Honoring Four Black Women Who Are Transforming Gender Equity
This Black History Month, we are highlighting four contemporary leaders who have made critical contributions to the movement to advance gender equity.
Black women have spearheaded many of the pivotal terms and movements that shape conversations around feminism and gender equity today. Yet, the erasure of Black history, including the contributions of these women, remains a persistent threat in the United States.
That’s why it is crucial to uplift the work of these activists — so that those who reference their movements, or are just beginning to learn about them, recognize that Black women stand at the core of them.
This Black History Month, we’re celebrating four Black women who are carrying forward this powerful legacy in the fight for gender equity. Through narrative change, collective action, and thought leadership, they are shaping a future grounded in security, dignity, freedom, and joy for all — especially those most impacted by gender inequities.
Read on to learn more about these incredible leaders and let us know — who else would you add to this list?
#METOO: Tarana Burke
“I need you all to embrace the movement and take ownership of this movement. This is not about anyone in Hollywood. It’s not even about just me. It’s about the collective trauma people around this world experience. And it’s about the collective responsibility we have to do something about it. It’s about healing: healing individuals and healing communities. Period.”
— Tarana Burke
The #MeToo movement is a social movement and awareness campaign against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape, created by activist Tarana Burke in 2006. The phrase “Me Too” is meant to empower those who have been sexually assaulted through empathy, solidarity, and strength in numbers.
The hashtag gained popularity on social media in 2017, allowing online communities to visualize the magnitude and frequency of this disheartening experience. What began as a small grassroots vision transformed into a widely recognized phrase and a global movement.
Tarana Burke is a proud activist, survivor, and storyteller from the Bronx, NY. Before founding the #MeToo movement, Burke was involved in community work focused on discrimination, housing inequities, and economic justice. Her interest shifted to supporting survivors of sexual violence during her time at Alabama State University after meeting and sharing stories with numerous other young Black women.
The prevalence of these experiences directly inspired her work in building safe spaces and creating access to resources for survivors of sexual abuse. Tarana developed the widely known theory of “Empowerment through Empathy,” which encourages a shift in how the world discusses sexual violence and bodily autonomy.
Her incredible work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including being named a Time Person of the Year, Time’s Most Influential People of 2018, and a BBC 100 Women honoree. It is important to recognize that while the #MeToo movement has become a global phenomenon, it began with a distinct emphasis on Black women and girls and continues to encourage the acknowledgment of differences in each survivor’s story.
INTERSECTIONALITY: Dr. Kimberlé W. Crenshaw
“Black women’s intersectional experiences of racism and sexism have been a central but forgotten dynamic in the unfolding of feminist and antiracist agendas.”
— Dr. Kimberlé W. Crenshaw
Intersectionality is the understanding that all forms of oppression are interconnected. It acknowledges that people experience discrimination and marginalization in unique ways based on the overlapping aspects of their identities — such as gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and physical ability. First coined by Dr. Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, this concept has been pivotal in advancing gender equity by helping us address the systemic forces that shape people’s experiences.
Dr. Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar whose work spans civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and the intersections of race, gender, and the law. She is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, and also teaches at Columbia Law School.
Her research and advocacy have been instrumental in shaping critical race theory and the framework of intersectionality. Her studies, writing, and activism have identified key issues in the perpetuation of inequality, including the “school to prison pipeline” for African American children and the criminalization of behavior among Black teenage girls.
Through the Columbia Law School African American Policy Forum (AAPF), which she co-founded, Crenshaw co-authored (with Andrea Ritchie) Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, which documented and drew attention to the killing of Black women and girls by police. Crenshaw and AAPF subsequently launched the #SayHerName campaign to raise awareness of police violence against Black women and girls and demand justice.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Anne E. Price
“When wealth is accumulated, it allows us to live and retire with greater dignity, freedom, and peace of mind and for our communities to be prosperous, resilient, and vibrant. Wealth allows us to provide future generations with the freedom to dream big and become all they truly can be. It also means being healthy, and knowing that your family, networks, and communities are healthy, spiritually whole, and contributing.”
- The Maven Collaborative
Due to systemic racism and sexism, Black women face persistent economic inequities. They are more likely than their white counterparts to work in low-wage jobs, experience higher levels of poverty, and be disproportionately impacted across a wide range of economic measures. To achieve true economic liberation and justice, we must confront these barriers head-on. Advocates like Anne E. Price have been instrumental in shaping the path forward, offering a blueprint for transformative change.
Anne E. Price is the Co-President and Founder of The Maven Collaborative and formerly served as President and Director of the Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative at The Insight Center for Community Economic Development. As one of the first national thought leaders to push for narrative change in addressing race, gender, and wealth inequality, she has helped reframe how we understand and tackle economic injustice.
Anne is a graduate of Hampton University, a historically Black college (HBCU), where she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. She also holds a master’s degree in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from The New School in New York City.
Through her work, Anne continues to challenge outdated economic narratives and pave the way for policies that center racial and gender equity. Her leadership is a reminder that economic justice is possible when we commit to systemic change.
REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE: Loretta Ross
“Reproductive justice can’t become a reality for Black women around the world until human rights become a reality. Reproductive justice is based upon the global human rights framework. It’s actually a portal for bringing human rights to the United States.”
— Loretta Ross
Reproductive Justice is defined as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”
This term combines Reproductive Rights and Social Justice and was created by a group of 12 Black women in 1994, who would later call themselves Women of African Descent for Reproductive Justice (WADRJ).
The birth of the Reproductive Justice framework came as a result of recognizing that mainstream reproductive rights movements often failed to address the intersecting racial, economic, and social barriers faced by marginalized communities.
Among this group, Loretta Ross is widely known as a founding mother of Reproductive Justice. Ross is a longtime activist and scholar whose work popularized the term and has continued to shape the modern Reproductive Justice movement. As a young mother, rape survivor, and victim of sterilization due to medical negligence, her connection to Reproductive Justice is deeply personal.
Ross has served as Program Director for the Black Women’s Health Imperative, Director of Women of Color Programs for the National Organization for Women, co-founded of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, and acted as National Co-Director for Women of Color at Washington D.C.’s March for Women’s Lives. In more recent years, she has written books and articles tackling white supremacy, reproductive oppression within the carceral system, the history of Black women in activism, and much more.
Black women deserve justice, inclusion, access, and safety, and we proudly celebrate these four trailblazers, along with so many others, who have advanced progress in these areas.
Let us continue to credit Black women for their revolutionary presence in gender equity work year round, and, most importantly, let’s give them their flowers while they’re still here.
Black history is too vital to be forgotten. Happy Black History Month!
