Celebrating International Women's Day, 2026
International Women’s Day has come back round, so once again I’m celebrating some more of the women I’ve been admiring of late, as well as some more of those I’ve been a fan of for a good while already. Here’s to some more incredible women!
ALYSA LIU, the already rightly LEGENDARY winner of the 2026 Winter Olympics US Gold Medalist for figureskating, who was already pretty famous for an impressive career which then transitioned into one hell of an inspiring comeback story but has now SERIOUSLY TAKEN OFF because of her INCREDIBLE win from a genuine PERFECT PERFORMANCE and her amazingly euphiric emotional response which has abasolutely captured the imagination of the entire world ... and yeah, she deserves EVERY BIT of atention she's getting for it. Good on you, girl ...
Speaking of the Winter Olympics, the other BIG winners from this year's games who really AREN'T getting the true recognition they deserve are the girls from THE US WOMEN'S ICE HOCKEY TEAM, who absolutely BLEW THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS OUT OF THE WATER with their own INCREDIBLE win. I'm not alone in being AGHAST that Trump honoured the Men's team when they didn't do HALF as well as this lot ...
EDITH PIAF, one of the greatest singers OF ALL TIME, certainly the most famous FRENCH singer of all time, but moire importantly just a genuine LEGEND of a personality because of how unshakeable she was despite having to battle her way through multiple personal and professional hardships throughout her entire (larger than) life ...
GABRIELLE GLORIA, frontwoman of new progressive metal group Annex Void, a genuinely INCREDIBLE vocal artist who's joined a growing sisterhood of genuinely incredible female lead vocalists who are able to PERFECTLY balance ethereal angelic clean vocals with some truly HELLISH screaming ...
JUDIT POLGAR, the oft-overlooked Hungarian chess GRANDMASTER who veritably SMASHED the glass ceiling from the 80s onwards by genuinely going toe-to-toe with world-famous BIG BOYS like Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer and kicking some SERIOUS ARSE ...
SAM (SYSTEMS ACCLIMATION MIL), (played by Kerrice Brooks) EASILY my favourite characters from the main cast of Paramount's latest Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy, a holographic student enrolled in the first year of the far future's newly restored center of learning for future Starfleet officers, whose boundless optimism, sweet nature and sheer love of life is simply irrepressible.
LURA THOK, (played TO THE HILT by Gina Yashere) my OTHER favourite character from the show, the Academy's fantastically grumpy and confrontational half-Klingon/half-Jem'Hadar cadet master who treats every lesson like a battle, and often the reverse, too ...
L7, one of my very favourite punk bands and basically just four amazing women who unapologetically went against the grain to form an all-female rock group while thoroughly REFUSING to play the glamour game and prostitute themselves for money, greater fame and general success, instead just being themselves ALL THE WAY and ultimately winding up getting largely screwed over for it ...
AURORA RIBERO, the star of 2024's INCENDIRARY Netflix Original Indonesian martial arts epic The Shadow Strays, who completely blew me away with one hell of a heeavweight breakout turn, and I don't doubt this was just the start of REALLY GREAT THINGS in her future ...
STEPHANIE BEATRIZ, still probably (and rightly) best known for her breakout role as NYPD detectiva Rosa Diaz in Brooklyn Nine Nine, BY FAR my favourite character in that show, but these days I love her most for her AMAZING vocal contribution in Vivienne Medrano's runaway smash hit animated series Hazbin Hotel as spunky lesbian fallen angel Vaggie.
THE LIONESSES, here in the UK our own legendary home-grown premier women's football team, who has become righty refarded as one of THE VERY BEST in the sport today and a hell of an inspiration for a whole new generation of future players ...
PENNY MARSHALL, the late great actress who went on from starring in runaway hit sitcom Laverne & Shirley to becoming a pioneering female director of incredible breakout comedy and drama movies like Big, A league of Their Own, Renaissance Man, Awakenings, The Preacher's Wife, Jumping jack Flash and Riding In Cars With Boys.
URSULA K. Le GUIN, the rightly LEGENDARY late author who basically became the undeniable QUEEN of fantasy fiction, particularly through her creation of the MASSIVELY influential Earthsea saga, arguably making her as important a figure in the genre as Tolkian ...
LADY GAGA, easily the greatest female singer songwriter pop artist in the business since Madonna, a bona fide LGBTQ+ ICON and basically one of THE most influential women in the world right now ...
THE NIGHT WITCHES, a Russian all-women bomber squadron in World War II who became rightly FEARED by the German army thanks to their terrifying tactic of cutting their engines during the last stretch of their bombing runs so they would silently glide in undetected over enemy lines to drop their payloads without warning right out of the cold black night.
Q LAZZARUS, thr criminally unsung late singer songwriter who essentially went pretty much unrecognised for the entirety of her career despite being discovered by director Jonathan Demme, who brought her a very brief flash of fame by using her music in his films Something Wild and, in particular, her runaway smash hit Goodbye Horses in Silence of the Lambs. She subsequently fell into despair and anonimity before eventually turning her life around an finding new pourpose driving a taxi aroun dher native New York ...
... and last but by no means least, TURA SATANA, the late showgirl and exotic dancer-turned cult movie star, model and LGBTQ+ icon, as well as bona fide BADASS most famously known for her INCENDIARY role in Russ Meyer's powerfully trashy exploitation cinema MASTERPIECE Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!
