Sharon Presley

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Sharon Presley (born 23 March 1943) is a libertarian and individualist anarchist feminist writer and activist. She was one of the co-founders of the first national libertarian organization of the new libertarian movement, the Alliance of Libertarian Activists, in 1966 in Berkeley, California. In 1972, she was the co-founder, with John Muller, of Laissez Faire Books, the most influential libertarian bookstore. She was one of the founding members of the Association of Libertarian Feminists in 1976 and served as its National Coordinator from 1976 to 1985 and then again from 2004 to the present. In 1992, she founded Resources for Independent Thinking, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization promoting educational tools for independent and critical thinking. She serves as its Executive Director.

Dr. Presley received her Ph. D. in social psychology from City University of New York Graduate Center in 1981. Her mentor, Dr. Stanley Milgram, author of the classic book Obedience to Authority, was the chair for her dissertation, "Attitudes and Moral Judgment of Political Resisters to Authority." She now teaches at California State University, East Bay in Hayward. Her courses include Social, Developmental, Psychology of Women and Critical Thinking. Her research also includes work on women resisters to authority and Mormon feminists.

Dr. Presley is the co-editor of Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre, published by SUNY Press in 2005.

A partial list of her academic and political writings, with links to some of the articles, can be found at her personal web site. A short political autobiography can also be found there.