Inspirational woman for International Womans Day...

Every year I try to write a post for International Woman's Day, the last one I wrote was to share some music picks. This year I thought I would do something a little different and talk about some inspirational woman. So here is a list of some woman that I personally find inspiring for various reasons and wanted to share.

Patti Smith
Patti is an American punk rock singer/songwriter, poet and writer. She released her debut album Horses in 1975 and simply put it is a masterpiece. She has gone on to release 10 more albums, many poetry collections and the acclaimed Just Kids which is a memoir of her younger years as an artist in New York. A huge amount of my favourite bands and singers cited her as an inspiration which is how I first found and fell in love with her music. Listen to one of my favourite of her songs here and marvel at the raw power of it.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda is an award winning Nigerian writer of fiction and non fiction. She has written three novels including Americanah about a young Nigerian woman who moves to America to study. She is also very vocal about race and feminism and gave an inspiring TEDx talk entitled We Should All Be Feminists which has also been released in a book that I highly recommend or you can watch the talk here.

Celeste Ng
Celeste is a novelist who wrote one of my favourite books l read last year: Everything I Never Told You centred around grief and gave a portrait of what it was like living as a mixed raced family in 1970s America. Her writing is beautiful and the book has stuck with me all this time after reading it. I also follow Ng on Twitter and she is an inspiring and important voice on politics, race, feminism and LGBT. 

Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay is a clinical psychologist and award winning writer whose work primarily focuses on bipolar disorder of which she also has. She is seen as one of the leading experts on the illness and her book An Unquiet Mind, a memoir of her professional and personal experiences is highly regarded amongst those with the illness. She was chosen by Time as 'a hero of medicine' as well as being named one of the 'best Doctors in the United States'. She is a somewhat hero of mine and a huge inspiration as someone who not only has bipolar but wants to be a clinical psychologist too!

Melissa McCarthy
Melissa is an American actress, comedian, writer and fashion designer. Aside from the fact I find her hilarious I also find her inspiring in the fact she is one of the few 'plus size' women in the limelight that has been able to shed the token big girl friend stereotype and prove her talent as a fearless and talented comedian, a brilliant actress and also an advocate for body positivity and feminism. I love most of her films but her debut as a writer Tammy showed great promise, and Spy proved her worth as a badass female Bond. Also she was a god damn Ghostbuster! If you haven't already I highly recommend watching her SNL skits on Youtube, they are all hilarious but this is one of my favourites oh and this one.

Shirley Manson
Shirley is the Scottish lead singer of the band Garbage and an actor, musician and songwriter. I will always include Shirley in posts like these as she is the closest thing I have to a hero. As an awkward teen I looked up to her immensely (still do) and her outspoken, forthright attitude helped me overcome my meekness. As well as being an amazing singer she is also very outspoken on feminism, depression, body dysmorphic disorder, self harm and LGBT rights. Here's a great recent interview with her.

Notable mentions that I didn't have space to include... Carrie Fisher, Laura Bates, Michelle Obama, Tori Amos, Sylvia Plath, Gail Simone, Bjork, Malala Yousafzai, Carol Ann Duffy, Babs Tarr, Amy Poehler, Skin, Caitlin Moran, Tatiana Maslany, Kristen Wiig, Miranda July, Grimes, Laverne Cox, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dusty Springfield, Gillian Anderson, Kate Bush, Noomi Rapace.