The Latest Additions to the Ranks

• Kara Thrace (fictional character "Starbuck" in the new Battlestar Galactica series) - The new "Starbuck", Kara, is strong, principled, hard-bitten, complex and an ace military viper pilot. She's a cigar-chomping, outspoken, and courageous character that embodies the Heartless Bitch spirit.

• Nanny of the Maroons - 'a legendary figure in the style of Robin Hood or King Arthur', led a band of fugitive slaves who in the 18th century defeated the might of the British empire, at least according to Jamaican folklore. It is said that, under her formidable military leadership, the Maroons - the name was a corruption of the Spanish 'cimarrones', meaning wild or untamed - wore bushes as camouflage and used sticks, stones and machetes to wage guerrilla warfare, killing soldiers, raiding plantations and giving hope to slaves throughout the Caribbean.

  Nanny is seen as a personification of black resistance to slavery, her armed insurgency challenging the popular image of passive victims who awaited their liberation by white abolitionists such as William Wilberforce, the British MP who led the case against slavery in Westminster

  'What we would call human rights now, she took and fought to the death for. Women usually seem to take the caring, loving, motherly role like Florence Nightingale, but she decided, "No, I'm going to be on the front line, I'm going to get all these soldiers together, teach them the art of battle and show them how to fight in a war." You wouldn't expect that from a woman. If you dig into black history there are lots and lots of black men that are prominent figures but not so many women.'

  Tales that Nanny could catch bullets in her hands, or even in her bottom, are generally seen by Jamaicans as British propaganda attempts to portray her as a witch. She is commemorated on Jamaican banknotes and by a sculpture in Heroes Park in the capital, Kingston.

• Turanga Leela (from the TV show, Futurama)
  Leela is a one-eyed alien orphan who grew up in a society that still routinely ostrocizes everyone who are not like them. (In this case, anyone who doesn't have two eyes.) She lived the life of an outsider and never belonged.

  And yet, despite all that, she eventually became the captain of an interplanetary starship, and leader of a ragtag crew. (She's also apparently the only truly competent character in the entire show for that matter.)

  She's an expert in hand to hand combat, with fantastic discipline, and often the only person who can keep her wits in any high tension situations.

• Bella Abzug - outspoken politician in the 70's, a leader of the women's movement, and champion of equal rights (including being one of the first members of Congress to support gay rights).

• Rigoberta Menchù TuM - Nobel Prize for Peace winner 1992, she was born in Guatemala in 1959, and is a Quiche Maya. Her family was extremely poor, but she was able to change her life completely, as well as trying (and in some cases succeeding) to change the lives of many others for the better. Even though most of her family was killed because of their beliefs, she did not stop trying to make her country a better place. She became involved in the women's rights movement as a teenager, and fought for social reform. A UNESCO ambassador, Rigoberta has written two autobiographic books as well as a collection of stories and legends which were told to her in her childhood, in collaboration with Dante Liano. Due to risks to her own life, she had to leave Guatemala and fight for native indian rights and ethno-cultural reconciliation from abroad. She has now returned to Guatemala where she continues to work towards bringing equality to the people of her country. She is a strong, determined woman, and a true HB.

• Dr. Jaya Arunachalam - president of the Working Women's Forum (WWF) of the UN, she empowers women to learn trades, obtain financing for small businesses, become financially independent and fight female infanticide in India. The women she empowers become a voice for change within their own society.

• Dr. Massouda Jalal - the first woman in Afghanistan to run for president. Though she didn't win, Dr. Jalal's achievements resonate in her countrywomen's lives. She described her campaign as a call for people to "come forward to determine their destiny". She remains a symbol of hope for women in Afghanistan.

• Natalie Maine of the Dixie Chicks, and the Chicks themselves for standing up, speaking their minds, and championing the cause of free speech. For not capitulating to pressure to "shut up and sing".

• Fatehi, Nazanin Mahabad - the 18 Year old Iranian girl who was sentenced to death for stabbing a rapist who attacked her and her younger niece (they were 17 and 15 at the time). In any western country she would have been acquitted for self defense, but in Iran, there is no such thing as equality for women, and little in the form of Justice. As with many muslim countries - if a woman is raped, she must have deserved it or led the man on. If a woman is not a virgin, she is open to rape as well. The courts have tried to portray her as a loose moraled runaway who stabbed a man for no reason. Worse yet, the law in Iran sets the minimum age for the death penalty at 15 for boys and just 9 years of age for girls! At the time of this writing (June 2006), Nazanin's death sentence has been overturned by the Iranian head of Judiciary Ayatollah Shahroudi. The case will now be sent back to a lower court. You can read more about her case at Save Nazanin.

• Afshin-Jam, Nazanin - Former Miss World, this Canadian woman who shares the same first name as Nazanin Fatehi, has championed her cause all the way to the Canadian Parliament and the UN, as well as passing the message on to the world through her blog and web site. She has also travelled to Iran to visit Nazanin in prison. An excerpt of her interview is below:

  NA: What message do you have for the world?

  NF: My message to the people of the world is that outside of this place that I am is also a prison, but I would also like to express that it is not only "unfortunate Nazanin" that is in prison.... but there are mothers who are missing their kids and they are very sad. Don't just help me, help all "Nazanin's" and help us to go back to a normal life.

• "Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan - of the TV series "Bones" - a gutsy anthropologist who holds two black belts in martial arts, isn't afraid to stand up to a gang leader, and tells a plastic surgeon that what he does is barbaric. She's strong, intelligent, outspoken, and doesn't take any crap. Ironically, her character writes mystery novels about the character Kathy Reichs in her spare time. In real life, Kathy Reichs is an anthropologist who writes about the character Temperance Brennan, and it is her stories that are the foundation of the series. (Reichs is a consultant on the show) From the episode on the plastic surgery (in the waiting room of the plastic surgeon's office):

  Dr. Temperance Brennan: Every culture nurtures ideals of beauty toward which people strive - fine! But in the future people'll look back upon the surgical alterations of the nose or breasts or buttocks with the same horror that we regard the binding of feet or the use of bronze coils to extend the neck.

  Special Agent Seeley Booth: You wanna speak up? 'Cause it's really hard to hear every word in this very, very quiet waiting room.

  Dr. Temperance Brennan: It's barbaric! It's painful! It's wrong! This murder victim may never be identified because some glorified barber with a medical degree has the arrogance to think that he could do better than a millennium of evolution.

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