Today is International Women's Day

so today I am going to highlight just a few of my personal favorite international bad-ass women, (there are so so so many!!!),  with quick bio.s thanks to Wikipedia, along with a way that you can get involved with the #BeBoldForChange campaign (see bottom of post)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin

Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin (Spanish: [anaˈis ˈnin]; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was an essayist and memoirist born to Cuban parents in France, where she was also raised. She spent some time in Spain and Cuba, but lived most of her life in the United States, where she became an established author. She wrote journals (which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death), novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and erotica. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus and Little Birds, was published posthumously.

Annette Messager

Annette Messager (born 30 November 1943 in Berck, France) is a French visual artist. In 2005 she won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale for her artwork at the French Pavilion. In 2016, she won the prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award.[1] She currently lives and works in Malakoff, France.[2]

Simone de Beauvoir sitting with Jean-Paul Sartre

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir  9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.[3]

Marie Skłodowska Curie

Marie Skłodowska Curie 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934), born Maria Salomea Skłodowska was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris. and mother to Irène Joliot-Curie, herself, an award winning scientist.

Curie mother and daughter duo.

Irène Joliot-Curie (French) 12 September 1897 – 17 March 1956) was a French scientist, the daughter of Marie Curieand Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. Jointly with her husband, Joliot-Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1935 for their discovery of artificial radioactivity. This made the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date.[1] Both children of the Joliot-Curies, Hélène and Pierre, are also esteemed scientists.[2]

https://www.malala.org

Malala Yousafzai (S.St) (Malālah Yūsafzay: Urdu: ملالہ یوسفزئی‎; Pashto: ملاله یوسفزۍ‎ 

; born 12 July 1997)is a Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She is known mainly for human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Malala's advocacy has since grown into an international movement.

On the afternoon of 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was injured after a Taliban gunman attempted to assassinate her. Yousafzai remained unconscious, in critical condition at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Malala. Deutsche Welle wrote in January 2013 that Malala may have become "the most famous teenager in the world."  Weeks after her assassination attempt, a group of fifty leading Muslim clerics in Pakistan issued a fatwā against those who tried to kill her. 

virginiafitzgerald 'lovely frida ...' (2017)

Frida Kahlo de Rivera,  July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954), born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, was a Mexican painter known for her self-portraits.[2]

Kahlo's life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home, which is known as "La Casa Azul," the Blue House. Her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of Mexican national and indigenous traditions, and by feminists for its uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form.

& to finish off this post (that could truly go on forever) I want to share this inspiring and enlightening book that I picked up today!!!  Rad Women Worldwide, by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl, authors of Rad American Women A-Z.  I could not stop reading this book once I purchased it.  I, in fact, shared some of the amazing stories with my parents and Harriet over the dinner!! A superb way to end International Women Day.

International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

here is an article highlighting 17 bad-ass women!!
#InternationalWomensDay: 17 Women Who Changed the Game
Happy International Women’s Day! We round-up some of the exceptional women who serve as true inspirations in the fields of Public Service, Arts and Culture, Sciences, and Advocacy – all of whom ask us to #BeBoldforChange