The Bahá'í Faith is the first major world religion to proclaim, in it's sacred and authoritative  writings, the equality of the sexes.  During the mid 1800s, in the Middle East, Baha'u'llah declared that men and women are equal in the eyes of God.  Later, Abdu'l-Baha (the son of Baha'u'llah and His appointed interpreter) expanded on this theme by saying:

"The world of humanity consists of two parts: male and female.  Each is the complement of the other.  Therefore if one is defective, the other will necessarily be incomplete, and perfection cannot be attained."

These teachings were promulgated at a time and in a part of the world when the rights of women were severely restricted.  Among the first followers of The Bab (the prophet forerunner of Baha'u'llah, see History of the Bahá'í Faith) was a woman called Tahirih.  She was a woman of great physical beauty and remarkable powers of mind, a poetess of great renown.  She understood the implications of these teachings and realized that women were destined, in the future, to have an equal voice in the advancement of world civilization.  At one auspicious meeting of some of the leaders of the Babis (which included Baha'u'llah), she arrived at the meeting with her face uncovered, causing great shock and consternation among the men present.  Baha'u'llah and The Bab both supported  her actions, however.  Tahirih was martyred along with some 20,000 early believers during the first 2 decades of the Faith.  She was strangled and thrown into a deep well.  Before her death she bravely proclaimed to her executioners, "You can kill me when you want, but you will never stop the emancipation of women."  Today there are many young Bahá'í girls named Tahirih in honor of this courageous heroine of Bahá'í history.