When We Are Bold

Women Who Turn Our Upsidedown World Right

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Bold Women

  Elizabeth Abbott  tells the story of  Jane Goodall
the inspired writer

Elizabeth Abbott is an award-winning Canadian writer and historian with a particular interest in women’s issues, the welfare of animals, and the environment. Her most recent book, The History of Marriage (2010), is the final in a trilogy about human relationships.

the bold woman

Jane Goodall is one of the world’s leading primatologists. Her work in the 1960s revolutionized our understanding of chimpanzee behaviour, and challenged traditional research methodology. She now travels the world speaking about conservation and animal rights, and is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, which seeks to improve global understanding of great apes and help protect their habitat.

  Julia Alvarez  tells the story of  The Mirabal Sisters
the inspired writer

Julia Alvarez is a writer who was born in New York City to Dominican parents, and raised between the two countries. Her father, an activist who resisted the Trujillo dictatorship, was forced to flee to the US with their family in 1960. In 1994 Alvarez published In the Time of the Butterflies, a novel recounting the story of the Mirabel sisters. She has written 22 books, including novels, nonfiction and works of poetry and stories for young readers of all ages.

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The Mirabal Sisters were four sisters from the Dominican Republic who led an opposition movement against the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the late 1950s. On November 25, 1960, three of the four sisters were murdered on orders from Trujillo. Their death sparked outrage across the country and eventually led to Trujillo’s assassination. In their honour, the United Nations in 1999 designated November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

  Sanam Naraghi Anderlini  tells the story of  Cora Weiss
the inspired writer

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is an Iranian-born British researcher and consultant to the United Nations on women, conflict and peacebuilding. She is co-founder and executive director of a non-governmental organization, the International Civil Society Action Network. Along with Cora Weiss and other prominent women’s rights advocates, she lobbied the U.N. Security Council to pass the historic UNSC Resolution 1325.

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Cora Weiss is President of the Hague Appeal for Peace, an international network dedicated to the abolition of war and making peace a human right. An activist since the 1950s, Weiss’ work has included breaking race barriers in the 1960s, a leadership role in the anti-Vietnam war movement, convening women peacemakers during the Cold War and, in 2000, helping realize the historic United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 that recognizes the essential role of women as peacebuilders.

  Nahlah Ayed  tells the story of  Latifah Ibn Ziaten
the inspired writer

Nahlah Ayed is an award-winning foreign correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), based in London. She has reported extensively on Europe and the Middle East, covering several major conflicts and the Arab Spring protests. Raised in Canada, she is of Palestinian descent, and spent time as a child in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. She is the author of A Thousand Farewells: A Reporters’ Journey from Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring.

the bold woman

Latifah Ibn Ziaten is a Moroccan-born French activist who lost her son to an extremist attack in 2012. After her son’s death, Latifah dedicated her life to combatting radicalization through tolerance and interfaith understanding. She travels throughout France giving talks on the subject, and is the founder of the Imad Association for Youth and Peace, which aims to help youth in troubled communities. In 2016, she won an International Women of Courage Award.

  Doreen Baingana  tells the story of  Betty Oyella Bigombe
the inspired writer

Doreen Baingana is an award-winning author and editor from Uganda. Her short-story collection, Tropical Fish, won the Commonwealth Prize First Book Award in 2006.

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Betty Oyella Bigombe was a key figure in peace negotiations with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda starting in the 1990s, acting as the main mediator between the LRA and the Ugandan government, even holding talks with rebel leader Joseph Kony. She is now the Senior Director for Fragility, Conflict and Violence at the World Bank.

  Cindy Blackstock  tells the story of  Shannen Koostachin
the inspired writer

Cindy Blackstock is a First Nations activist and the Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. In 2007, she filed a complaint pursuant to the Canadian Human Rights Act claiming the Canadian government was racially discriminating against 163,000 First Nations children and their families by paying less for child welfare services on reserves.

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Shannen Koostachin was a young activist from the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Canada. At 12 years old, Shannen launched a social media campaign demanding a new school for her community. The campaign gained national attention and inspired thousands of children across Canada. Shannen died in a car accident at the age of 16, but her campaign continues through the Shannen’s Dream Foundation.

  Lydia Cacho  tells the story of  Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos
the inspired writer

Lydia Cacho is one of Mexico’s most prominent investigative journalists. Cacho’s writing is primarily focused on violence against and sexual abuse of women and children. She has a won a number of international awards for her work, including Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children’s Rights and the Oxfam/Novib Pen Award.

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Marcela Lagarde y de los Ríos is one of Mexico’s most influential feminists. An anthropologist, academic and former politician, Lagarde is credited with introducing the concept of “femicide”—the systematic disappearance and killing of women, in which the state is complicit either directly or by perpetrating impunity for such crimes—to Latin America. Her research on femicides contributed to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights verdict in 2009 against Mexico for its failure to protect hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez.

  Casey Camp-Horinek  tells the story of  Jewell Faye McDonald
the inspired writer

Casey Camp-Horinek is a Native rights activist, environmentalist and actor from the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma. She is known for her work on such films as Share the Wealth (2006) and Running Deer (2013).

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Jewell Faye McDonald was six years old when she was taken from her Ponca family and sent to a Bureau of Indian Affairs Boarding School in Oklahoma. When she returned to her community as a teenager, she was reintroduced to the customs, knowledge and traditions of her people, which she passed on to her six children, some of whom today are prominent Native rights activists and environmentalists.

  Robi Damelin  tells the story of  Ginn Fourie
the inspired writer

Robi Damelin lost her son to a Palestinian sniper in 2002. Now, as the Director of the Women’s Group for the Parents Circle-Families Forum in Israel, she promotes peace and reconciliation alongside other Israelis and Palestinians who have lost someone to the conflict.

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Ginn Fourie is a South African activist whose daughter was killed during apartheid. She works for reconciliation, peace and community building in South Africa and beyond, through various initiatives, including the Lyndi Fourie Foundation, which she co-founded with Letlapa Mphahlele, the man who masterminded the attack that killed her daughter.

  Alexandra Fuller  tells the story of  Wangari Maathai
the inspired writer

Alexandra Fuller is the award-winning author of five works of nonfiction, including Leaving Before the Rain Comes and Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, a memoir about her childhood in Rhodesia during conflict (the country gained its independence and was later named Zimbabwe), Malawi and Zambia. She now lives in the U.S.

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Wangari Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. In 1977, she founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization dedicated to the planting of trees, environmental conservation and women’s rights. In 2004, she became the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to sustainable development, democracy and peace. In 2006, she helped to co-found the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Wangari died in 2011.

  Danai Gurira  tells the story of  Leymah Gbowee
the inspired writer

Danai Gurira is a U.S.-born actor and playwright raised in Zimbabwe. Her highly acclaimed Broadway play, Eclipsed, tells the story of the lives of five women near the end of the Second Liberian Civil War. Gurira is well-known for her role on the popular television series The Walking Dead.

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Leymah Gbowee won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work leading a women’s peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War. She travels the world speaking to audiences about gender-based violence and women-led peace building in conflict countries. She is the founder and president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, a co-founder of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, and is on the board of directors of Nobel Women’s Initiative.

  Valerie M. Hudson  tells the story of  Gloria Steinem
the inspired writer

Valerie M. Hudson is a professor and award-winning author who was named one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy in 2009. She has written or co-authored a number of books focused on gender and foreign policy including Sex and World Peace (2012), which outlines how the security of women is a key factor in the security and peace of the state. She is also the founder of The WomanStats Project, which seeks to develop the most comprehensive database on the situation and status of women throughout the world.

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Gloria Steinem is one of the most influential and defining feminists of the past century. Born in the U.S., Steinem started as a journalist and came to prominence as a leader of the women’s movement in the 1960s. Now in her 80s, Steinem continues to write about and speak on issues impacting women around the world, including peace and security.

  Rana Husseini  tells the story of  Nawal El Saadawi
the inspired writer

Rana Husseini is a reporter and human rights activist whose 2009 book Murder in the Name of Honour brought so-called crimes of honour to national attention in her native Jordan. She is a reporter with The Jordan Times, and a board member of Equality Now, an international human rights organization dedication to women’s rights.

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Nawal El Saadawi is a prolific Egyptian author, playwright, human rights activist and physician, and one of the leading feminists of her generation. Her books, which often address feminist issues that are taboo in Arab societies, have regularly been banned in Egypt and other Arab countries. Her recent work on women’s rights has focused on eliminating the widespread practice of female genital mutilation.

  Zubeida Jaffer  tells the story of  Charlotte Mannya Maxeke
the inspired writer

Zubeida Jaffer is an award-winning South African author and journalist and who was active in the anti-apartheid and trade union movements, and has been at the forefront of action to ensure more diverse voices are included in South African journalism. Her most recent book, Beauty of the Heart, details the life and work of Charlotte Mannya Maxeke.

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Charlotte Mannya Maxeke became her country’s first black female university graduate in 1901, and eventually was known as the “Mother of Black Freedom” in South Africa. A talented singer, Charlotte performed throughout Britain and North America with a choir group, and completed her Bachelor in Science at Wilberforce University in Ohio. On her return to South Africa, she became a social activist, fighting for the rights of women and black South Africans, particularly the right to education.

  Kathy Kelly  tells the story of  Mairead Maguire
the inspired writer

Kathy Kelly is an American pacifist and highly acclaimed peace activist, and the co-coordinator of Voices for Creative NonViolence. She has traveled to Iraq twenty-six times, including combat zones during the early days of both US-Iraq wars, and her most recent travel focuses on Afghanistan and Gaza, along with domestic protests against U.S. drone policy. She has been arrested more than sixty times at home, and abroad, and in 2000 was nominated for the Nobel peace prize by the American Friends Service Committee.

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After three of her sister’s children were killed during the violence between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Mairead Maguire organized massive demonstrations and other action calling for a nonviolent end to the conflict. Along with Betty Williams, she is the co-founder of Peace People, and together the two women won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976. She has spent her life since then to bearing witness to oppression and standing in solidarity with people living in conflict, including in Palestine, Afghanistan and, most recently, in Syria.

  Louise W. Knight  tells the story of  Jane Addams
the inspired writer

Louise W. Knight is an American historian and author of two books about the life of Jane Addams –Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy and Jane Addams: Spirit in Action. She is currently writing a book about the Grimké sisters, two American abolitionists and women’s rights activists of the 1830s.

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Born in 1860, Jane Addams was a peace activist, suffragist, and an advocate for labor rights, civil rights and free speech. In 1919 she founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a women’s movement to convince world powers to disarm and enter into peace agreements. She also co-founded Hull House, the first settlement house in the U.S., which provided poor people and immigrants with social, educational and artistic programs. In 1931, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

  Fiona Lloyd-Davies  tells the story of  Rebecca Masika Katsuva
the inspired writer

Fiona Lloyd-Davies is a British award-winning documentary filmmaker and photojournalist whose work is focused on conflict zones and has aired on BBC, Al Jazeera and other networks. In 2013, she released Seeds of Hope, a documentary that tells the story of Rebecca Masika Katsuva.

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Rebecca Masika Katsuva was a highly respected human rights leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After she and her daughters survived brutal sexual assaults in eastern Congo, she set up an organization that provides shelter, resources and compassionate care to survivors of sexual assault in conflict and their children. She died in 2016.

  Hooria Mashhour  tells the story of  Tawakkol Karman
the inspired writer

Hooria Mashhour is a women’s rights activist who became Yemen’s first human rights minister after the country’s 2011 revolution—a position she was forced to leave after the Houthi militia overthrew the government.

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In 2011, at the age of 32, Tawakkol Karman became the youngest person ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In her native Yemen, she was at the forefront of the struggle for human rights and women’s participation in peacebuilding for years, organizing non violent protests that swelled in size and became part of the 2011 Arab Spring movements.

  Monia Mazigh  tells the story of  Flora MacDonald
the inspired writer

Monia Mazigh is a Canadian activist and academic who first came to national prominence for her efforts to free her husband, Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer of Syrian origin who was illegitimately detained in a New York airport in 2002 and sent to a prison in Syria. He was eventually released without charge, and later received compensation and an apology from the Canadian government. Mazigh is currently the National Coordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group.

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Flora MacDonald was a prominent Canadian politician and humanitarian. She was Canada’s first female external affairs minister, and one of the first women to run a high-profile campaign for the leadership of a major Canadian political party. In 2007 she founded Future Generations, an organization that supports schools, health and farming projects in Afghan villages. She died in 2015.

  Azadeh Moaveni  tells the story of  Shirin Ebadi
the inspired writer

Azadeh Moaveni is an American-Iranian journalist and writer. A former Middle East correspondent for Time magazine, Azadeh is the author of Lipstick Jihad and Honeymoon in Tehran, and  co-wrote Iran Awakening with Shirin Ebadi.

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Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian activist, human rights lawyer and former judge who won the Nobel Peace Price in 2003 for her work to improve human rights in Iran, especially those of women, children and political prisoners. She was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and is a founder of the Defender of Human Rights Center in Iran and a co-founder of Nobel Women’s Initiative. Shirin’s most recent book is Until We Are Free: My Fight For Human Rights in Iran.

  Aja Monet  tells the story of  June Jordan
the inspired writer

Aja Monet is an American poet, performer and activist of Cuban-Jamaican descent from Brooklyn, New York. In 2007, at age 19, she was the youngest poet to have ever become the Nuyorican Poets Café Grand Slam Champion. In 2014, she won the “One to Watch Award” from the YWCA of the City of New York. Her most recent book of poetry is Inner-City Chants & Cyborg Cyphers.

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Prolific poet, activist and teacher, June Jordan was born to Jamaican immigrant parent in Harlem in 1936, and grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. She was a passionate and influential voice for liberation, and was fiercely dedicated to civil rights, women’s rights and sexual freedom. In her 1982 classic personal essay, “Report from the Bahamas”, June Jordan broke new ground discussing both the possibilities and difficulties of self-identification on the basis of race, class, and gender identity. The essay became an important contribution to women’s and gender studies, sociology, and anthropology. She died in 2002.

  Anna Nemtsova  tells the story of  Natalya Estemirova
the inspired writer

Anna Nemtsova is a reporter based in Moscow. Her has been published in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Al Jazeera, among others. She is also a correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast. In 2015 Anna won the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award.

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Natalya Estemirova was an internationally renowned Russian journalist who reported regularly on human rights abuses in Chechnya. She was also a board member of the human rights organization Memorial, and was a regular consultant for Human Rights Watch. In 2009, Natalya was abducted and murdered.

  Bopha Phorn  tells the story of  Elizabeth Becker
the inspired writer

Bopha Phorn is a Cambodian independent journalist who has reported for The Cambodia Daily and other publications. In 2013, she won the International Women’s Media Foundations’s Courage in Journalism Award for her work investigating claims of illegal logging in a protected area of the Cambodian jungle.

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In 1973, as a correspondent for The Washington Post, Elizabeth Becker became one of the first Western journalists to extensively report on the civil war in Cambodia and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. Now an award-winning journalist and author, she has written a number of books, including When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution.

  Madeleine Thien  tells the story of  Ding Zilin
the inspired writer

Madeleine Thien is the author of three novels and one short-story collection. Her most recent book, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, examines the legacy of the decade-long Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations through the multi-generational story of a family of classically-trained musicians.

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A professor of philosophy and aesthetics, Ding Zilin founded the organization Tiananman Mothers after her 17-year-old son was shot by government troops—alongside an unknown number of others—during peaceful democracy protests in Tianaman Square on June 4, 1989. Tiananmen Mothers is comprised of relations of those killed in the 1989 protests, and seeks truth and accountability from the Chinese government for the massacre.

  Marilyn Waring  tells the story of  Helen Caldicott
the inspired writer

Marilyn Waring is a New Zealand economist, feminist, author and activist. As a former politician (she became a member of parliament at age 23), she played a key role in the passing of New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation, which is still a cornerstone of the country’s foreign policy. Her hugely influential 1988 book, If Women Counted, was a revolutionary critique of the way the international standard of measuring economic growth discounts nature and women’s unpaid labour.

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Helen Caldicott is an Australian physician and one of the world’s leading anti-nuclear advocates. She is an internationally renowned speaker and author on the subject of the nuclear age’s hazards to human and environmental health, and is the president of The Helen Caldicott Foundation, which aims to raise awareness about the dangers of nuclear power and promote a nuclear energy and weapons-free world.

  Audrey Wells  tells the story of  Jody Williams
the inspired writer

Audrey Wells is an award-winning American screenwriter and filmmaker. Her films, such as Guinevere and Under the Tuscan Sun, often explore complex heroines.

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Jody Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work on the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The Chair of Nobel Women’s Initiative, Jody travels the world advocating for human rights—particularly self-determination and women’s rights. She is globally recognized for her contributions to peace and security, including through a current campaign to ban killer robots. In 2013 she published My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

  Pamela Yates  tells the story of  Rigoberta Menchú Tum
the inspired writer

Pamela Yates is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and human rights activist from the U.S. Her highly acclaimed 1983 film, When the Mountains Tremble, tells the story of Guatemala’s internal armed conflict through the personal life and struggles of Rigoberta Menchú Tum. Pamela’s 2011 film, Granito: How to Nail a Dictator, is the sequel to When the Mountains Tremble and tells the story of the building a genocide case against General Efraín Ríos Montt.

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Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a life-long activist for Indigenous and women’s rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, and whose struggle to share with the world the history of oppression and violence against the Mayan peoples has made her an iconic global leader. In 2007 and 2011 she ran for president of Guatemala. She is a member of the board of Nobel Women’s Initiative.

  Laura Zuñiga Cáceres  tells the story of  Berta Cáceres
the inspired writer

Laura Zuñiga Cáceres is the daughter of Berta Cáceres. She is a youth activist who works with several organizations, including the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, and Hagamos Lo Imposible (We Do The Impossible) in Argentina. She is currently completing her degree in obstetrics at the University of Buenos Aires.

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Berta Cáceres was a Honduran activist who took on everyone from a corrupt police force to powerful landowners in her many efforts to protect the environment and fight for Indigenous rights. The co-founder of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, Cáceres was murdered in her home in March 2016, shortly after being threatened for her opposition to a hydroelectric project.

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