Here are some of the many women who inspire the members of the Committee. Some of them are well known, some are close friends and some are unknowns. Below you’ll find the bio of some of the lesser-known.
Charlotte MICHON, lawyer, human rights defender
Bibian Mentel (27 September 1972 – 29 March 2021) was a Dutch three-fold Winter Paralympics gold-medalist, and five-times world champion para-snowboarding athlete, despite battling cancer for 20 years. Mentel successfully campaigned to have para-snowboarding included in the Winter Paralympic Games and she set up the “Mentelity” foundation which inspires and supports children with impairments to access board sports (wakeboarding, snowboarding and skateboarding). Bibian passed away in March 2021, aged 48, from cancer.
Alison Bechdel is an American comic strip author, born on 10 September 1960 in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Her work has won several awards. She is a major writer of lesbian and LGBT comics.
Fairuz (Lebanon) – Fairuz is a living legend of Arabic music, known for her powerful voice and rich repertoire. She is revered throughout the Arab world for her contribution to Arab music and culture.
Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei (1939 – 2016) became the first woman to climb Mount Everest in 1975.
Emmeline Pankhurst : la pionnière des droits des femmes
Ágnes Keleti (née Klein; born 9 January 1921) is a Hungarian retired Olympic and world champion artistic gymnast and coach. She is the oldest living Olympic champion and medallist, reaching her 100th birthday on 9 January 2021. While representing Hungary at the Summer Olympics, she won 10 Olympic medals including five gold medals, three silver medals, and two bronze medals. She was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Summer Olympics.
Flora Tristan: born 7 April 1803 in Paris and died 14 November 1844 in Bordeaux, was a French woman of letters, thinker, socialist activist and feminist. She was a major figure in social debate and utopian socialism in the 1840s.
Amella Earhart: She is famous for having been, in June 1928, the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by plane and then, in 1932, the first woman to cross it solo.