Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Feminist biography explores women’s lives through the powerful lens of modern feminism and focuses on gender as a primary influence on women’s lives. But just because a biography features a female subject or is written by a woman does not make it a feminist biography. Until society reaches a stage where there are no significant differences between men’s and women’s experiences, telling women’s lives calls for a different kind of biography, one written with sensitivity to the considerable barriers, structural and personal, that often limit women’s full participation in society. From the outset, feminist biography has been dedicated to discovering and reclaiming lives that have been ignored or marginalized. Fifty years after it first burst on the scene in the 1970s, feminist biography has its own history, one linked to larger shifts in the field of biography but even more to the changing fortunes and priorities of modern feminism. Its central insights—that women’s lives matter and that gender is essential for understanding them—argue conclusively for its continued relevance. Reading about women’s lives offers models for living in the present and inspiration for a more equitable future.</jats:p>