These are our women, learn from them, laugh with them & love them as we do

Yes it's another post about International Women's Day, but we guarantee at least one of these women will make your world better in either a big or small way...

Most of my career has been about celebrating and supporting women: from the magazines I’ve produced, journalism I have written, edited or commissioned to the podcast Postcards From Midlife that me and Trish have presented and crafted (it is just the two of us) over the past five years. We understand the assignment when it comes to women supporting women. So today we thought we’d pop up a list of women you may like to know about or learn from.

My four women (below) are those I have taken inspiration from in many small ways each day recently. This is my small line-up of the female heroes who give me that can-do feeling, women who remind me to just get on with it because if they get s**t done then so can I; or women whose positive attitude is mind blowing given what they have been through. They are not all well known, in fact one is a friend whose attitude astounds me. Anyway have a read and please leave the names of women who make you feel this way and the reasons you love them in the comments below.

Sophie Willan on How Do You Cope podcast

Sophie Willan

Everyone loves the award winning writer and creator of the BBC’s Alma’s Not Normal, this is a no brainer. She is one of the most talented women on telly and in comedy writing. But I just listened to her on Wondery’s podcast about mental health: How Do You Cope, talking about her childhood in care. It made me cry. Sophie would often go to school without shoes, she talks of a feral, often unloved childhood and of how a social worker held her elbow, handed over her foster care notes in a plastic bag and said ‘Good luck reading them’. Sophie made an Edinburgh Fringe Show about it but here on the podcast she talks about how she processed her life before becoming the success she is now. It’s an extraordinary listen (you may need tissues) but I also learnt so much about moving through the stages of grief and facing anger left over from the past. Sophie has emerged from a troubled childhood to become a loveable, wise and overwhelmingly positive woman. It’s staggeringly inspiring and hopeful.