Celine Song

Celine Song (1988 -     )

Canadian director, playwright, and screenwriter based in New York City;

her directorial film debut Past Lives (2023) received critical acclaim and

she was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay Oscars;

her latest film is Materialists (2025) which she wrote and directed.

Betsy Jochum

Betsy Jochum (1921 - 2025)

American outfielder and pitcher who played in the

All-American Girls Professional Baseball League

from 1943 through 1948;

a noted runner and batter, her nickname was "Sockum Jochum;"

after leaving baseball, she earned degrees in physical education

and taught girls high school physical education until her retirement in 1983.

Suzi Quatro

Suzi Quatro (1950 -     )

American singer, bass guitarist, songwriter, and actor;

starting in the mid-1960s, she has been a pioneer for women

in the male-dominated field of rock, hard rock, glam rock and pop rock;

had more musical career success in the UK and Australia than in the USA;

in the late 1970s, had a small recurring role as rocker Leather Tuscadero

on the popular American sitcom Happy Days;

she has released 15 studio albums (most recently in 2023),

10 compilation albums, and one live album.

Women in Love

Commitment Ceremony, New York City (1989)

photo by Kathy Shorr

Sarah E. Goode

Sarah E. Goode (1855 - 1905)

American entrepreneur and inventor;

one of the first African American women to receive

a United States patent, which she received in 1885

for her "cabinet bed," a precursor of the hide-away bed;

invaluable invention for working-class people living

in tiny urban apartments with no space for beds.

Judy Grahn

Judy Grahn (1940 -     )

American poet, author, and educator;

discharged from the United States Air Force in1961 for being lesbian,

she endured much homophobia and violence due to her butchness;

in the 1970s, became an active member of the Gay Women's Liberation Group,

the first lesbian-feminist collective on the west coast;

her groundbreaking and influential poetry is infused

with her lesbian-feminist identity, women's spirituality,

and often addresses racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.

Flossie Wong-Staal

Flossie Wong-Staal (1946 - 2020)

Chinese-American virologist and molecular biologist;

first scientist to clone HIV and determine the function of its genes,

which was a major step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS;

her genetic mapping of the virus made it possible to develop HIV tests.

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand (1942 -     )

American singer, actor, songwriter, producer, and director;

her six-decade career has brought her incredible success and

innumerable awards, most notably that she was the

first performer to ever earn an EGOT

(Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards);

longtime activist and philanthropist in many liberal causes.

Kalpana Chawla

Kalpana Chawla (1962 - 2003)

American astronaut and aerospace engineer;

first woman of South Asian origin to fly to space;

one of the seven crew members who died in the

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster;

posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor,

the NASA Space Flight Medal, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.

Laufey

Laufey (1999 -     )

Icelandic singer-songwriter and musician;

classically trained as a cellist, her recording success

is based in jazz-inspired pop.

Mary Berg

Mary Berg (1989 -     )

Canadian television host, author and cook;

first woman to win MasterChef Canada (2016);

current host of daytime lifestyle talk show

on Canadian TV, The Good Stuff with Mary Berg.

Meshell Ndegeocello

Meshell Ndegeocello (1968 -     )

American singer-songwriter, poet, and bassist;

critically acclaimed throughout her musical career,

she has won three Grammy Awards;

her chosen surname means "free like a bird" in Swahili.

Alice Walker

Alice Walker (1944 -    )

American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist;

she is the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,

awarded in 1982 for her novel The Color Purple;

a noted activist in a wide variety of causes, she is occasionally criticized

for controversial or unpopular views.

New Life In Bloom

Hazel Scott

Hazel Scott (1920 - 1981)

Trinidadian-American jazz and classical pianist and singer;

a child prodigy, she was trained at Julliard and

enjoyed an active and successful jazz career

throughout the 1930s and 1940s;

in 1950, she became the first black American to host her own TV show;

an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation,

she was blacklisted during 1950s McCarthyism and

lived as an ex-pat in France for 10 years;

although she continued to perform occasionally in Europe

and in the United States, her career never recovered

and her talent fell into obscurity;

now being rediscovered via PBS's 2025 American Masters

documentary entitled The Disappearance of Miss Scott.

Dame Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren (1945 -     )

English actor of stage and screen;

her illustrious career has seen her star to great acclaim

in innumerable movies, television series, and plays;

the only performer to have achieved both the

American Triple Crown of Acting (an Academy Award,

an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award) and

the British Triple Crown of Acting (a British Academy Film Award,

British Academy Television Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award).

Nadia Murad

Nadia Murad (1993 -     )

Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist now based in Germany;

survivor of the 2014 Yazidi genocide in Iraq committed by

the transnational terrorist organization ISIS/Islamic State;

held in sexual slavery for 3 months before her escape and rescue;

founder of Nadia's Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to

helping heal and rebuild the lives of women and children

victimized by similar atrocities;

co-recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for her work against 

the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

Carole Lombard

Carole Lombard (1908 - 1942)

American actor, particularly noted for energetic,

off-beat roles in screwball comedies;

among the most commercially successful and admired

film personalities in Hollywood in the 1930s.