Known as much for her signature men’s jackets, cowboy boots, and tortoiseshell glasses as for her stunning (and often scathing) social commentary, Fran Lebowitz has spent a lifetime critiquing cultural norms.
In her wildly popular 1958 debut novel, The Best of Everything, Rona Jaffe captured the struggle of women working in New York before the women’s liberation movement.
Through her ongoing advice column “Ask Polly,” collected in the 2016 book How to Be a Person in the World, Heather Havrilesky offers advice on love and life to millennials.
As one of the leaders of the Liberal Jewish Movement in France, Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur is working to bring a progressive mindset to the more traditional French Jewish community.
In her bestselling 2012 book Good Girls Revolt, Lynn Povich described the 1970 lawsuit against Newsweek that enabled her to become the journal’s first female senior editor.
From capturing the lingering pain of Holocaust survivors to describing the harsh conditions of Palestinian refugee camps, Shulamith Hareven used her writing to push Israelis to confront uncomfortable truths.
One of the few women journalists to work in Israel before the founding of the state, Bracha Habas became beloved for her work as a writer and editor of children’s literature.
Discouraged from a promising career in science, Eileen Pollack published her 2015 memoir The Only Woman in the Room to unravel the many instances of sexism, large and small, which push women like her out of STEM fields.
Fiction writer Jennifer Weiner made headlines when she challenged book critics for dismissing books by women as “chick lit” but reviewing and honoring books by men on the same topics.
Years of covering Putin’s regime in Russia made journalist Maria Alexandrovna “Masha” Gessen uniquely qualified to point out uncomfortable parallels between Putin’s leadership style and that of President Trump.
After the 2016 election, journalist Laura Moser created Daily Action to mobilize and coordinate people who wanted to become active in resisting problematic policies of the Trump administration.
Margo Glantz fused the Yiddish literature of her parents, the Mexican culture of her homeland, and the French traditions of her academic training to create experimental new works of literature.
Barbara Rosberg Frum earned a reputation as one of Canada’s all-time great journalists for her ability to gently pressure interviewees into revealing truths.
Marjorie Ingall’s 2016 parenting guide Mamaleh Knows Best offers a blend of empathy, ethics, and practical advice that readers have come to expect from her “East Village Mamaleh” column in the Forward.
In her book All the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister investigates why so many women are choosing to remain single, and the impact single women can have on society.
