This article was published on The 19th in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for The Marshall Project’s newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook. 

Kwaneta Harris suddenly developed intense shoulder pain in 2019. Incarcerated in Texas, she began the process of requesting a specialized medical visit, certain she needed to see an orthopedist. Then, she started having heart palpitations and tachycardia, an abnormally fast resting heart rate, and requested a visit to the cardiologist. Around the same time, acne broke out across her face, something she’d never dealt with, even as a teenager. She filed a request for a dermatologist. Once a calm and collected figure on her cell block, she began to cry easily, and struggled to recall details and words that previously felt ingrained. Her long, dark hair began to thin. 

Harris, a former nurse who is now 53, was quick to self-diagnose. Assuming she had a thyroid problem, she requested a visit to an endocrinologist. Getting each specialty visit took months. First, she had to exhaust any recommendations from the in-prison medical provider, a process that often took three or more months. When those remedies failed, she could request a second opinion, after which she’d wait two to three more months to get approved. Each specialty visit then required an hours-long trip across the state to Galveston on a bus, shackled to another woman. None of these appointments brought relief. 

Three years after the shoulder pain began, Harris was listening to NPR when a TED Talk about perimenopause came on. Suddenly, the constellation of medical symptoms all made sense.

“She said the most magical words I’ve ever heard, and I felt so much better: ‘You are not crazy,’” Harris said. “I remember saying ‘thank you’ out loud.”  

But even once she knew the origin of her symptoms, Harris said medical providers continued to dismiss her. It took two more years for her to get a prescription for Premarin, a hormone replacement therapy (HRT). A provider agreed to prescribe a 60-day trial supply after Harris pleaded for relief, in tears. The prescription was never refilled when it ran out.

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Harris’ Kafkaesque journey isn’t unusual for perimenopausal and menopausal people in prison, where access to information about this life transition is scarce. Menopause is diagnosed after someone has gone without a period for 12 months. Perimenopause is the months- to years-long transitional period leading up to this cessation. Social media is crammed with celebrities sharing their experiences and influencers giving tips for managing symptoms or singing the praises of HRT. But that wave of advice and resources hasn’t reached most carceral settings. 

Many incarcerated people approaching menopause are left to navigate these seismic physical shifts on their own, self-diagnosing and advising each other. For some, the lack of information and knowledge about menopause makes it difficult to even name what they’re experiencing. Makeshift tools and tricks cobbled together to manage symptoms can trigger disciplinary action. Requesting menopause-related medical care in a system that often fails to provide the bare minimum can be a frustrating and ultimately fruitless process. While new networks of care are emerging, offering hope in some prisons, these advances remain inaccessible in many places.

Lori Pults, 52, remembers laying on her bunkbed, working on a prison ministry course on her tablet, when she was suddenly overcome by heat. She mistook her first hot flash for a fever.

“It starts in your chest, and you just have this overwhelming feeling, like you stepped under a spotlight,” Pults said. 

Pults, who is serving a life sentence in Missouri, lost her mother when she was young and was raised by a grandmother who never told her about menopause. Fortunately, a nurse practitioner at the prison explained it to her. 

But Pults’ relative ease in finding a medical provider well-versed in menopause is highly unusual in prison health care, and literature on the subject is hard to come by. Prisons sharply restrict access to news and information, wielding censorship as a tool for maintaining security. Libraries often have scant resources and unreliable hours, and doing basic online research is virtually impossible. Resources sent by mail, including medical reference books, are sometimes banned, misconstrued as pornographic. All of these barriers can make it challenging, if not impossible, for people behind bars to learn about menopause.

“There is no information whatsoever available for women on this topic,” said Ann, who is serving a life sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York. (Because of the high-profile nature of her case, she asked that we use only her middle name.) “There was never any effort by anyone to get me any information when I asked about menopause. I would have to ask a friend to get me information off of the internet.”  

Thomas Mailey, director of public information for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said that there is a full-time gynecologist on staff at Bedford Hills available to answer questions on “all women’s health care related subjects.” 

There has long been a dearth of research on menopause, and even less on how it plays out in prisons. Dr. Andrea Knittel, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the University of North Carolina, published a first-of-its-kind qualitative study in 2025 with a group of researchers examining how menopause symptoms “shape experiences of the criminal legal system.” It’s the largest study of this intersection of issues to date, and one of fewer than 10 peer-reviewed studies touching on menopause in prisons. The lack of information available to incarcerated women, and their subsequent confusion, was a recurring theme in Knittel’s research. 

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“The vast majority of people that we talked to were confused and scared,” Knittel said. “They thought maybe they had some infectious condition. They thought maybe they had taken something terrible … the first thought was not, ‘This is a normal physiologic experience that everyone goes through.’”

Harris, an incarcerated journalist who has written extensively about women’s health care behind bars, often finds herself advising fellow incarcerated women in the absence of practitioners versed in gender-specific health care. More than once she scrawled a picture of the female reproductive system on a wall with a Sharpie to help explain things to her peers. 

Even as bits and pieces of the current menopause moment trickle into prisons through TV, radio and other media, that information sometimes merely increases awareness of resources that are just out of reach. 

“I know there are several new medications that I’ve seen on commercials, but the [Department of Corrections] has said that they are too expensive to give here,” said Denise Hein, 72, who is incarcerated in Missouri.

According to Karen Pojmann, communications director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, “Physicians prescribe medications and provide other treatments to residents based on each patient’s diagnosis and assessed needs, just as they would in the community. Hormone replacement therapy is available to residents.”

Raquel Glenn, 71, who is incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York, said she still struggles with lingering hot flashes, exacerbated by a prison without air conditioning and a broken ice machine.

“Our cells are a stagnant, suffocating and humid den once summer hits,” said Glenn, who resorts to sleeping on the floor on the hottest nights. 

Any housing unit without an operating ice machine can access ice from a neighboring unit, according to Mailey, and areas of the prison without air conditioning are “properly ventilated in accordance with national standards set by the American Correctional Association.”

The population of women in prison increased by 600 percent between 1980 and 2023, and is currently growing at twice the rate of men in prison. As that number grows, so too does the segment of incarcerated people going through perimenopause and menopause. The overall prison population is rapidly aging, posing a host of challenges for older adults in facilities where basic medical care can be hard to come by. Experts estimate that 40 percent of women behind bars are either already experiencing or will soon experience menopause. 

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Despite these swelling numbers, specialized care for women’s health issues remains difficult to access in many prisons. Nadia Sabbagh Steinberg, a professor of social work at the University of Iowa whose dissertation focused on gynecological care in prison, said during the years she conducted her research, there was only one in-house medical practitioner available to the entire Iowa Correctional Institute for Women. The doctor was a man with no specific gynecological training, whose medical license had previously been revoked. The prison has since hired more nurse practitioners.

This lack of specialized care was commonly reported among incarcerated women who spoke to The Marshall Project, many of whom said they were dismissed by providers when describing perimenopause symptoms, and even chided by some male medical practitioners for using accurate language to describe their own bodies. “Every doctor I have dealt with here says they don’t know much about menopause, so they really don’t provide any help,” Ann said.

Others described the lack of empathy from nonmedical staff who were unfamiliar with or misunderstood perimenopause and menopause. Linda Cayton, who was in prison in North Carolina on her 50th birthday, struggled with debilitating mood swings. 

“The guards were like, ‘You just came to prison, you’re supposed to be upset,’” Cayton said. 

Even when someone is able to access an informed provider — often after a long wait — getting consistent treatment can be yet another mountain to climb. 

After Harris was able to identify the underlying cause of her symptoms, she asked a friend outside of prison to print and mail her information on HRT. For many years, clinicians recommended against estrogen replacement for perimenopausal and menopausal people, relying on research from the early 2000s that suggested HRT contributed to increased risk of cardiovascular issues, cancer and neurological side effects. Harris had experienced resistance to getting a prescription for HRT in light of this research. 

Then last year, the “black box” FDA warnings were removed from prescribing HRT related to menopause. In the past two decades, additional research was conducted, revealing new findings about the benefits of HRT, and researchers highlighted methodological flaws in the early 2000s analysis. While age and individual medical histories dictate whether HRT is a safe and appropriate option for each person, clinicians are now far more likely to prescribe this treatment. Armed with an article she tore out of an issue of Good Housekeeping and research from the North American Menopause Society, Harris finally convinced a doctor to prescribe HRT. The hard-won prescription was life-changing.

For most of her life, Harris prided herself on having a great memory and “the kind of brain where before the teacher finished solving the math problem, I had already figured it out.” But during a period of multiple years when she was in solitary confinement, something shifted. 

“I started noticing that I was writing stuff down on the walls of my cell with a pencil, using it like a whiteboard,” Harris said. “Something was off with my memory … I kept forgetting words.”

She assumed the memory loss was a byproduct of her isolation or a symptom of long Covid. It wasn’t until she was prescribed HRT that she felt the brain fog lift, and realized that it too, was a symptom of perimenopause.  

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“It was like I was back to me. My skin cleared up, my hair got thick, I was able to sleep, my memory improved,” Harris said.

But after the prescription ran out, Harris struggled to get a refill for the next year, and her symptoms returned. 

Chronic health problems, undiagnosed illnesses and inadequate nutrition all contribute to poor health outcomes for incarcerated people. Substance use and mental health problems are more prevalent among incarcerated people than in the general population, and some symptoms of menopause, such as irritability and insomnia, can be misinterpreted as longer-term symptoms of withdrawal from multiple kinds of drugs. Combined with what is often substandard medical care and the prevalence of sexual trauma among incarcerated women, linking symptoms to menopause can prove challenging.

“There are lots of different ways where learning to not trust your body, learning to not trust the world with your body, would lead to it being really complicated to interpret what was going on in your body through a big physiologic change like menopause,” said Dr. Knittel, the OB/GYN and researcher from the University of North Carolina. 

A lack of trauma-informed medical providers and staff, coupled with distrust of medical systems that have previously failed people in and out of prison, can also pose a barrier to care. 

“They didn’t trust the medical system in there, and they didn’t trust that they would get accurate information,” Sabbagh Steinberg said of the incarcerated women she interviewed in Iowa. Others had simply neglected to care for their health for years while caring for other people, like their children. 

The fact that for women incarcerated in Iowa there was only one male provider available was “very triggering for many women in prison, in particular, who have sexual trauma histories.”

Dismissing or declining to treat menopause symptoms can dramatically impact quality of life as people age, leading to serious medical issues that may compound: osteoporosis, heart conditions and major depressive disorder, to name a few. Menopause accelerates bone loss, and osteoporosis is the most prevalent disease in postmenopausal people; without treatment, patients run the risk of fractures and chronic pain. In Missouri, Hein suffers from osteopenia, or lower than average bone density. Without regular testing, she isn’t sure how fast the problem is progressing. She said that calcium tablets are the only medication she’s provided with at Chillicothe Correctional Center.

“You have to look at the long-term ramifications of osteoporosis,” Hein said. “That’s inexplicable not to treat a long-term illness like that.” 

The failure to treat menopause can ultimately cost prisons more to treat in the long run. 

“By our estimation, it was at least four times less expensive to just treat menopause at the source than to not treat it,” said Kelly Stewart Danner of Impact Justice, a criminal justice reform organization that conducted a cost-modeling exercise to determine the long-term cost to prisons of not treating menopause. Ideally, perimenopause and menopause care would include a combination of regular preventative screenings; adjustments to diet and exercise; stress management tools and practices; and access to hormonal and nonhormonal medication options to manage symptoms.

Incarcerated people are forced to be creative to manage symptoms of menopause and perimenopause. To ease the discomfort of a night of hot flashes, Cayton filled every little vessel she could find with cool water — empty pill bottles, cups and shampoo bottles — and took them to her cell. An older woman advised her to wet her clothes to get through the night (and to do so at a certain time to avoid getting caught by guards), so she’d shower in her nightgown and slip under the covers soaking wet, pouring more water on herself as hot flashes struck. 

The heat in her North Carolina prison, where there is no air conditioning, was intolerable as her hot flashes worsened. 

“I was drenched in sweat, and my emotions were all over the place. I was miserable,” Cayton said.

But self-management of symptoms, and a failure to understand the shifts in mood that can accompany perimenopause and menopause, can result in disciplinary infractions when misinterpreted by corrections staff. 

In Texas, Harris said women are often denied an adequate supply of menstrual products — a particular problem for the subset of perimenopausal women who experience heavier than typical bleeding during their periods. Lacking sufficient pads and tampons, Harris said women have ripped up sheets and folded them to absorb menstrual blood, a hack that is then punished and written up as “destruction of state property.” These infractions add up.

“The consequences just ripple outward,” Harris said. “When we get disciplinary infractions, these can justify parole denials.”

According to Amanda Hernandez, director of communications for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, there is “no limit on the amount [of menstrual products] that can be requested and provided,” and the department previously launched an education campaign to teach incarcerated women about these products. 

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Among the 29 incarcerated people across five states whom Knittel interviewed for her research, disciplinary action in response to menopause-related symptoms and their management was a common thread.

Multiple participants in Knittel’s study described receiving write-ups for having uniforms soiled by blood. Others described being written up for not having the covers pulled over them at night while trying to stay cool, or getting sent to solitary confinement for mood swing-related behavior. “I saw women go from being model inmates to getting back-to-back write-ups,” reported one participant in the study, identified as Rhonda.

“My patients are so creative and resourceful in trying to get their needs met, and often that creativity and very genuine trying to get to a base level of humanity is met with the assumption that they are being manipulative, that they are trying to game the system and get something that they’re not supposed to have,” Knittel said.

In California, Stewart Danner and her colleagues at Impact Justice are piloting a first-of-its-kind project to address the lack of information and adequate medical care for perimenopausal and menopausal incarcerated women. In January, the organization launched a novel program to train prison medical providers to identify and effectively treat the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Ultimately, they hope to train all corrections staff to increase awareness of menopause, not just medical providers. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has worked closely with Stewart Danner and her team to help facilitate the program. 

Providers who participate in the program — including OB/GYNs, lead nurses, primary care providers and mental health providers — will earn continuing education credits, a requirement for many in health care. In addition to medical training, the program has a significant focus on education for incarcerated women. Impact Justice is providing infrastructure for peer support groups, and distributing flyers, posters and bookmarks with information about menopause throughout the state’s two women’s prisons. 

“We’re really just trying to canvass these institutions, so that at the provider and the patient level they have all the training and awareness they need to both provide great menopause and perimenopause care, and then also request it and advocate for themselves and know the basics of what menopause even is,” Stewart Danner said. 

In addition to education about pharmaceutical interventions like HRT and antidepressants, which are commonly prescribed to treat people in perimenopause, the organization’s training for providers includes modalities of care such as meditation, yoga and pelvic floor therapy, and they are disseminating information about these methods through books and other resources. 

While the project is in its infancy, Stewart Danner and her colleagues are in talks with corrections departments in Idaho, Michigan and South Carolina, where they hope to provide more practitioner training, information and tools.

Meanwhile, in the many places without such programs, women are trying to care for each other in the absence of information and institutional support. In Missouri, Ginny Twenter, 64, has been tiptoeing around an increasingly moody 56-year-old friend she plays cards with, encouraging her to get help.

“We just finally told her she’s going through perimenopause, and she agreed to go to medical and see what they have to say,” Twenter said. “To me, that’s a good start … but they need to make more information available, whether on tablets or pamphlets. Sometimes people believe more what they read than what they hear.” 

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In Texas, Harris is trying to spread the word and support the women around her who are struggling to navigate this bodily sea change. 

“We have to remove the stigma of talking about it,” Harris said. “We really need community, instead of hoping you can go through it alone.” 

The post What It’s Like to Go Through Perimenopause and Menopause in Prison appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Climate change is real, and it’s here. Thankfully, so are women.

A 2024 United Nations report grimly warns that “urgent action must be taken to prevent catastrophic spikes in temperature and avoid the worst impact of climate change.” Erratic weather patterns, wildfires, hurricanes and floods are already showing us shades of what an unlivable world could look like.

While current leadership is unwilling to tackle or even recognize the issue – the Trump administration has removed the term “climate change” from many government websites – ordinary citizens, community watchdogs and activist organizations around the world continue to sound the alarm. Folks like those at Extinction Rebellion engage in regular acts of civil disobedience, while groups such as the Climate Emergency Fund funnel money toward such efforts. Prominent activists like Jane Fonda have elevated the issue from their considerable platforms, inspiring new generations of eco-warriors.

Research shows that women around the world are more vulnerable to the climate crisis, so it’s perhaps no surprise that women are often front-and-center in these call-outs and actions. In honor of Earth Month, here are several women leaders who have dedicated their lives, and work, to combating climate change. 

1

Madeline Walker, featured as one of our 2026 Women in Science Prize winners, runs a company that focuses on textiles that end up on the cutting room floor during the manufacturing process. (Credit: Courtesy of Madeline Walker)

The 2026 Winners of Our 'Women in Science Prize'

You might not recognize their names, but the 11 winners of our 2026 Women in Science Prize have done innovative work in the name of preserving and protecting our natural resources. These scientists are helping us better understand and navigate droughts, wildfires and more as climate change continues to become an increasingly large part of our lives.

2

(Credit: 3 Cricketeers)

Claire Simons

Our food supply problems seem likely to get worse before they get better. Thankfully, women like Claire Simons, co-founder of 3 Cricketeers, are working hard on offering us an eco-friendly alternative – even if it might be hard for some to stomach. Her cricket-based snacks, including her new toffees, are introducing the sustainable concept of eating insects (something more than a quarter of the world does, by the way) to diners throughout the U.S.

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Diane Wilson. (Credit: Diane Wilson)

Diane Wilson

Award-winning climate-change activist Wilson was arrested this week amid her weeks-long hunger strike in protest of Dow Chemical Company’s attempts to secure governmental permission to discharge microplastics from its Seadrift-based operations into nearby waters that feed into both San Antonio Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. “Dow is asking Texas to legalize plastic pollution,” Wilson said – and she won’t let that happen without a fight.

4

Rachael Slattery

At Wild Harmony Farm in Exeter, Rhode Island – a family farm that sells organic pork, grass-fed beef and pastured poultry – Rachael Slattery and and co-owner Ben Coerper use regenerative agriculture techniques, which help restore soil health and reduce the impacts of climate change. It’s sharply different from how most food in the U.S. is produced today, which is why Wild Harmony Farm hopes to share its methods, like cover cropping and rotational grazing, with other small farmers.

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(Credit: Matt Mais of the Yurok Tribe)

Amy Cordalis

Talk about thinking globally and acting locally. Amy Cordalis has led efforts to restore the Klamath River, which runs from Oregon into Northern California and empties out into the ocean, amid a water crisis that has killed its fish population. She’s a lawyer by trade, and was appointed general counsel for the Yurok Tribe in 2016. In 2024, she was named a “Champion of the Earth” by the United Nations for her role in the largest dam removal and river restoration project in history.

6

Karen Washington

An urban farmer and food justice advocate, Karen Washington is the co-founder of both Rise & Root Farm in Orange County, New York, and Garden of Happiness in New York City. She advocates for the belief that nutritious food is a human right by ensuring access to it in underserved neighborhoods – like the ones she grew up in. Still today, “healthy food is based on the color of your skin, how much money you make, and where you live,” she told The Story Exchange – and her mission is to change that by empowering other urban growers.

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(Credit: Natural Evolution)

Traci Phillips

Traci Phillips’ Natural Evolution recycles dead cell phones, washed-up computers and more, so they can’t clog landfills and release toxic substances into the environment. The Tulsa, Oklahoma, entrepreneur says her Native American roots inspired her to turn a personal mission into a successful business. “My tribe, many years ago, believed we had a responsibility and we were actually stewards of our surroundings and our earth,” she told us. “It feels like I am fulfilling that.”

8

Briana Warner

Fast-growing kelp can help mitigate the impact of climate change by removing carbon and nitrogen from the water. And compared with land plants and animal meats, kelp is loaded with digestive and nutritional benefits. Yet 95% of edible seaweed is imported – something Briana Warner set out to change during her time as CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms. After six years with the company, she stepped away from the role to focus on other professional pursuits, but remained an advisor to the company.

9

Nona Yehia

Architect Nona Yehia thought there must be a better way for Wyoming residents to get fresh produce than importing it from other states. Several years after that initial thought – and following some healthy skepticism from naysayers – Vertical Harvest finally opened in 2016 as the first vertical farm in the northern hemisphere. Today, the farm produces lettuces, tomatoes, microgreens and more for restaurants, shops and her community as a whole.

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(Credit: Greenpeace)

KlimaSeniorinnen

We admit it: We’re still buzzing over the group of women took their climate change concerns to court – and won. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2024 that the Swiss government failed to effectively act on curbing the effects of climate change, after the Club of Climate Seniors, a 2,000-member group of 64-and-older Swiss women, brought the matter before them. Experts said the case sets “a crucial, legally binding precedent.”

11

Jessica Schreiber

Jessica Schreiber is fascinated by trash. And in New York City, where she launched fashion recycling startup Fabscrap, there is plenty of it: Residents alone produce some 12,000 tons of it a day. Though she stepped down last March, the nonprofit she started still works in the city’s world-famous fashion industry, picking up and reselling its textile cast-offs — yards of cotton, strips of wool, pieces of luxurious silk, linen and leather. As commercial waste, such scraps aren’t eligible for the city’s residential recycling programs, and more often than not, they end up in landfills. “That, to me, was unacceptable,” she told The Story Exchange.

12

Sarah Montgomery

“As we look at climate change, [amaranth] is a plant that’s so healthy, and that can adapt to so many different places and conditions,” says Sarah Montgomery, co-founder of Qachuu Aloom Mother Earth Association, who hosts events to share ancestral knowledge. The plant is native to Central America, but with permission from a collective of Maya Achi farmers in Guatemala, its seeds are being sown in the U.S. – a boon, Montgomery says, as the solution to climate change lies “within nature. We just need to learn how to listen.”

13

Kerry Kelly

“Climate change, population growth, water diversions — all those are acting together to cause a big decline in the level of the Salt Lake,” says Kerry Kelly, associate professor of chemical engineering at the University of Utah, co-founder of Tellus Networked Air Quality Sensors, and a 2022 winner of our Women in Science Incentive Prize. “And that’s leading to big air quality problems here.” The dust left behind by the drying lake now kicks up on a regular basis, irritating eyes, noses and mouths, and making it tougher for people to breathe – which is why she’s hard at work developing low-cost sensors to monitor air quality.

14

(Credit: Lucy Sherriff)

Diane Ragone

In a world threatened by climate change , breadfruit has been increasingly seen as a stable crop that can help combat global hunger. Diane Ragone is the director emerita of the Breadfruit Institute of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, based in Hawaii. For more than three and a half decades, she has been studying, analyzing, growing and preaching the breadfruit gospel. Almost single-handedly, she has brought this superfood to the world’s attention.

15

(Credit: Rise St. James, Peter G. Forest/Forest Photography, LLC)

Sharon Lavigne

Sharon Lavigne is the founder of RISE St. James, a grassroots environmental organization dedicated to preventing the expansion of petrochemical plants in and around her home in St. James Parish, a district located between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The fumes from a nearby plant didn’t just fill the air there; they likely also gave Lavigne autoimmune hepatitis, a disease created when the body’s immune system attacks the liver. She told The Story Exchange that “if the industry wouldn’t exist, I wouldn’t have these problems.” Now, she’s doing her part to mitigate their harmful effects and save others from the same fate.

16

Sharon Rowe

Sharon Rowe admits that part of her reason for launching Eco-Bags Products, Inc., which makes and sells reusable totes, lunch bags and more, was to have more control of her time. But first and foremost, Rowe wanted to offer her neighbors – and all of us – an alternative to wasteful single-use plastic bags. “[W]hen I realized there were other people thinking like I was [about plastic bags], I decided to start a business,” she told us. Since launching, Eco-Bags has been featured by the likes of Oprah and Time Magazine.

17

NY Sun Works director Manuela Zamora. (Credit: NY Sun Works)

Manuela Zamora

At climate-focused nonprofit, NY Sun Works, Bolivia-born Zamora has helped pioneer a hands-on approach to train the next generation of climate scientists and farmers, as the organization’s executive director. NY Sun Works accomplishes this goal by creating hydroponic farming classrooms that teach students how to grow plants and crops in nutrient-rich water rather than soil. “This is an excellent way to talk about sustainability science,” she told The Story Exchange.

18

(Credit: The Soapbox Project)

Nivi Achanta

Nivi Achanta is the founder of Soapbox Project, a platform that provides bite-sized climate action plans. She was inspired to launch after she noticed her friends disengaging from the news after finding current events to be too overwhelming to process. Today, the Seattle entrepreneur says she’s proud to have built a virtual space that allows people to get involved in social and environmental justice at a more comfortable pace.

19

Amy Keller

Amy Keller, whose family sells the famous Dum Dum lollipops, makes fruit chews from misshapen produce. The goal is to reduce food waste – a big problem to solve, as about 40% of food is wasted globally. The discarded produce often winding up in landfills, where it rots and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. Through its industrial machinery and equipment, Keller makes fruit chews at a mass scale, allowing her and her team to rescue an estimated 1 million fruits and vegetables a year.

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Annie Chun is the co-founder of Gimme Seaweed. (Image: Courtesy of the company)

Annie Chun

Chun grew up in Korea, and has many memories of watching her mother roast seaweed on the stovetop there. She’s now the U.S.-based co-founder of Gimme Seaweed, a popular, healthy and sustainable snack-food brand. Seaweed is considered a regenerative crop, a nutrient dense “superfood” that can absorb carbon dioxide and make the ocean cleaner. Chun’s work brings this human- and Earth-friendly treat to both smaller grocery stores and large retailers like Target, Walmart and Costco.

Editor’s Note: This post, updated for 2026, was originally published April 18, 2024.

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The post Earth Month 2026: These Women Are Taking Climate Action appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Margaret Bourke White, taking a photo from the top of the Chrysler building in 1934. (Credit: The Library of Congress)

She Shot Factories, Dictators and History – Up Close

The groundbreaking photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White grabbed her camera and headed to the frontlines.

March 30, 2026

By Victoria Flexner

Editor’s Note: In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing profiles of influential women in journalism.

Margaret Bourke-White is arguably one of the most influential photojournalists of the 20th century. Over a four-decade career, she photographed factories and skyscrapers, world wars, poverty in the American South and political violence across the globe. She famously photographed Mahatma Ghandi hours before he was assassinated, and captured a rare smiling image of Joseph Stalin. Along the way, she blazed trails for women in the media, becoming the first female photographer for LIFE Magazine, the first Western photographer allowed in the Soviet Union and one of the first journalists to document the Nazi concentration camps in 1945. 

Born in 1904 in New York City, Bourke-White studied at several universities, including Cornell, where she began serious experiments with photography. She discovered that the camera could translate her fascination with machines, structures, and patterns into striking visual images (many of which are now owned by the Museum of Modern Art).

In the late 1920s, Bourke-White opened a studio in Cleveland, Ohio, and began specializing in industrial subjects, such as the Otis Steel mill. Undaunted by the difficulties of photographing in physically challenging conditions, where molten heat could literally melt her film, she documented steel production and American factories. She quickly attracted national attention and corporate clients. 

The publisher Henry Luce hired Bourke-White in 1929 as the first staff photographer for his new business magazine Fortune. There, Bourke-White produced ambitious photographic essays on American industry, architecture and economic life. While her work demonstrated the immense power of American industry, Bourke-White also chose to expose the human cost of technical advancement – particularly in the American South. 

In the mid-1930s, she worked with novelist Erskine Caldwell (whom she would later marry and divorce) to document the lives of poor sharecroppers and rural families in the Dust Bowl. The resulting photos became the book, You Have Seen Their Faces, which was published in 1937. Portraits of stoic subjects, and landscapes of desolate farms and makeshift homes, drew attention to the profound inequalities of the era. Historians note that her use of the photographic essay—sequenced images that built a narrative—became a hallmark of her style and a model for later documentary work in film and journalism.

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The Voice Who Warned America About Hitler

By 1936, Luce was getting ready to launch his next venture, LIFE Magazine, which would be centered around visual storytelling. Bourke-White became the magazine’s first female photojournalist, and her image of Fort Peck Dam in Montana graced LIFE’s inaugural cover. Bourke-White worked for LIFE until the late 1950s, becoming one of the magazine’s defining visual voices. 

Early on at LIFE, Bourke-White was assigned to photograph industrialization in the Soviet Union, a project that would see her make a number of trips behind the Iron Curtain at a time when access to Russia was extremely guarded. Bourke-White somehow managed to obtain official permission to travel through the country’s factories and construction sites, producing images of steel mills, the construction of the Dnieper Dam, but also snapshots of everyday life, like peasant women eating Borscht. Her most notable visit came in 1941 at the beginning of World War II, when Moscow came under Nazi attack – Bourke-White was there covering the invasion. It was during this visit to the Soviet Union that she photographed Stalin himself. 

According to The New York Times, Bourke-White wrote of that meeting, 

“I made up my mind that I wouldn’t leave without getting a picture of Stalin smiling…I went virtually berserk trying to make that great stone face come alive…I got down on my hands and knees on the floor and tried out all kinds of crazy postures searching for a good camera angle. Stalin looked down at the way I was squirming and writhing and for the space of a lightning flash he smiled—and I got my picture. Probably, he had never seen a girl photographer before and my weird contortions amused him.”

During World War II, Bourke-White’s career entered a new, perilous phase, as she became the first American female war photojournalist. She covered the siege of Moscow, flew on bombing missions over North Africa, and later accompanied General George Patton’s Third Army into Germany. She survived torpedo attacks at sea, enemy fire, and a helicopter crash, earning the nickname “Maggie the Indestructible” from her colleagues at LIFE. Her photographs of the newly liberated Buchenwald concentration camp—gaunt survivors, piles of corpses, the stark infrastructure of genocide—were among the first images to confront the American public with the full horror of Nazi atrocities.

In the late 1940s, Bourke-White’s attention turned toward the upheavals of decolonization and racial injustice. She covered the 1947 Partition of British India into the new nations of India and Pakistan, producing graphic images of mass migration and communal violence. She also photographed Gandhi by his spinning wheel only hours before his assassination in 1948. Shortly afterward, she reported from South Africa, documenting the early years of apartheid. She later covered the Korean War for LIFE.

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She Reported on World War II – Over the Airwaves and In Photos

In the 1950s, Bourke-White’s output slowed as she began to suffer from Parkinson’s disease. Even as her health declined, her work continued to circulate widely in books, exhibitions, and magazine retrospectives, cementing her reputation. She died in 1971 at the age of 67. 

Today, historians credit Bourke-White with helping invent the modern photographic essay. Her photos are not just works of art, but important artifacts in their own right. By capturing war, conflict and modernization from the front lines, Bourke-White created some of the most valuable visual documentation of the 20th century. 

The post She Shot Factories, Dictators and History – Up Close appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Spring has sprung – which means spring cleaning season is upon us. 

If you’re not sure where to begin, there are plenty of women experts to turn to. Influencers like Chantel Mila have plenty of general cleanliness tips to offer. When diving into organizing, maybe Kayleen Kelly’s 4-pronged method of eliminating clutter appeals to you. Perhaps GoCleanCo’s Sarah McAllister and her hacks will best assist you with your overloaded home. Or, there’s always Marie Kondo’s world-renowned KonMari method of getting and keeping tidy – though even the clean queen herself admits to paying less attention to such matters now that she’s a mom. (Relatable.)

Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find myself wondering what gurus like them – and others in general – would make of Bro.

Bro, pronounced “Brah,” is a toy dog I acquired over 25 years ago. (Calculating the time difference between Bro’s purchase and my writing of this introduction is an exercise in what I like to call “hurtful math.”) I bought him while strolling the Atlantic City boardwalk as a senior in high school. It was a windy November evening – hardly beach weather, but these walks were customary following All-State Chorus rehearsals, like the one I’d just finished on this particular evening. I’d taken many of them with my friends in years prior, all freezing cold and full of laughs and singing through our favorite pieces from rehearsal as the sun set … but that stroll stands out (and not just because we accompanied it by singing James Erb’s arrangement of “Shenandoah“).

My younger self was on the precipice of starting a new chapter – I gabbed louder and swore far more than necessary while carrying this fuzzy, frivolous purchase made with money I’d earned as a part-time grocery clerk. The excitement of “maybe” and “possibly” – and “hopefully” – was so thick, I swore I could reach through one of those frigid ocean breezes and grab hold.

Over the years that followed, I’d undergo numerous sea changes, navigate several moves, and take on numerous spring cleaning projects – but Bro remained a surprising constant. Through every job switch; every new love and subsequent heartbreak; every hard lesson learned; every title acquired and lost, from “understudy” and “cub” to “featured soloist” and “editor.” And yes, through becoming “wife” and “mom,” too.

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Every time my life shifted, Bro found his stubby-legged way into joining me. Repeatedly grounding me, by mere sight, with his constant presence – while at the same time whisking me back to that crisp, clear late fall sunset and the breadth of possibility that was laid out before our respective sea-green and ink-black gazes. He reminds me that “maybe” and “possibly” and “hopefully” aren’t relics of my past, but rather, treasures still on offer to me now.

Here’s the thing: Scientifically speaking, Bro shouldn’t have made it this far. His mechanized movements stopped ages ago. His “bark” is now a degraded yelp; his synthetic fur is patchy and, frankly, pathetic. The amorphous mystery stain near his battery cartridge might actually be atrophied acid, but I’m too scared to investigate the matter. He is, if I’m being honest, somewhat offensive to all five senses – nevertheless, Bro persists.

And when spring cleaning season arrives, I annually wonder: How does one part ways with something that is so beautifully, indelibly connected to a life – yet is, objectively speaking, crap?

Don’t ask me, because as of publication, Bro remains in my home. And part of me thinks that’s all right. Maybe it’s even good to hold on to our own individual Bros sometimes – these nonsense knick-knacks that, when found and held once more, bring us back to times and places whose recollection feels good and warm and sweet. Objects that serve as reminders of our ongoing growth, and maybe even make us smirk with pride at how far we’ve come.

But for most everything else whose time has come and gone, as I’m sure the women experts I cited above would remind me, it’s probably time to purge. To shed that which no longer fits us; that which brings pain through remembrance; that which we can and should let go of to make room for light and newness. So sure, keep your personal “Bro.” But in other cases, it’s likely time to let go. 

To help rid yourself, I’ve put together a playlist of songs that examine goodbyes and guide us through the process of lamenting, accepting and perhaps even celebrating necessary departures. (As well tunes that might encourage you to actually keep that trinket or t-shirt after all. I’m not a monster.)

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Editor’s Note: This post, updated for 2026, was originally published April 25, 2023.

The post 14 Songs to Ignite a Spring-Cleaning Spark appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Patterson, Amsterdam, c. 1940. (Image Courtesy of Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson papers, Library of Congress)

She Reported on World War II – Over the Airwaves and In Photos

Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson was the lone woman in the group of foreign correspondents known as “Murrow’s Boys.”

March 18, 2026

By Victoria Flexner

Editors Note: In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing profiles of influential women in journalism.

Mary Marvin Breckinridge Patterson was a pioneering American photojournalist, cinematographer and broadcaster whose adventurous life traced many of the political and social currents of the 20th century –  from Depression-era rural America to wartime Europe to post-war diplomacy. Though born into privilege, Patterson used her access and education to carve out a career as a foreign correspondent at a time when few women did so. 

Patterson was born in 1905, into the prominent Breckinridge family of Kentucky. Family members included Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge and tire factory founder Benjamin F. Goodrich. Her family moved often when she was young – she attended a dozen schools before enrolling at Vassar College in 1923. While there, she helped start the National Student Federation of America and met another young organizer, Edward R. Murrow, who would be crucial in her later career. 

After graduation, Patterson did not opt for the predictable path of society debutante, but rather set out to study photography across several continents. She took classes at the Clarence White School of Photography in New York, the University of Berlin, the Catholic University of Lima and the American University in Cairo. In 1931, she turned her new skills into a silent film, “The Forgotten Frontier,” which documented the Frontier Nursing Service’s midwifery and healthcare mission in rural Kentucky. Decades later, the film’s observational style and focus on women and children’s lives in the Appalachian Mountains led to its inclusion in the National Film Register in 1996, cementing her legacy as a pioneer in the documentary space. 

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The Voice Who Warned America About Hitler

By the late 1930s, Patterson was a successful freelance photojournalist, traveling widely and shooting for magazines such as Life, Harper’s Bazaar, and Town and Country. She also learned to fly, becoming the first woman to get her pilot’s license in the state of Maine. In 1939, while on assignment in Europe, she found herself in Switzerland when Germany invaded Poland, a turning point that shifted her trajectory from magazine photography to wartime broadcast journalism. 

Her old friend Edward R. Murrow, who was working for CBS in London, invited her to contribute radio pieces about how the war was reshaping everyday life in British villages. Though she was new to radio, her training in multiple mediums helped her learn quickly. She became the lone woman in the original cohort dubbed “Murrow’s Boys.” 

During the tense early months of World War II, Patterson shot the first images of civilians in air-raid shelters as well as haunting scenes of children being evacuated from the capital to the countryside, according to the Library of Congress. On radio she filed roughly 50 reports from seven European countries, including Germany. In one famous segment about the Nazi newspaper Völkische Beobachter, she noted that its motto was “Freedom and Bread” and then added, “there is still bread,” a subtle suggestion that freedom had vanished, which slipped past German censors, according to Tufts University archives. 

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Despite her growing prominence, Patterson’s time as a war correspondent was cut short – not by a lack of ability or opportunity, but rather by marriage and official policy. In 1940, she married Jefferson Patterson, a U.S. diplomat serving as the first secretary at the American embassy in Berlin. Anticipating that she could return to photojournalism even as a diplomat’s wife, she resigned from CBS, but State Department rules effectively barred her from publishing anything that might reflect her husband’s work. 

Patterson was determined to reinvent herself within those new boundaries, though. As she accompanied her husband on postings in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, she started writing handbooks and guides for Americans navigating foreign societies. In “The Peruvian Way,” “Living in Egypt: From the American Angle,” and “At Home in Uruguay,” she blended her observations on local social etiquette, customs and history. 

In later decades, Patterson devoted herself to philanthropy. In 1974, she donated her family estate in York, Maine, to Bowdoin College, where it became the Breckinridge Public Affairs Center. In 1983, she and her husband gave their 550‑acre farm on the Patuxent River in Maryland to the state, creating what is now the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum. 

Patterson died in 2002 at the age of 97, having lived long enough to see her early work rediscovered and celebrated. In the 1990s, the Library of Congress showcased her photographs and broadcasts in the exhibition “Women Come to the Front,” which highlighted eight women who had broken barriers during World War II. Today, she is remembered as a trailblazer who insisted on doing serious work in spaces that were not designed to accommodate women, and who, when blocked, found new ways to turn her vantage point into service—whether through images, words, or the quiet gift of land.

The post She Reported on World War II – Over the Airwaves and In Photos appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Our annual Brilliant Business Ideas list spotlights women entrepreneurs who are just starting out – but who know their work is going to change (maybe even save) the world.

Does that sound like you?

Before March 22, we want to hear from women business owners who recently launched (within the past two years) and are now growing exciting ventures. We are open to all sorts of clever businesses, but are particularly interested in ones that approach our shared problems – and drive conversations about them – in new ways. Startups that offer solutions to concerns of all sizes, or perhaps simply offer us a fun respite in trying times. If it’s innovative and unique, we want to know all about it!

Final picks for our 2026 Brilliant Business Ideas list will be recognized later this spring on our site, shared with our media partners, and potentially featured in video profiles. Here is last year’s list of enterprising visionaries.

Intrigued so far? Check out our full list of guidelines:

• You must nominate yourself.
• You must complete the entire form in order to be considered.
• Your company must have been in operation for, at most, 2 years.
• You must be fully formed and launched before applying.
• Yours may be a for-profit business, nonprofit or social enterprise.
• You cannot be a franchisee, independent distributor or sales representative.
• You may reside anywhere in the world.
• If you have male co-owners, you must be the primary leader of the company.

Note: If you’ve filled out the latter sections of our form within the past 6 months, either as part of the 1,000+ Stories campaign or for our Gift Guide, you don’t need to fill it out again — just make sure to answer the new questions in the top sections of the application. If it’s been longer than 6 months, please complete the entire questionnaire again so we have up-to-date information.

After you finish your application, be sure to tell your friends, family, colleagues and networks about this opportunity! Encourage others to apply by sharing this page via email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Any questions? Please email info@thestoryexchange.org.

The post DEADLINE SOON – Women Biz Owners: Is Your New Company The Next Greatest Thing? appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Editors Note: In honor of Women’s History Month, we’re sharing profiles of influential women in journalism.

In 1931, journalist Dorothy Thompson became the first American to interview Adolf Hitler. The resulting article she later published, I Saw Hitler, was scathing. She described him as “formless, almost faceless…a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, her work also resulted in her becoming the first American journalist to be expelled from Germany. However, her warnings to the rest of the world about the rise of fascism would solidify her status as one of the most influential journalists of the 20th century.

Thompson was born on July 9, 1893, in Lancaster, New York, the daughter of a Methodist minister. She attended the Lewis Institute in Chicago and then enrolled at Syracuse University, where she studied politics and graduated in 1914 – a time when relatively few women completed four‑year degrees. 

After university, Thompson became involved with the women’s suffrage movement and contributed op‑eds on social justice issues to major newspapers. This early activism set the tone for how she would write and report for the rest of her career: She had a fundamental conviction that politics were inseparable from questions of justice. 

After the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, Thompson sailed to Europe to make her way as a foreign correspondent. She was drawn to stories about nationalist movements, reporting on events like the Irish struggle for independence, even securing a final interview with Sinn Féin leader Terence MacSwiney before his arrest and death on hunger strike.

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By 1925, she was the head of the Berlin bureau for the New York Evening Post, a rare position for a woman journalist in that era. There, Thompson became a close observer of the rise of Nazism. In 1931, she managed to secure a one‑on‑one interview with Hitler—at that point a rising but not yet dominant political figure—that would become her famous interview (for Cosmopolitan, then a general-interest magazine) and later a book. 

During their interview, Thompson asked Hitler, “When you come to power will you abolish the constitution of the German Republic?” To which he responded, “I will get into power legally…I will abolish this parliament and the Weimar [German Reich] constitution afterward. I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.” 

Thompson, who clearly recognized the threat Hitler posed to the German Republic, would later write a warning to Americans, of the possibility of something similar occurring in the States:

“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance…He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will. When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model. If anyone turned up here in a fur hat, boots and a grim look he would be recognized and shunned…But when our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”

Her reporting was sharp, critical and filled with contempt for the “very prototype of the Little Man.” The vehemence and reach of her writing angered Nazi leadership and in 1934, by Hitler’s personal orders, Thompson was expelled from Germany, becoming the first American journalist formally forced out of the Third Reich, according to the New York Times and the Holocaust Memorial Museum

Back in the United States, Thompson transformed her exile into a powerful platform. She began writing “On the Record,” a thrice‑weekly political column, syndicated to as many as 150 newspapers during its 22-year run, reaching up to 10 million readers. She also regularly appeared live on air for NBC radio, reporting for 15 straight days after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. Time magazine put Thompson on its cover that year, calling her the second most influential woman in America – after Eleanor Roosevelt, of course.

During the war, Thompson became a high-profile advocate for Zionism, sympathizing with Jews who sought a homeland. However, after visiting Palestine in 1945, and witnessing Palestinian refugees forced off their land, she began to criticize aspects of Israeli policy, calling it a ‘recipe for perpetual war,’ according to historians.

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Thompson married three times, most famously to novelist Sinclair Lewis, whom she met in Europe and married in 1928; the two apparently shared an intense, often stormy relationship and had a son, Michael. Their marriage, marked by Lewis’s alcoholism and the strains of two demanding careers, ended in divorce

She continued writing and speaking into the 1950s, though her prominence gradually waned as the political landscape shifted from anti‑fascism to Cold War debates. Thompson died of a heart attack in 1961 at the age of 66, her career standing as a landmark example for future generations of female journalists. As one of her contemporaries once said of her: “Not only does she cross the ice but [she] breaks it as she goes.”

The post The Voice Who Warned America About Hitler appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Women’s overall influence in American politics is on the rise.

Speaking strictly in numbers, an ever-increasing amount of women are running for office at local, state and federal levels. And more of them are currently holding positions, too. As of this year, women make up 28% of Congress, and just over 30% of state executive and legislative offices, according to the Center for American Women in Politics. Women additionally continue to be the leaders of political movements.

But beyond the wins in representation, it’s worth examining how these women utilize their power. Below, we’ve listed 15 other women – from several gubernatorial hopefuls to a number of opinionated figureheads and already-elected leaders – who are poised to make waves in the U.S. political landscape this year. 

In one direction or another.

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1

AG Pam Bondi. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Pam Bondi

The current U.S. Attorney General, named to the role last year, has been using her post in 2026 to pressure officials in Minnesota – where the public continues to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers’ increasingly hostile and deadly presence – into turning over voter rolls. The former attorney (who represented President Donald Trump during his 2020 impeachment proceedings) and past Florida A.G. has also taken to posting names and images of protesters in Minneapolis, when not calling for the arrest of journalists.

2

HSS Kristi Noem. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Kristi Noem

As Homeland Security Secretary, Noem had been tasked with overseeing ICE activity directly – and used her position to defend the actions of its agents, at times even negating videos that have shown ICE agents harming and killing civilians in her accounts. Her handling of the situation was much critiqued – and even resulted in a campaign calling for her impeachment among other elected officials, including a number of Republican lawmakers. Earlier this month, Noem was, indeed, fired from her post by the Trump administration, but was also given a new security-related position with the title “Envoy for The Shield of the Americas.”

3

Rep. Ruwa Romman. (Credit: Ruwa Romman)

Ruwa Romman

Romman has been a state representative in Georgia for years – and now, she wants to be its next governor, jumping into a race that will end on Election Day this year. Like Minnesota, the Peach State has been under its own pressure from the federal government around its election data, with the Federal Bureau of Investigations bursting its way into a state election center to secure 2020 records. “They wouldn’t be acting like this if they didn’t realize they’re gonna lose this year,” she said on X of the raid. “They’re gonna try to cheat, but we’re gonna win again.”

4

Rep. Gina Hinojosa. (Credit: Hinojosa's Instagram account)

Gina Hinojosa

State Rep. Hinojosa, a Democrat, is vying to become the next governor of Texas, a traditionally-Republican border state. There is cause for speculation about a slowly turning tide in the Lone Star State, in light of a recent win for a Democratic state senate candidate in a solidly “red” district. But beyond leftward shifts in local politics, Hinojosa also brings years of Texas politics experience to the table. The gubernatorial election will take place later this year, following a crowded primary between 9 other candidates so far – if she wins in November, she’d be the first Democrat (and woman) to hold the seat since the 1990s.

5

Rep. Ilhan Omar. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Ilhan Omar

The Somali-American Democrat representative for Minnesota has been under attack – both metaphorically, and literally. In the middle of a recent town hall address, a man approached her, then sprayed her with an unidentified substance – an escalation of animosity against her that has been sparked by Trump himself, she says. Indeed, Trump has also suggested that the Department of Justice is actively investigating her finances, implying foul play on Omar’s part.

6

Sen. Amy Klobuchar. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Amy Klobuchar

The Minnesota Senator is now looking to become her currently embattled state’s next governor, following Gov. Tim Walz’s announcement that he won’t be seeking re-election. Klobuchar, now in her fourth Senate term, became a national figure when she ran for president in 2020. In her years of public service, the former lawyer has passed well over 100 pieces of legislation, including measures that address supply-chain problems and promote small businesses and addiction recovery efforts.

7

Deb Haaland. (Credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr)

Deb Haaland

In New Mexico, a gubernatorial election is also coming this year – and the former congresswoman and Secretary of the Interior has put her name in the ring. (Current Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has reached her term limit.) Haaland has been especially vocal about her state’s healthcare crisis, but has also spoken out about ICE presence in her own communities. “If Donald Trump and ICE want to mess with New Mexico, they will have to get through my administration and me,” she said. “We will have zero tolerance for their injustice.”

8

Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Marjorie Taylor Greene

The former Georgia representative resigned from her post late last year, citing disagreements with Trump and her Republican colleagues on matters ranging from the case files in deceased financier and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s past trial, to American military involvement in Palestine and Venezuela. Her outspokenness in disagreement with the Trump administration resulted in death threats, she says, which led to her departure – and she continues to be vocal on the matter, stating in a recent interview that Trump’s messaging “was all a lie.”

9

Gov. Abigail Spanberger. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Abigail Spanberger

Former U.S. Rep. Spanberger won the governorship of Virginia last fall, taking on the role after three terms served in the U.S. House. Her first act, mere hours after her inauguration, set a tone: She issued an executive order to end the relationship between Virginia state police and ICE. “In Virginia, our hard-working, law-abiding immigrant neighbors will know that when we say that we will focus on the security and safety of all of our neighbors, we mean them too,” she told reporters – and constituents – of the move.

10

Erika Kirk. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Erika Kirk

She’s the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last September. Since his death, Erika Kirk has become the CEO of Turning Point USA, the large, well-funded and far-reaching conservative youth organization her husband founded. With her suddenly elevated platform, the former pageant participant and real estate agent has largely taken up her husband’s mantle, making statements on culture-war topics such as Latino artist Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime performance, through an increasingly busy roster of public-speaking engagements.

11

Gov. Mikie Sherrill. (Credit: World Economic Forum, Flickr)

Mikie Sherrill

Rep. Sherrill, a Navy veteran and former federal prosecutor, as well as a pro-abortion advocate, is only the second woman to ever hold the office of governor in New Jersey (the first was Republican Christine Todd Whitman) – and the first woman Democrat to win it. In her early days in the office, she announced plans to create a database logging in-state ICE activity, and to freeze rate hikes for utilities in New Jersey households.

12

Rep. Jasmine Crockett. (Credit: Official U.S. Congress website)

Jasmine Crockett

The Democratic representative from Texas has demonstrated an outspokenness against the Trump administration and the Republican party in the vein of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other younger women elected officials, often using her platform to address matters such as the recent civilian murders by ICE agents. But she’s also introduced numerous bills since taking office in 2023, including measures to ease loan requirements for farmers and restrict the use of taxpayer funds for a given president’s personal legal expenses. Though she recently lost a primary for a key Senate seat in Texas, Crockett plans to remain a prominent, progressive public servant.

13

Gov. Kathy Hochul. (Marc A. Hermann, MTA)

Kathy Hochul

The New York State governor, and the first woman to hold the post, is up for re-election this year – and so far, she’s been ramping up for the fight by rolling out progressive policies and talking points, from a new universal childcare program to being one of those calling for Noem’s impeachment. The longtime public servant has been governor since 2021, and in the time that’s passed since, she pushed for codifying abortion access, accelerating in-state clean energy programs, and more.

14

Mary Peltola. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Mary Peltola

Alaska is a traditionally red state – but Peltola is trying to flip a key Senate seat blue all the same. And polling shows she has a chance of doing so, which would be critical in turning the Senate back over to Democrats post-midterms. Prior to 2026, Peltola served as a Democratic congresswoman, the first woman and first Alaska Native ever to represent the state on a federal level. During her tenure, she focused on securing funding for in-state infrastructure repairs, and passing the Food Security for Veterans Act, among other policy measures.

15

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. (Credit: nrkbeta, Flickr)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Ever since the surprise win of her current U.S. House seat in 2019, Ocasio-Cortez has been a person of interest in politics. She’s used that spotlight to be a vocal proponent of a progressive agenda, with emphasis on addressing economic inequalities and climate change, as well as the abolition of ICE, of late. Her charisma and outspokenness has made her a frequent name in discussions about successors to current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York – or, down the road, as a presidential candidate.

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This post, originally published in February 2026, has been updated to reflect current events.

The post 15 Women in Politics to Watch, as Midterms Loom and Chaos Swirls appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Women continue to make history, especially as we further establish ourselves in male-dominated fields. But let’s be clear: We have always been trailblazers.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we are remembering women who achieved some fantastic “firsts” over the past 150 years – women who paved the way for others by disrupting the man-made status quo. Below, you’ll find inspirational, thoughtful words from 11 such women, and learn a bit more about the history they made.

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1

Sen. Tammy Baldwin. (Credit: AFGE, Flickr)

“Our constitutional liberties shall not be sacrificed in our search for greater security, for that is what our enemies and all enemies of freedom and democracy hope to achieve.” – Sen. Tammy Baldwin

Tammy Baldwin made history by becoming the first openly gay senator in the U.S. She served as a Wisconsin State Representative for seven consecutive terms until 2013, when she was elected to the state Senate. While in office, she has prioritized statewide educational reform, as well as student debt relief and college accessibility.

2

Director Kathryn Bigelow. (Credit: David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons)

“If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.” – Kathryn Bigelow

Famed director Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to ever receive a Best Director Oscar, which she won at the 2008 Academy Awards for her work on “The Hurt Locker.” Since then, only two other women have won it — Chloe Zhao in 2021, and Jane Champion in 2022. While subsequent years of Oscar nominations have largely left out women directors altogether, Bigelow’s achievement helped fuel the ongoing push for more female representation in all categories at major Hollywood awards ceremonies.

3

Performer Aretha Franklin. (Credit: Mike Bouchard, Flickr)

“We all require and want respect, man or woman, Black or white. It’s our basic human right.” – Aretha Franklin

Undisputed Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 – the only woman to receive that distinction up to that point. She is still regarded as one of the most influential recording artists of all time, with multiple chart-topping hits such as “Respect” — probably her most successful song — “Chain of Fools,” “I Say a Little Prayer” and “(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.” By 2009, she had won 18 Grammys and had sung at three presidential inaugurations, among myriad other accomplishments.

4

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. (Credit: Deb for Congress)

“We must shift our thinking away from short-term gain toward long-term investment and sustainability, and always have the next generations in mind with every decision we make.” – Deb Haaland

Deb Haaland was the first Native American woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. Prior to her 2021 appointment to the office of U.S. Secretary of the Interior, she became the first Native American woman to lead a state party in 2014 when she became New Mexico’s Lieutenant Governor. As Secretary of the Interior, Haaland was focused on preserving the nation’s natural resources and cultural heritage. Now, she’s running to be New Mexico’s next governor.

5

Vice President Kamala Harris. (Credit: GPA Photo Archive on Flickr)

“To the children of our country, regardless of your gender, our country has sent you a clear message: Dream with ambition, lead with conviction, and see yourself in a way that others might not see you, simply because they’ve never seen it before. And we will applaud you every step of the way.” – Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris was the first woman to serve as Vice President of the United States. That’s not all – she’s also the first Black and first South-Asian Vice President in American history. And she was, of course, the first woman of color to secure the Democratic nomination for President in 2024. Before joining President Joe Biden’s team, Harris served as District Attorney of San Francisco, Attorney General of California and as a U.S. Senator.

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U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

“Girls, I know it has not been easy, as I have tried to navigate the challenges of juggling my career and motherhood. And I fully admit I did not always get the balance right. But I hope that you’ve seen that with hard work, determination and love, it can be done.” – Ketanji Brown Jackson

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court was an historic one — she is now the first Black woman to serve in the highest court in the country. She was nominated by the Biden administration and confirmed in 2022. Jackson rallied significant support from respected organizations such as the NAACP.

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Former Rep. Patsy Mink. (Credit: J Kurnow, Flickr)

“We self-righteously expect all others to admire us for our democracy and our traditions. We are so smug about our superiority, we fail to see our own glaring faults, such as prejudice and poverty amidst affluence.” – Patsy Mink

Patsy Mink was the first woman of color elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first Asian-American woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. As a Hawaii native, Mink jumped at the opportunity to serve when Hawaii officially became a state in 1959. She earned a seat in the Hawaii State Senate in 1962 before winning a new position in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1964. Mink was a strong supporter of gender and racial equality, and an especially strong voice behind landmark legislation such as Title IX. Her work in government continued until her death in 2002.

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Actress Rita Moreno. (Mitchell Weinstock, Flickr)

“It is through art that we will prevail and we will endure. It lives on after us and defines us as people.” – Rita Moreno

Rita Moreno changed the film game for Latino people in America. She became the first Latina woman to win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Anita in the 1961 film “West Side Story.” Moreno is also an EGOT winner — meaning that she has won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards — and earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George Bush in 2004. She continues to perform, in roles such as Valentina in Steven Spielberg’s 2021 remake of “West Side Story” and in the 2023 comedy “80 for Brady.”

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Frances Perkins. (Penn State Special Collections, Flickr)

“The people are what matter to the government, and a government should aim to give all the people under its jurisdiction the best possible life.” – Frances Perkins

In 1933, Frances Perkins became the first woman to hold a position in a presidential office as the Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was said to be the “driving force” behind the New Deal. In interviews, Perkins recalled resisting her family’s encouragement to take a teaching position, as many women in New England did at the time. She instead paved the way for future women to assume top roles in government, including first-ever woman Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

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Coach Katie Sowers. (@katesowers5, Instagram)

“It’s awesome being the first, but what I keep saying is that it’s more important that I’m not the last.” – Katie Sowers

Football is an especially male-dominated sport. Yet change is slowly occurring, and not just because of the Taylor Swift effect. The league hired its first woman and openly gay coach in Katie Sowers, formerly of the San Francisco 49ers. She even became the first woman to take a team to the Super Bowl in February 2020. Sowers had always loved football, but had never seen a woman coach in the NFL before landing a role herself. She now works at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Ontario.

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Author Edith Wharton. (WBUR Boston NPR, Flickr)

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” – Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton won a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction — formerly known as the “Novel Prize” — for “The Age of Innocence” in 1921, making her the first woman to ever do so. The novel was adapted into film in 1993, and starred respected actors like Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfiffer and Winona Ryder. In 2020, the book and subsequent film were both honored at Wharton’s historic home, The Mount — which now is a cultural center — as part of marking the novel’s 100th anniversary.

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Inspiring Quotes From 10 Iconic Black Women

Editor’s Note: This post, updated for 2026, was originally published March 8, 2023.

The post Inspiring Quotes from 11 Iconic Women Who Made History appeared first on The Story Exchange.

Women directors continue to be largely overlooked – but their work remains as powerful as ever.

Part of the problem is, there simply aren’t as many of them. A 2026 study on representation for women working behind the scenes in Hollywood revealed a decline in women getting hired for off-camera work. Studio consolidations and efforts from on high to dismantle anti-discrimination policies in workplaces are cited by experts as main contributors to the problem.

“Hollywood has never needed permission to exclude and diminish women, but now it has it,” researchers from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University wrote in their new report.

Yet despite these hurdles, women directors continue to create – and excel. Director Chloé Zhao made her way into an otherwise-male-populated list of Best Director nominees at this year’s Academy Awards for her work on period drama “Hamnet,” one of just a handful of women to ever receive such a nod.

Indeed, these six stellar women directors show us what’s possible – if we give women more chances to shine, and lead.

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She’s the First Woman to Ever Win a Cinematography Oscar

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Ava DuVernay. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Ava DuVernay

The director became a household name for her direction of the 2014 biopic “Selma,” about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is also recognized for her work leading projects like Netflix documentary “13th,” and the 2018 Disney adaptation of “A Wrinkle in Time.” Her work on these and other projects has yielded a bevy of nods and awards over the years, including Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes. Several of her wins were historic, as a Black woman director. These days, she continues to create while running her creative-arts collective, ARRAY.

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Kathryn Bigelow. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Kathryn Bigelow

She was the first woman ever nominated for, and given, a Best Director Oscar – in 2009 – for her work on war drama “The Hurt Locker,” but Bigelow boasts an impressive resume beyond that achievement. Her work is often pulse-pounding, from earlier fare such as biker drama “The Loveless,” her directorial debut, to 1990s action film “Point Break” and political thriller “A House of Dynamite,” released just last year. Bigelow’s extensive film and television credits have garnered her and her projects a number of Oscars, Emmys and BAFTA Awards.

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Jane Campion. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Jane Campion

Campion is an historic woman director, too, in that she is the first to receive two Best Director nods at the Oscars (for Netflix psychological drama “The Power of the Dog” in 2022, which she won, and “The Piano” in 1994). The New Zealand filmmaker often features women’s stories in her work, which also includes biographical romance “Bright Star” and award-nominated TV show “Top of the Lake.” In addition to recognition in the U.S., Campion has also received two Palme d’Or distinctions at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Sofia Coppola. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Sofia Coppola

The former-actress-turned-director is one of the more beloved women filmmakers among fellow women, thanks to her leadership on films such as coming-of-age drama “The Virgin Suicides,” contemplative drama “Lost in Translation,” daring historical piece “Marie Antoinette” and biographical piece “Priscilla.” Like the others on this list, Coppola has received a great deal of critical praise and awards-body recognition for her work, from Oscars and Golden Globes to BAFTAs and Emmys.

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Greta Gerwig. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Greta Gerwig

In 2018, this woman director was named to TIME magazine’s list of the most influential people – years before “Barbie” took the world by storm in 2023, a juggernaut that earned her several award nominations and wins of her own. (She also made history with “Barbie” as the only woman director of a billion-dollar-grossing movie.) Gerwig is also beloved for her work on such films as 2017’s coming-of-age drama “Lady Bird” – also an awards darling – and 2019’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott novel “Little Women.”

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Chloe Zhao. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Chloé Zhao

Her Oscar nomination for “Hamnet” – among the many other nominations and awards the movie has received this year – is merely the latest on a long list of accomplishments for Zhao, a respected Chinese filmmaker, now a longtime U.S. resident. Her work on the 2020 film “Nomadland” was also nominated for – and won – a Best Director Oscar. Her 2015 feature film debut, “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” was showered in awards and critical praise as well. In a show of versatility, she also helmed “Eternals,” a 2021 installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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The post 6 Celebrated Women Directors, as the (Male-Dominated) 2026 Oscars Approach appeared first on The Story Exchange.