liz Carpenter, a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus
 Frances Jennings Casement
 Ana Castillo
 Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947), American women's rights activist
 Maria Cederschiöld, Swedish feminist
 Enid Charles (1894–1972)
 Phyllis Chesler
 Christina of Sweden (1626–1689), Queen
 Alice Whitcomb Clark
 Florence Claxton (fl. 1840–1879), English artist and author
 Voltairine de Cleyre
 Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and now Secretary of State and U.S. politician
 Kurt Cobain, self-proclaimed feminist, in defense of the song "Rape Me", which he described as an "anti-rape song."
 Francis Power Cobbe
 Nikki Craft
 Jill Craigie (1911–1999), British film maker
Minnie Fisher Cunningham (1882–1964) First president of League of Women Voters,First woman from Texas to run for the United States Senate
 Mary Daly, ethicist and theologian
 Emily Wilding Davison (1872–1913), British suffragette
 Simone de Beauvoir
 Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794), philosopher and mathematician of the French Enlightenment 
 Eoin Conroy
 Olympe de Gouges
 Marie de Gournay
 François Poullain de la Barre
 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695), Mexican nun and pioneer of female education in the Western hemisphere
 Francisco de Miranda (1750–1816), Precursor of Latin American Independence and military figure of the French Revolution
 Christine de Pizan (1365–1430)
 Josefina Deland (1814–1890), Swedish feminist
 Barbara Deming
 Marie Dentière (c. 1495–1561), Genevan Protestant theologian who called for the increased religious participation of women
 Charlotte Despard (1844–1939), British
 Frederick Douglass
 Carol Ann Duffy
 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
 Marguerite Durand
 Andrea Dworkin
 Norah Elam (1878–1961)
 Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), Communist writer and thinker; wrote The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
 Cynthia Enloe, International Relations scholar
 Dorothea Erxleben (1715–1762), first female physician in Germany
 Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847–1929), British leader of the suffragist movement
 Emily Faithfull (1835–1895), British
 Shulamith Firestone
 Louise Flodin, Swedish
 Mary Sargant Florence (1857–1954), suffragist, painter, and writer
 Betty Ford, former First Lady
 Isabella Ford (1855–1924)
 Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi
 Juliette Frette
 Marilyn Frye
 Margaret Fuller
 Matilda Joslyn Gage
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman
 Emma Goldman
 Vida Goldstein (1869–1949), Australian feminist politician
 Jane Gomeldon (died 1779), English essayist
 Jane Goodall
 Lois Gould
 Bettisia Gozzadini (1209–1261), held a chair in law at the University Bologna, Italy, probably the first woman ever to hold a university post.
 Jane Grant
 Angelina Emily Grimke
 Sarah Grimke
 Marianne Hainisch
 Bertha Harris
 Jane Ellen Harrison, British scholar
 Anna Hierta-Retzius (1841–1924)
 Shere Hite
 Sarah Hoagland
 Nicole Hollander
 Edith How-Martyn (1875–1954), British suffragette
 Julia Ward Howe
 Mary Howell
 André A. Jackson, African diamond administrator and philanthropist
 Aletta Jacobs (1854–1929), the first woman to complete a university course in the Netherlands and the first female physician
 Karla Jay
 Sheila Jeffreys
 Sonia Johnson
 Jill Johnston
 Christian Isobel Johnstone (1781–1857), Scottish journalist, editor, and novelist
 Marie Juchacz, German social reformer, feminist, and Member of the Reichstag
 Wendy Kaminer
 Aoua Keita
 Anna Kingsford (1846–1888)
 Alexandra Kollontai
 Louisa Lawson, Australian suffragist and women's rights campaigner
 Mary Lee, South Australian suffragist
 Anna Maria Lenngren (1754–1817), Swedish phoet
 John Lennon, self-proclaimed feminist who with wife Yoko Ono wrote the feminist song Woman is the Nigger of the World and Woman (John Lennon song)
 Anna Leonowens
 Gerda Lerner, post-Marxist
 Fredrika Limnell, Swedish
 Lizzy Lind af Hageby (1878–1963)
 Mary Livermore
 Audre Lorde
 Mina Loy
 Margaret Bright Lucas
 Rosa Luxemburg
 Constance Lytton, British suffragette
 Catharine MacKinnon
 Agnes Macphail, first woman elected to Canadian House of Commons and founder of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada
 Madonna, entertainer
 Soe Tjen Marching, Indonesian feminist
 Amanda Marcotte, American blogger and activist
 William Moulton Marston
 Harriet Martineau (1802–1876), British, writer
 Else Mayer
 Rosa Mayreder
 Susan McClary
 Nellie McClung
 Wendy McElroy
 Helen Priscilla McLaren
 Page Mellish
 Louise Michel, Paris Commune 1871–1880 and considered women's labor of comparable worth
 Harriet Taylor Mill (1807–1858), English thinker
 John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), English thinker and women's rights advocate
 Katti Anker Møller, Norwegian activist on behalf of single mothers and reproductive rights
 Agda Montelius (1850–1920)
 Honor Moore American writer of poetry, creative nonfiction and plays
 Cherríe Moraga
 Robin Morgan
 Lucretia Mott
 Anna Maria Mozzoni
 Clarina I. H. Nichols
 Helena Normanton British, first practising female barrister
 Martha Nussbaum
 Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW)
 Yoko Ono, Japanese American artist, filmmaker, and musician
 Grace Paley
 Christabel Pankhurst, British suffragette
 Emmeline Pankhurst, British suffragette
 Sylvia Pankhurst, British suffragette
 Alice Paul
 Eva Perón
Frédérique Petrides  (1903-1983) Belgian-American; one of the first women orchestral conductors and editor of Women in Music
 Marion Phillips
 Sylvia Plath, author of The Bell Jar
 Letty Cottin Pogrebin
 Katha Pollitt, author of Reasonable Creatures
 Sharon Presley
 Jerilynn Prior
 Madeleine de Puisieux (1720-1798), feminist writer
 Eleanor Rathbone, British
 Janice Raymond
 Claire Rayner, British
 Adrienne Rich
 Abby Rockefeller
 Rosalie Roos (1823–1898)
 Ernestine Rose
 Agnes Maude Royden, British suffrage campaigner
 Kathy Rudy
 Florence Rush
 Gita Sahgal, Indian feminist
 Sarojini Sahoo
 Celia Sánchez (1920–1980), in Cuban revolution and one of first women to comprise a combat squad during the revolution
 George Sand (1804–1876), French Novelist
 Flora Sandes, jingoistic female participant in Serbian conflicts during the First World War.
 Margaret Sanger
 Thomas Sankara, author of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle (1987 speech)
 Auguste Schmidt (1833–1902), pioneer of women's education in Germany
 Olive Schreiner
 Alice Schwarzer
 Rose Scott
 Barbara Seaman
 Baroness Seear, British
 Séverine
 Mary Shelley (1797–1851), English novelist
 Kate Sheppard
 Tarabai Shinde
 Emily Anne Eliza Shirreff (1814–1897), English activist and writer
 Elaine Showalter
 Ruth Simpson
 Barbara Smith
 Dame Ethel Mary Smyth
 Valerie Solanas
 Donita Sparks, musician
 Anna Garlin Spencer
 Elizabeth Cady Stanton
 Gloria Steinem
 Anna Sterky
 Helene Stöcker
 Lucy Stone
 Marie Stopes
 Mary Stott, British feminist journalist
 Karlina Leksono Supelli, Indonesian feminist
 Kazimiera Szczuka, Polish feminist, journalist, and critic and theoretician of the literature
 Táhirih (1814/20–1852), Bahá'í poet, philosopher, and theologian
 Elisabeth Tamm
 Joan Kennedy Taylor
 Thomas Thorild (1759–1808), Swedish poet and feminist
 J. Ann Tickner, International Relations scholar
 Sojourner Truth
 Harriet Tubman
 Urvashi Vaid
 Wil van Gogh
 Peng Wan-ru
 Nesta Helen Webster, early 20th-century U.K. conservative
 Trude Weiss-Rosmarin
 Joss Whedon, writer-director and creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
 Anna Whitlock, Swedish suffragette and school reformer
 Karolina Widerström 
 Frances Willard (1839–1898), American educator, temperance reformer, and suffragist
 Charlotte Wilson
 Monique Wittig
 Alice Wolfson
 Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
 Victoria Woodhull
 Virginia Woolf
 Frances Wright
 Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of Bitch and Prozac Nation
 Cathy Young
 Sande Zeig
 Clara Zetkin
 Rote Zora

Second-wave feminists 

 Bella Abzug
 Gloria E. Anzaldúa
 Ti-Grace Atkinson
 Lorraine Bethel
 Susan Brownmiller
 Charlotte Bunch
 Beatrix Campbell
 Thérèse Casgrain
 Shirley St. Hill Chisholm
 Sandra Coney
 Sonja Davies
 Angela Davis
 Simone de Beauvoir
 Carol Downer
 Cynthia Enloe
 Myrlie Evers
 Susan Faludi
 Melissa Farley
 Clara Fraser
 Elizabeth "Betty" Bloomer Ford
 Gerald Ford
 Jo Freeman (Joreen)
 Marilyn French
 Betty Friedan
 Carol Gilligan
 Heide Göttner-Abendroth, German
 Germaine Greer
 Carol Hanisch
 Donna Haraway
 Bertha Harris
 Nancy Hartsock
 Dorothy Hewett
 bell hooks
 Sheila Jeffreys, Australian radical feminist
Florynce Kennedy
 Coretta Scott King
 Anne Koedt
 Peggy Kornegger
 Jacqueline Livingston
 Angela Mason (1944-), British
 Kate Millett
 Robin Morgan
 Ann Oakley
 Griselda Pollock
 Erin Pizzey
 Janice Raymond
 Bernice Johnson Reagon
 Helen Reddy
 Sheila Rowbotham, British
 Joanna Russ
 Diana E. H. Russell
 Alice Schwarzer
 Lynne Segal
 Kato Shidzue, Japan
 Ann Simonton
 Eleanor Smeal
 Dale Spender
 Gloria Steinem
 Michele Wallace
 Hilary Wainwright
 Molly Yard

Third-wave feminists 

 Tori Amos
 Gloria E. Anzaldúa
 Margaret Atwood
 Jennifer Baumgardner
 Melissa Benn
 Giannina Braschi
 Susie Bright
 Carrie Brownstein
 Judith Butler
 Margaret Cho
Meg Waite Clayton
 Patricia Hill Collins, author of Black Feminist Thought
 Kimberly Dark
 Ani DiFranco
 Martha Davis
 Donna Dresch
 Betty Dodson
 Johanna Fateman
Tavi Gevinson
 Emily Haines
 Kathleen Hanna
 Donna Haraway
 bell hooks
 Holly Hunter
 Joan Jett
 Miranda July
 Marcelle Karp
Jamie Keiles
 Jean Kilbourne
 Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Korean-American theologian
 Barbara Kingsolver
 Ariel Levy
 Rosie Malek-Yonan, activist and author of The Crimson Field
 Inga Muscio
 Kathy Najimy
 Sandra Oh
 Alicia Ostriker
 Ellen Page
 Peaches
 Liz Phair
 Maria Raha
 JD Samson
 Marie-Laure Sauty de Chalon
 Gudrun Schyman
 Joan Smith
 Annie Sprinkle, American porn actress
 Debbie Stoller
 Nadine Strossen
 Lili Taylor
 Corin Tucker
 Robin Tunney
 Tobi Vail
 Jessica Valenti
 Rebecca Walker
 Natasha Walter
 Kaia Wilson
 Naomi Wolf
 Allison Wolfe
Julie Zeilinger

Ecofeminists 

 Carol J. Adams
 Helene Aylon
 Judi Bari
 Bernadette Cozart
 Mary Daly
 Françoise d'Eaubonne
 Lois Marie Gibbs
 Charlotte Perkins Gilman
 Susan Griffin
 Petra Kelly
 Anna Kingsford
 Winona LaDuke
 Wangari Maathai
 Maria Mies
 Vandana Shiva
 Monica Sjoo
 Charlene Spretnak
 Starhawk

French feminists 

 Olympe Audouard
 Hubertine Auclert
 Marie Bashkirtseff
 Hélène Cixous
 Simone de Beauvoir
 Olympe de Gouges
 Christine Delphy
 Maria Deraismes
 Fatou Diome
 Marguerite Durand
 Bracha L. Ettinger
 Colette Guillaumin
 Sibylle Gabrielle Marie Antoinette Riqueti de Mirabeau
 Gisèle Halimi
 Luce Irigaray
 Julia Kristeva
 André Leo
 Anaïs Nin
 Madeleine Pelletier
 Eugenie Potonie-Pierre
 Pauline Roland
 Marie-Laure Sauty de Chalon
 Séverine
 Flora Tristan

Muslim feminists 

 Leila Ahmed, Egyptian American writer
 Qasim Amin
 Shirin Ebadi
 Nawal el-Sadaawi
 Tahar Haddad, Tunisian writer
 Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah
 Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim
 Kartini, Indonesian
 Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani
 Elaheh Koulaei
 Irshad Manji
 Fatima Mernissi
 Taslima Nasrin, secular but of Muslim origin
 Asra Nomani
 Marjane Satrapi
 Huda Shaarawi
 Shahla Sherkat

References

Other websites 
 National Women's History Project
 FemBio - Notable Women International 

Lists of people