Eight pioneering female pilots who went Higher, Further, Faster!

Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel was a blockbuster hit after its release in March — becoming the first female-led superhero film to pass $1 billion at the box office and inspiring legions of Mighty Girls with dreams of flight! The film tells the story of Carol Danvers, a U.S. Air Force test pilot who develops superhero abilities. Like many real-life female pioneers of flight, however, Danvers has to overcome doubt about her capabilities — from within and without — to discover her true strength. Continue reading → Continue reading

From an aerospace engineer to a helicopter pilot to a microbiologist, these five remarkable women will help lead the way in space exploration!

When NASA announced its newest class of astronaut candidates, it included five inspiring women! NASA received a record-breaking number of applicants for this astronaut class — over 18,000 in all — and the class itself has twelve members, their largest since the year 2000. "These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations," said retired astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa. "Children all across the United States right now dream of being in their shoes someday. We here at NASA are excited to welcome them to the team and look forward to working with them to inspire the next generation of explorers."

The astronaut candidates have another year of training in front of them before they're ready to break Earth's atmosphere, but in the meantime, space-loving Mighty Girls have five new role models to look up to! In this blog post, we introduce you to these five remarkably talented women. And, to inspire children who dream of their own careers in space, at the end of the post, we've showcased a variety of girl-empowering books and toys about shooting for the stars! Continue reading → Continue reading

A Mighty Girl's top picks of new biographies about Mighty Women for adult readers.

On A Mighty Girl, we feature thousands of books for children and teens about smart, confident, and courageous girls and women, but we are also often asked for reading recommendations for adults about inspiring women of the past and present. To that end, in this blog post, we're sharing our favorite biographies for older teen and adult readers about Mighty Women that were recently released in either hardcover or paperback.

The biographies featured showcase a diverse array of women from around the world in fields including science, entertainment, politics, athletics, and more. Some of the featured women are famous figures from the past, while others are women who are active today, boldly continuing to change the world. All of them have a fascinating story to tell and each one shows the power of an individual to make a difference in her unique way!

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After completing the notoriously grueling course, Sergeant 1st Class Janina Simmons said "62 days of training and I made it the first time through."

Sergeant 1st Class Janina Simmons has made history by becoming the first African American woman to graduate from the legendary U.S. Army Ranger School! The 29-year-old senior drill sergeant leader, who is based out of Fort Jackson in South Carolina, joins less than a dozen women who have completed the notoriously grueling weeks-long course and earned the right to wear the prestigious black and gold Ranger Tab. Simmons' performance was even more impressive because she completed all three phases without 'recycling' or repeating any parts of the course. "I'm excited. It's surreal," said Simmons about her historic feat. "I'm humbled to be here... 62 days of training and I made it the first time through." Continue reading → Continue reading

"If these children need me in days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in days of darkness?" -- Jane Haining

When Jane Haining was given the opportunity to escape the Nazi invasion of Budapest, she refused to abandon the Jewish girls in her care, ultimately giving her life to protect her young charges. Haining, who worked as a matron at a school run by the Church of Scotland, also helped many Jewish Hungarians and refugees emigrate to Britain during the war. She remains one of few Scottish people honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for her aid to Jewish people during the Holocaust, and is believed to be the only Scottish person to die in one of the Nazis' concentration camps. This year, Hungary dedicated its annual torchlight March of the Living — held on April 14 as a tribute to the estimated 565,000 Hungarian Jews killed during the Holocaust — to Haining's memory, honoring her for her devotion to the girls she sought to protect. "If these children need me in days of sunshine," she wrote in 1944, "how much more do they need me in days of darkness?" Continue reading → Continue reading

"This weird idea that women maybe can’t open movies or are not important to storytelling or the female story is not high art, it’s bogus."

Captain Marvel soared past $1 billion global box office sales this month! As of April 12 — a little over one month after its release — the film had earned $380 million domestically and $664 million internationally. Only 37 other films in history have earned at least $1 billion and Captain Marvel marks the first time that a female superhero has driven this level of ticket sales. The movie's success is one more reminder that, contrary to commonly-held attitudes, female-led films do draw in viewers. "A lot of times in our business there is a lot of bias disguising itself as knowledge," observes Christy Haubegger, an agent with the Creative Artists Agency and part of a research team that conducted a recent study that found female-led films have higher box office returns at every production budget level. "The perception that it’s not good business to have female leads is not true.... They’re a marketing asset." Continue reading → Continue reading

Commercial mother-daughter pilot teams are extremely rare in an industry where less than 5% of all commercial pilots are female.

A mother-daughter pilot team inspired people around the world when they shared the cockpit of a Boeing 757! Captain Wendy Rexon and her daughter, First Officer Kelly Rexon, flew together from Los Angeles to Atlanta in March. When only 6% of commercial pilots in the U.S. and less than 5% globally are female, female pilots are already a rare sight but mother-daughter flight teams are virtually unheard of. Dr. John R. Watret, who took the pilots' photo, observed that such role models are important to encourage young women's interest in aviation: "The first officer had a great role model for becoming a pilot – her mother... It’s good for aviation and inspiring for all of us." Continue reading → Continue reading

Alice Paul Tapper's new picture book encourages girls to "Be bold, Be brave, and Raise Your Hand!"

Alice Paul Tapper was on a fourth grade school field trip when she noticed that most of the girls quietly stayed at the back of the group, while the boys clustered at the front and raised their hands to answer questions. After she realized how often she and many other girls didn't speak up in class for fears of getting an answer wrong and being embarrassed, Alice decided to launch a campaign to encourage girls to have confidence, take risks, and be leaders — and support other girls in doing the same. With the help of her Girl Scout troop, she created a new Raise Your Hand pledge and patch program, and soon girls around the country were taking a pledge to raise their hands in class. Now, the 11-year-old Mighty Girl is bringing her message directly to girls with Raise Your Hand, a new picture book telling her story and encouraging girls to "be bold, be brave, and raise your hand!" Continue reading → Continue reading

"I find that I am bored with anything I understand," says Abel Prize winner Dr. Karen Uhlenbeck.

American mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck has become the first woman to win the Abel Prize — the "Nobel Prize" of mathematics! The 76-year-old professor emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin and visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton has made wide-ranging advances in mathematics that influence many sciences, including quantum physics and string theory, and pioneered a new field of mathematics called geometric analysis. "She did things nobody thought about doing, and after she did, she laid the foundations of a branch of mathematics," says Sun-Yung Alice Chang, a Princeton mathematician who sat on the prize committee. Hans Munthe-Kaas, chair of the Abel Committee, added that "her perspective has pervaded the field and led to some of the most dramatic advances in mathematics over the last 40 years." Continue reading → Continue reading

The rover will launch next year to search for evidence of past or present life on Mars.

In 2020, a new rover will fly to Mars to search for signs of past or present life — so it's fitting that the rover will be named after Rosalind Franklin, the British chemist who helped uncover the mysteries of DNA! Astronaut Tim Peake announced the name at the Airbus factory in the UK where the European Space Agency (ESA) rover is being assembled. Franklin's sister, Jenifer Glynn, spoke to the BBC about the honor: "In the last year of Rosalind's life, I remember visiting her in hospital on the day when she was excited by the news of the [Soviet Sputnik satellite] — the very beginning of space exploration. She could never have imagined that over 60 years later there would be a rover sent to Mars bearing her name, but somehow that makes this project even more special." Continue reading → Continue reading