As 2024 comes to a close, we look back on the feminists we lost this year.
Alta Gerrey
Died March 10, 2024
Alta Gerrey, award-winning poet and founder of Shameless Hussy Press died in March at 81. Shameless Hussy, started in 1969 in Alta’s garage, was America’s first feminist press.
Including the works of Pat Parker and Mitsuye Yamada, Alta also published much of her own poetry around feminism and sexuality. Reflecting on it later she said, “My own poetry was only shocking because it hadn’t been said a million times. Now it’s been said a million times. If you read my poems now, they’d say, ‘What’s the big deal?’”
Trina Robbins
Died April 10, 2024
Comics icon, creator and historian Trina Robbins died on April 10 at 85. Robbins, who took interest in the unknown history of female cartoonists, was the first woman to draw a full issue of Wonder Woman in 1985.
She was also one of the creators of It Ain’t Me Babe, the first comic book made solely by women.
“Superhero comics are not going to go away. There’s always going to be a constantly revolving reader group of 12-year-old boys. But now there’s something else, made by people who want to go beyond 12-year-old boys. There’s something for girls, something for women, something for men who are interested in topics besides guys punching each other out. Really, at last, what’s happened is we’re back to comics for everyone, which is how it started, isn’t it? We’ve come full circle”
—Robbins on the climate for women cartoonists in 2014.
Faith Ringgold
Died April 13, 2024
This spring, Black feminist artist Faith Ringgold died at age 93. In the early 1990s she dedicated herself to The French Collection, a set of quilts that she painted and wrote on illustrating the life of a fictional Black woman artist. The collection simultaneously celebrates European art history and motherhood, women’s sexuality and the role of the artist.
While trying to make it as an artist, Ringgold was an art teacher.
Eventually, Ringgold published a memoir titled We Flew Over the Bridge as well as a dozen illustrated children’s books, leaving behind a rich history of multifaceted art.
“All the political people are buried in the ground, which makes the landscapes political.”
—Faith Ringgold
“Ringgold’s work has always been political, galvanized as she was by her experiences as an art student, as well as by the feminist and Black Power movements springing up around her in the 1960s and ’70s.”
—Aviva Dove-Viebahn in “Remembering the Late Faith Ringgold—the Black Feminist Artist Who Knew Who She Was”
Ruth Westheimer
Died July 12, 2024
Dr. Ruth Westheimer, acclaimed sex therapist known for mainstreaming sexual education, died this summer at 96.
Westheimer, who was sent from her home in Germany at the age of 10 by her parents to escape the Nazis, went on to have a career in sex therapy made possible by the sexual revolution in the 1960s. After her educational radio program about family planning, Sexually Speaking, premiered, her career snowballed eventually leading her to host seven TV shows and write 45 books.
“I have made it clear that I don’t talk about politics because I talk about sex so much. However, lately, I have changed my mind and I do talk about three things. I talk about how upset I am when I see children being separated from parents at the border because that’s my story; how upset I am that abortion is again being used as a political football; and that in this great country of ours, with so much money, there’s not enough money for Planned Parenthood or family planning. I don’t talk about anything else.”
—Westheimer in an interview with Moment in 2020
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Died July 19, 2024
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) died in July at 74 years old after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Leaving a legacy of advocacy, Jackson Lee is most celebrated for her leadership in protecting women from domestic violence and recognizing Juneteenth as a national holiday.
“Always fearless, she spoke truth to power and represented the power of the people of her district in Houston with dignity and grace.”
—President Biden in a statement after her death
Lilly Ledbetter
Died Oct. 12, 2024
Lilly Ledbetter, an equal pay activist whose legal fight against her employer led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, died in October at 86 years old.
She sued her employer after learning she was making significantly less than her male colleagues. The case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, eventually made its way to the Supreme Court where it was overturned. Instead, Ledbetter lobbied in the halls of Congress, eventually leading to Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009.
“Me and those three men that was listed on that note—we four had the exact same job, and I was making about 35 to 40 percent, at that time, less than they were. I just could not believe it. I was devastated, humiliated all at once, and it just floored me.”
—Ledbetter to NPR in January
Nikki Giovanni
Died Dec. 9, 2024
Nikki Giovanni, poet, writer, feminist and civil rights activist and educator died this December at 81. She was prolific in the Black Arts movement that arose during the civil rights era. During her life, she wrote more than 30 books, received seven NAACP awards and 31 honorary doctorates.
“I really like what the young people are doing… and I think my job is to be sure to get out of their way, but also let them know, if it means anything to them, that I’m proud of them.”
“I recommend old age… There’s just nothing as wonderful as knowing you have done your job.”
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, Giovanni told The New York Times in 2020,
