This is a very partial list of 20th-century women who made contributions in a wide range of fields, from social work, social welfare, and social science to politics, literature, art, and activism. It is meant only to give you some preliminary ideas. Please feel free to pursue other subjects whose work interests you.
Abbott, Edith (social work)
Addams, Jane (social work, politics)
Angelou, Maya (literature)
Antin, Mary (literature, immigrant rights)
Arendt, Hannah (philosophy)
Armstrong, Karen (religion)
Baker, Josephine (entertainment, civil rights)
Beard, Mary Ritter (history)
Benedict, Ruth (anthropology)
Bernard, Jessie (sociology)
Bethune, Mary McLeod (education, civil rights)
Bourke-White, Margaret (photography)
Breckenridge, Sophonisba (social science, social reform)
Brooks, Gwendolyn (poetry and literature)
Brothers, Joyce (psychology)
Buck, Pearl S. (literature)
Butler, Judith (philosophy, gender studies)
Calderone, Mary (medicine, sex education)
Calkins, Mary (psychology, philosophy)
Carson, Rachel (science writing, environmentalism)
Cather, Willa (literature)
Chesler, Phyllis (psychology, gender studies)
Cheney, Lynne (education policy, politics)
Chesnut, Mary (literature)
Chicago, Judy (artist)
Child, Julia (cookbook author, television personality)
Chodorow, Nancy (psychoanalysis, gender studies)
Chopin, Kate (literature)
Clark, Mamie Phipps (psychology)
Crenshaw, Kimberlé Williams (law, critical race theory)
Daly, Mary (religion, gender studies)
Davis, Angela (philosophy, civil rights)
Davis, Katherine Bement (social science, social reform)
Day, Dorothy (social activism, Catholic radicalism)
Decter, Midge (conservative politics)
Deutsch, Helene (psychoanalysis)
Didion, Joan (literature, journalism)
Duncan, Isadora (dance)
Eastman, Crystal (law, social reform, feminism)
Eddy, Mary Baker (founder of Christian Science)
Ehrenreich, Barbara (journalism, gender studies)
Elliot, Martha (medicine, public health)
Elshtain, Jean Bethke (philosophy, politics)
Emerson, Gloria (journalism)
Firestone, Shulamith (feminism)
Fossey, Dian (primatology)
Friedan, Betty (feminism)
Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda (psychoanalysis)
Gilligan, Carol (psychology, gender studies)
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins (economics, literature, social reform)
Ginsberg, Ruth Bader (law, civil rights)
Goldin, Claudia (economics)
Goldman, Emma (anarchism, feminism)
Goodall, Jane (primatology)
Grandin, Temple (disability, autism)
Greer, Germaine (feminism)
Hansberry, Lorraine (literature, civil rights)
Harraway, Donna (gender studies, science and technology studies)
Height, Dorothy (civil rights, social welfare)
Hellman, Lillian (literature)
Himmelbarb, Gertrude (history, conservative politics)
Hinkle, Beatrice (psychology)
Holliday, Billie (music)
Hooker, Evelyn (psychology)
hooks, bell (gender and race studies)
Horney, Karen (psychoanalysis)
Hurston, Zora Neale (anthropology, literature)
Jacobs, Jane (urban planning, social activism)
James, Alice (literature)
Jefferson, Margo (arts criticism)
Jordan, Barbara (politics, civil rights)
Keller, Evelyn Fox (biology, science studies)
Kelly, Florence (social reform)
Kenyon, Dorothy (law)
Kirchwey, Freda (journalism, liberal politics)
Lange, Dorothea (photography, social reform)
Le Sueur, Meridel (literature, social activism)
Levertov, Denise (poetry)
Luhan, Mabel Dodge (arts patron)
Lynd, Helen (social science, social reform)
MacKinnon, Catherine (law)
McCarthy, Mary (arts)
McClintock, Barbara (biology)
Mead, Margaret (anthropology)
Moore, Marianne (poetry)
Millett, Kate (feminism)
Morrison, Toni (literature)
Motley, Constance Baker (law, civil rights)
Murphy, Lois Barclay (psychology)
Murray, Pauli (law, religion, civil rights)
Nussbaum, Martha (philosophy)
O’Connor, Sandra Day (law)
O’Keefe, Georgia (arts)
Olsen, Tillie (literature)
Parsons, Elsie Clews (literature)
Parker, Dorothy (poetry and literature)
Paul, Alice (feminism, suffrage)
Peterson, Esther (labor, consumer activism)
Plath, Sylvia (literature)
Powdermaker, Hortense (anthropology)
Rand, Ayn (philosophy, literature, conservative politics)
Rankin, Jeanette (politics, peace activism)
Rice, Condoleezza (politics)
Rich, Adrienne (poetry, feminism)
Roosevelt, Eleanor (politics, social reform)
Sanger, Margaret (birth control, social reform)
Satir, Virginia (psychology)
Schlafley, Phyllis (politics, antifeminism)
Sheehy, Gail (journalism)
Smedley, Agnes (journalism, literature)
Smith, Lillian (civil rights, literature)
Sontag, Susan (philosophy, literature)
Stein, Gertrude (poetry, literature)
Steinem, Gloria (feminism)
Taft, Jessie (social work, social science)
Trilling, Diana (literary criticism)
Van Kleek, Mary (social science, social reform, labor)
Van Waters, Miriam (social reformer, penology)
Walker, Alice (literature, civil rights)
Ware, Caroline (history, economics)
Wells, Ida B. (civil rights)
Welty, Eudora (literature)
Wooley, Helen Thompson (psychology, gender studies)
Wright, Jane Cooke (medicine)