Born in Tunis to a modest Jewish family, Gisèle Halimi protested gender norms her entire life. She began her legal career defending independence activists and denouncing the French army's torture of Algerian people.
Along with Simone de Beauvoir and through highly publicized trials, she later played a key role in legalizing abortion in 1975 and in redefining rape as a crime rather than as a misdemeanor (1980).