Women's History Month

Legends of the Sexual Liberation Movement

A shortlist of some of the most influential women in sexual liberation

The road to sexual liberation is long and ongoing. Along the way, the world has been introduced to some of the most brilliant, forward-thinking minds in modern times. Some women have sought out activism, and some answered the call when the opportunity presented itself. In honor of Women’s History Month, we have compiled a shortlist of some of the most influential women in the journey to sexual liberation. Some have paved the way toward bodily autonomy while others focused on pioneering for women’s ability to live authentically. Whatever their contribution, we believe these women have helped to make the world a better place. 

Emma Goldman

Few inventions have done more for sexual liberation than contraception. While not the inventor of birth control, Emma Goldman was an outspoken advocate for women’s right to family planning. Under the Comstock Law, the dissemination of "obscene, lewd, or lascivious articles” was illegal. And any mention of family planning fell under that category. Even so, Goldman worked to promote women’s literacy on family planning, even at the cost of being jailed and eventually deported. She believed that women deserved a say in their future and in their sex lives rather than being forced to choose celibacy or hope for the best. Eventually, thanks to her own efforts and other forward-thinking women of the era, birth control would become available to women in the United States. 

Mary Phelps Jacobs

Women have been wearing undergarments since they’ve been wearing clothes. However, women of the western world haven’t always had access to the comfortable clothing we enjoy today. Corsets were the norm for centuries until a 19-year-old debutante decided she had had enough. While preparing for her 1914, Mary Phelps Jacobs called for two handkerchiefs and some ribbon. With the help of her maid, she fashioned a prototype of what would become the modern-day brassier. When she filed a patent for her invention, she wrote that the bra allowed comfort and freedom of movement, with the best part being that the bra “does not confine the person anywhere except where it is needed.”

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The late supreme Justice, fondly nicknamed the Notorious RBG, is best remembered as a champion of women’s rights. She once said, “Women's rights are an essential part of the overall human rights agenda, trained on the equal dignity and ability to live in freedom all people should enjoy.” Before being appointed to the highest court in the land, she handled sex discrimination complaints, working to ensure women could enjoy equal treatment under the law: financial freedom, professional freedom, and sexual freedom. 

Edith Windsor

Sexual liberation is more than just the freedom to have sex. True sexual liberation also means the freedom to express your sexuality authentically. Edith Windsor had not planned on being an activist. She was a woman in love with another woman, her late partner Thea Spyer, when same-sex marriage was illegal. The two spent decades as life partners and were eventually married in Canada in 2007. But after her wife’s death when Windsor was unable to obtain the same tax exemptions as widows in heterosexual marriages, she sued. Her case moved through the American court system until it finally arrived before the Supreme Court of the United States. After deliberation, it was decided that the Defense of Marriage Act must be struck down in 2013. Although the final ruling on the legality of same-sex marriage wouldn’t be handed down until 2015, Windsor’s case was monumental in securing equal treatment for same-sex couples. 

bell hooks 

If bell hooks isn’t on your reading list, she should be. During her life, hooks became well-known for intersectional feminism. She approached theory through multiple lenses, and her observations are all the richer for it. Hooks often meditated on how queerness and blackness shaped womanhood, reaching conclusions that universally apply to women of all races and orientations. Freedom from patriarchy remained a key component of her belief system, in addition to her interrogation of heteronormative society and white supremacy. Women cannot simply function as women. Each woman and femme presenting person faces a variety of challenges in their lives, affecting their journey to liberation. She wrote, “Women will only be truly sexually liberated when we arrive at a place where we can see ourselves as having sexual value and agency irrespective of whether or not we are the objects of male desire.”

Editor's Note: The term intersectionality was originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. The term is a framework for understanding how aspects of a person's race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics "intersect". Source: VOX

The journey to sexual liberation is still ongoing, but more and more people are working to break down barriers. In the past hundred years, we have gone from whispering about birth control to writing blog posts about closing the pleasure gap (the next item on the sexual liberation’s to-do list). Things are getting better thanks to these women and thanks to any woman with the courage to advocate for herself and her body.