Celebrating Fierce Women – A Tribute to Women’s History Month

March 30, 2017 Veronica Spak

The U.S. celebrates Women's History Month each year in March alongside the U.K. and Australia (Canada’s is in October), to highlight the myriad of female contributions to society. The month specifically corresponds with International Women's Day, which is held annually on March 8^th. Congress officially declared Women's History Month in the US in 1987 after the National Women’s History Project petitioned for an event to celebrate the fierce, trailblazing women around the world. Since 1988, U.S. presidents have issued annual proclamations designating the month of March as Women’s History Month. You can read President’s Trump proclamation for 2017 here.

As Prosekians care deeply about women and what they bring to the table, the agency circulated a weekly newsletter featuring outstanding women in five categories: STEM, Politics, Arts, Athletics and Inventions. At one or several points in time, each of these women made headlines and added value to society. Many of their contributions are impactful to our lives (how could we possibly live without the chocolate chip cookie…) and we cannot thank them enough for bettering our world. Here are some of our favorite leading ladies. Gals, we salute you.

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space. Specifically, her job was to work the robotic arm to help put satellites into space. She flew on the space shuttle again in 1984. Sally was one of only six women picked from the applications to be an astronaut. After her second trip in 1984, Ride stopped working for NASA and began teaching at UC San Diego. She started looking for ways to help women and girls who wanted to study in the STEM fields and came up with the idea for NASA's EarthKAM project. EarthKAM lets middle school students take pictures of Earth using a camera on the International Space Station. In 2003, Ride was inducted to the Astronaut Hall of Fame.
Madeleine Albright is a Prague-born American politician and diplomat who was the first woman to become U.S. Secretary of State. Not being a natural-born citizen of the U.S., she was not eligible as a U.S. Presidential successor and was excluded from nuclear contingency plans. In her position as Secretary of State, Albright reinforced the United States' alliances; advocated democracy and human rights; and promoted U.S. trade and business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. In May 2012, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
Abby Wambach is an American soccer player who is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women's World Cup champion. Abby currently stands as the highest all-time goal scorer for the USWNT and holds the world record for international goals for both female and male soccer players with 184 goals. In 2012, Wambach was awarded the FIFA World Player of the Year, becoming the first American woman to win the award in a decade. In 2013, Abby became an ambassador for Athlete Ally, a nonprofit organization that focuses on ending homophobia and transphobia in sports.
Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, editor and professor. Her novels are known for their epic themes, exquisite language and richly detailed African-American characters who are central to their narratives. Her novel Song of Solomon became the first work by an African-American author to be a featured selection in the Book of the Month club since Native Son by Richard Wright. In recognition of her contributions to her field, she received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, making her the first African-American woman to be selected for the award. A champion for the arts, Morrison spoke out about censorship in October 2009 after one of her books was banned at a Michigan high school.
Ruth Wakefield was the official creator of the chocolate chip cookie. Along with her husband Kenneth, Ruth owned a tourist lodge named the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, where she prepared recipes for meals and desserts that were served to guests. Thus, she named it the Toll House cookie. During WWII, US soldiers from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared the cookies they received in care packages from back home with soldiers from other parts of the US. Soon, hundreds of soldiers were asking their families to send them some Toll House cookies. Thus, the nationwide desire for the chocolate chip cookie began. Ruth had used pieces of Nestle chocolate in her recipe and as her cookies gained popularity, Andrew Nestle and Ruth struck a deal: Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its packaging, and Ruth would receive a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate.