A middle-aged student writes of finding a sense of belonging with twenty-something-year-old classmates; a Saudi Arabian woman makes history at the top of Mount Everest; the funny things said when women say no to having children; the No. 1 killer of girls aged 15 to 19 globally is not a disease; and remembering the anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s extraordinary journey.

By Patricia Yarberry Allen, M.D.

The Kentucky Derby is always the first Saturday of May. I know it is a horse race, but today I was only interested in the filly from New Jersey named Rosie. That would be Rosie Napravnik, the only female jockey in today’s race.

By Deborah Harkins

The (pleasant) challenge for 40-year-old director Kirsten Kelly: Mount a play involving 50 brides and 50 flight-suited, helicopter-dangling grooms on the stage of a 60-seat theater.

By Emily Bernard

What Mrs. Michelle Obama has put on display, and perhaps “overexposed,” is her commitment to women’s work. It’s a radical act—even feminist—in that she has become a champion of women and the work that is expected of us. She may not ever be able to go to Target again without drawing a crowd, but she has made her life as a spectacle an opportunity to advocate for two of the most neglected and unglamorous groups in this country today: veterans and obese children.

If Caroline Kennedy is, indeed, appointed ambassador to Japan, sources speculate, she—like Hillary Clinton—could be a powerful force for the rights of women.

“In my first large-animal practice, in Copake, New York, I was the first woman they’d ever had,” says veterinarian Rebecca Law. But the farmers were very accepting. They wanted to make it easier for me, but they quickly saw they didn’t need to do that—I could do everything the four guys in the practice could do.”

Ford wants us to “Leave Our Worries Behind” in (another) sexist ad; Tina Fey responds to her Internet critics with a hilarious comeback; the women have been “leaning in” for centuries before Sheryl Sandberg; Aretha Franklin turns 71; and Helen Mirren champions women in film, behind the camera.

By Janet Golden

Alice Hamilton became the first woman professor at Harvard in 1919, four decades before the university accepted women as undergraduates. Still, acceptance came with the petty humiliations that female experts were expected to endure back in the day.

On the evening of June 15, 1933, in Chicago, Illinois, an all-white male orchestra, led by a German conductor, played music composed by a 46-year-old black woman—a breakthrough thanks to the gifted Florence Beatrice Price.

The constant barrage of scrutiny and criticism that women anchors and reporters face; Tina Fey runs the world (in case you didn’t know); male writers still outnumber female writers in major literary publications; an end to Women’s History Month?; and Sandra Day O’Connor on the high stakes of her history-making appointment to the Supreme Court.

By Deborah Harkins

“Sojourner Truth was an architect of democracy as we know it! She was the first black woman feminist ever!” the opera director mused. “I started to get grumpy—Who has tucked this woman under the coffee table, and why have they done it?”

By Deborah Harkins

Sojourner Truth’s stemwinder of a speech, set to music—with one change.

Pining for the good ol’ days when the Oscars were family-friendly; ruminating on poems that share a love for books; redefining what 21st-century feminism looks like; noting the notable black women in literature; and applauding one young woman who dares to educate Afghan girls.

Diane Nash, Gloria Steinem, Sandra Day O’Connor, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Madeleine Albright—and many other trailblazers for women’s rights—provide, through their blunt remembrances in tonight’s documentary, a click of recognition and a shiver of dismay about the way things used to be.

Of a City University professor who retired at 60 with no plans for the future—and suddenly discovered that she had talent as an actress.