Laura Cereta was an Italian woman and leading humanist figure of the early Renaissance. She wrote a series of essays styled as letters to other philosophers and leading humanists in which she attacked the gender bias of her time period and advocated for female education and advancement.

The status women rose slightly during the Protestant Reformation. Burnings for witchcraft became somewhat less common, particularly into the seventeenth century, and Luther and the other reformers preached that there was honor and dignity in the household tasks of women. The primary reason why the status of women grew slightly is that Luther and the other reformers generally allowed priests to marry. This elevated the status of women and also had the indirect effect of slightly loosening the demonization of sexuality and intimate relations that pervaded Medieval Catholicism. Still, it would be a big stretch to claim that this time period represented a monumental shift towards gender equality. None of the reformers were advocating for female education or opportunity outside the home, as just one example.

Although a division of labor has almost always existed between the sexes in human society, for much of European history the majority of women worked in the fields alongside the men. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, men and women began to move to urban centers by the millions and continued, for the most part, to work alongside one another. With the social and political reform of the mid-nineteenth century, women’s status changed to reflect changes in child labor laws. Universal public education was not yet available, and women were often “forced” (by social custom or by actual force) to remain home as caregivers and housewives.

Isabella d’Este served as regent of Mantua, a region of Italy, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. She was a leading figure of the Italian Renaissance and an advocate for greater gender equality. She was also a renowned patron of the arts.

Marquis de Condorcet is one of the most influential writers of the Enlightenment period who famously advocated for equal rights for people of all races, genders, and religions. He believed that mankind was constantly progressing towards some perfect, or better, future, and that the extension of gender equality to women was a necessary and logical step in the progression towards utopia.

Simone de Beauvoir is one of the most influential feminist writers of the twentieth century. Her 1949 work The Second Sex was instrumental in encouraging the intellectual support for the feminist movement that deeply affected the growth of women’s rights in the second half of the twentieth century.