"Becoming Something the World Hasn't Learned to Name"

 

Photo: Said Mhamad (2025)

3D-printed gown: Iris van Herpen

Model: Akuol Deng Atem

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943)

English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist.

She is best known for her charmingly illustrated children's books

featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902).

Before her literary success, however, Beatrix Potter was keenly interested

in mycology, the scientific study of fungi, producing brilliantly observed

illustrations of many types. She wrote a learned paper on mycology that

was dismissed and ignored because of her gender. It was only on her death,

when she left hundreds of her mycological artworks to a museum, 

that her scientific talents were recognized.

Today, Potter’s precise and beautiful

paintings and drawings of fungi are helping

modern mycologists in their efforts to identify species.

Her best-selling books enabled Beatrix Potter to become

a prosperous farmer and a prize-winning sheep breeder.

She bought several farms in the Lake District to preserve

its unique hill country landscape. Much of that land

now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju

Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju (1997 -     )

Indian primary care physician, actor, content creator and transgender rights advocate.

She became well known online by documenting her gender transition and

speaking about queer and trans rights, medical discrimination, bullying,

mental health and the need for LGBTQ+-inclusive healthcare.

Tinetra began her acting career by being the first trans woman

to play a main character in an Indian streaming series.

Yanar Mohammed

Yanar Mohammed (1960 - 2026)

Iraqi architect, feminist and women's rights activist. Co-founder and

director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI).

Editor of the newspaper Al-Mousawat (Equality).

Mohammed started the first shelters for women in Iraq in 2003,

protecting them from honor killing and sex trafficking,

a network that expanded to 11 houses in five cities by 2018,

serving more than 800 women.

She was shot and killed outside her home in Baghdad

in 2026 by two unknown men, the victim of

what is widely regarded as a targeted assassination.

She Walks in Beauty, Like the Night

[Robert Wun | Haute Couture Fall Winter 2024/2025]

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

-- George Gordon, Lord Byron

Louise Arbour

Louise Arbour (1947 -     )

Canadian lawyer, prosecutor, civil servant and judge.

New Governor-General of Canada (2026 -     ).

Former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Was Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals

dealing with war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Companion of the Order of Canada (the country's highest honour).

In appointing her, Prime Minister Carney stated that she

"will represent the best of Canada . . . that is . . .

steadfast in the values we uphold."

Iris van Herpen

Iris van Herpen (1984 -     )

Dutch fashion designer known for fusing technology

(such as 3D-printing) with traditional haute couture craftsmanship.

Every year she exhibits her new collections at Paris Fashion Week.

Iris van Herpen's work has been included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York

and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.

Lady Gaga, always at the forefront of fashion, has worn

Iris van Herpen Designs many times --

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (1930 -     )

Icelandic politician, French teacher and artistic director

of the Reykjavík Theatre Company. In 1980, she ran for

President of Iceland to prove that women were able to lead

political campaigns. She faced a barrage of ignorant and

insulting questions and assumptions due to being female.

She did not expect to win, but she did.

First woman to serve as President of Iceland, she held that

position for 16 years (1980 - 1996). This made her the

first woman in the world to be democratically elected as

president of a country, as well as the longest serving

elected female head of state in history.

Ayo Edebiri

Ayo Edebiri (1995 -     )

American actor, comedian, television writer, and director.

Best known for her role as Chef Sydney Adamu in the

comedy-drama series The Bear, for which she has won

a Golden Globe, 2 Actors awards, and a Primetime Emmy.

She is queer and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Mary Trump

Mary Trump (1965 -     )

American psychologist, author, and political commentator;

niece and outspoken critic of President Donald Trump;

author of the best-selling book Too Much and Never Enough:

How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (2020),

an unauthorized biography and psychological profile of President Trump;

author of two other books exploring trauma, politics, and Trump family dynamics.

Happy International Women's Day!

Margaret W. Rossiter

Margaret W. Rossiter (1944 - 2025)

American historian of science at Cornell University.

In 1993, she coined the term The Matilda Effect to describe

the systematic erasure of women's achievements in science

over the centuries and the theft and attribution of

their work and discoveries to male colleagues.

She named it in honour of suffragist and abolitionist

Matilda Joslyn Gage who had sounded the alarm 

about this practice more than a century earlier.

Following decades of research, her 3-volume work,

Women Scientists in America, restored women to

their rightful place in the history of science.

Her books inspired programs and policies which ensure 

that today’s women in STEM are properly

credited, published, and remembered.

This Blog Is Back!

Posts are going to resume on Beautiful Woman of the Day!

But instead of being every day

(a pace I could not maintain),

posts will appear twice each month --

on the 1st and on the 15th.

Some months there may be an additional post

to mark some special occasion or event --

like International Women's Day next Sunday.

Dear Beautiful People -- An Announcement

I have reluctantly decided to put this blog on what may prove to be a permanent pause. In my initial enthusiasm when starting this blog, it seems I underestimated how much time and effort these daily postings would require over the long term. So I am going to return my attention and focus to my main blog, She Who Seeks, and leave this blog as an archival one. Perhaps some day I may resume regular posting here if demands on my time change. We'll see what the future holds.

Thank you to everyone who has followed this blog. I am grateful for your support. And thank you to all who nominated women as subjects for posts and/or who left such interesting, supportive, and perceptive comments over the year of Beautiful Woman of the Day's existence. I appreciate your interest and participation very much!

Blogging Break

Hi everyone --

I'm off to visit my sister and then when I get back,

I will be having my cataracts surgery. So I will not

be blogging for the month of September at a minimum.

I don't know yet how great a limitation on screen time

I'll have to observe during my recovery period of

October and November. So blogging may be

sporadic and/or non-existent during those months too.

But regular blogging will resume when I am able!

See you later, Beautiful People!

Björk

Björk (1965 -     )

Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actor;

Noted for her distinct voice, three-octave vocal range, 

eclectic musical stye, and eccentric public persona and fashion;

one of the most influential pioneers in electronic and experimental music;

nominated in 2001 for an Oscar for Best Original Song, she caused

a sensation at the ceremony in her infamous "Swan Dress;"

her 2025 concert film Cornucopia is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

One Year of Beautiful Women!

Beautiful Woman of the Day blog

is one year old today!

Thank you to everyone who has read,

followed, or commented on this blog

over the past 12 months!

I appreciate all of you!

Marcy Borders

Marcy Borders (1973 - 2015)

American legal assistant who worked in the World Trade Center's North Tower;

she survived its collapse following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks;

immortalized as "The Dust Lady," she was 28 years old when this iconic photo

was taken by Stan Honda, photographer for Agence France-Presse;

Marcy never recovered from the trauma of the attack and

suffered severe PTSD for the rest of her life;

she died from stomach cancer at age 42, convinced it was

due to the toxic dust from the World Trade Center collapse.

[photo of Marcy Borders with Stan Honda]

Stormé DeLarverie

Stormé DeLarverie (1920 - 2014)

American woman and butch lesbian whose scuffle with police

was, according to DeLarverie and many eyewitnesses, the spark

that ignited the 1969 Stonewall uprising, spurring the crowd to action;

she worked as an MC, singer, drag king, bouncer, bodyguard,

and volunteer street patrol worker, the "guardian of lesbians in the Village;"

from 1955-1969, she performed with the Jewel Box Revue,

North America's first racially integrated drag revue;

although she did not publicly express a gender identity, today's term

"non-binary" probably comes the closest.

Sophia Tolstaya

Sophia Tolstaya (1844 - 1919)

Russian diarist and wife of writer Count Leo Tolstoy;

their marriage is considered one of the most famously unhappy

marriages of literary history, in which their children also took sides;

her diaries, in which she recorded her life with her husband,

were not published in English translation until the 1980s;

she also wrote her memoirs entitled My Life;

interested in photography, she took over 1000 photographs

documenting her life and the decline of the Russian Empire;

most of her works were published postmortem, long after being written,

because Tolstaya was critical of Leo Tolstoy in her writing and

the Russian authorities did not want the famous author's status tarnished.