Emma of Normandy was a Norman-born noblewoman who became the English, Danish, and Norwegian queen through her marriages to the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred the Unready and the Danish king Cnut the Great. A daughter of the Norman ruler Richard the Fearless and Gunnor, she was Queen of England during her marriage to King Æthelred from 1002 to 1016, except during a brief interruption in 1013–14 when the Danish king Sweyn Forkbeard occupied the English throne. Æthelred died in 1016, and Emma married Sweyn's son Cnut. As Cnut's wife, she was Queen of England from their marriage in 1017, Queen of Denmark from 1018, and Queen of Norway from 1028 until Cnut died in 1035.
Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh is a member of the British royal family. She is married to Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, the youngest sibling of King Charles III.
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others, they are ignored and suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls, in favor of men and boys.
Sandra Birgitte Toksvig is a Danish-British broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer on British radio, stage and television. She is also a political activist, having co-founded the Women's Equality Party in 2015. She has written plays, novels and books for children. In 1994, she came out as a lesbian.
Linda Ann Bellos is a British businesswoman, radical feminist and gay-rights activist. In 1981 she became the first woman of African descent to join the Spare Rib collective. She was elected to Lambeth Borough Council in London in 1985 and was the leader of the council from 1986 to 1988.
Violence against women (VAW), also known as gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), is violent acts primarily committed by men or boys against women or girls. Such violence is often considered a form of hate crime, committed against persons specifically because they are of the female gender, and can take many forms.
Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura is a Sierra Leonean politician and social activist who has been serving as the Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) since 2018, appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. She served as the second United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict with the rank of Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations from 2012 to 2017, in succession to the first holder of the post, Margot Wallström. In 2017 she was succeeded by Pramila Patten.
Widad Akreyi is a Kurdish health expert and human rights activist. She has co-founded the human rights organization Defend International and is the author of several books about both health issues and human rights.
Salome Zourabichvili is a French-born Georgian politician, former diplomat and the fifth president of Georgia – the first female president in the country's history. As a result of the constitutional amendments that came into effect in 2024, Zourabichvili became the last popularly elected president; under the new constitutional rules, moving forward Georgian presidents are to be elected indirectly by a parliamentary college of electors.
The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is a human rights treaty of the Council of Europe opposing violence against women and domestic violence which was opened for signature on 11 May 2011, in Istanbul, Turkey. The convention aims at prevention of violence, victim protection and to end the impunity of perpetrators.
Louise Casey, Baroness Casey of Blackstock,, is a Crossbench peer and current British government official, where she serves as Lead Non-Executive Director.
Emma Sky, OBE is a British expert on conflict, reconciliation and stability, who has worked mainly in the Middle East. She served in Iraq as the political advisor to US General Ray Odierno and General David Petraeus during the surge. She is director of the International Leadership Center at Yale University, overseeing the Yale World Fellows Program and other initiatives. She is a Senior Fellow at Yale's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she lectures on Middle East politics and global affairs.
The modern-day character and the historical status of women in Denmark has been influenced by their own involvement in women's movements and political participation in the history of Denmark. Their mark can be seen in the fields of politics, women's suffrage, and literature, among others.
Nimko Ali, alternatively spelled Nimco, is a British social activist of Somali heritage. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership to end female genital mutilation (FGM).
Leyla Hussein is a Somali-born British psychotherapist and social activist. She is the founder of Dahlia project, one of the co-founders of the Daughters of Eve non-profit organization and a Chief Executive of Hawa's Haven. In 2020, Hussein was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews, making her the third woman and first woman of colour to hold this position. Hussein received significant criticism during her role as Rector of the University of St Andrews owing to her lack of involvement in the role.
2014 was described as a watershed year for women's rights, by newspapers such as The Guardian. It was described as a year in which women's voices acquired greater legitimacy and authority. Time magazine said 2014 "may have been the best year for women since the dawn of time". However, The Huffington Post called it "a bad year for women, but a good year for feminism". San Francisco writer Rebecca Solnit argued that it was "a year of feminist insurrection against male violence" and a "lurch forward" in the history of feminism, and The Guardian said the "globalisation of protest" at violence against women was "groundbreaking", and that social media had enabled a "new version of feminist solidarity".
Julie Louise Jo "Jules" Chappell is a British diplomat who served as British Ambassador to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras from 2009 to 2012. At age 31, she was Britain's youngest-ever ambassador.
Catherine Elizabeth Jane Arnold, is a British academic administrator and former diplomat. From October 2019 to October 2024, she was the Master of St Edmund's College, Cambridge: she was the fifteenth person to hold that post and the first woman. From May 2015 until 2018, she served as Her Majesty's Ambassador to Mongolia. After three degrees, she worked as a management consultant and then journalist and then joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2006.
Jacqueline Louise "Jacky" Perkins is a British diplomat who was the British Ambassador to Belarus from 2019 until 2024. Previous to that, she was the deputy head of mission in Kuwait.
