Eartha Kitt as Catwoman (Pinterest)
Many people know Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the 1960s TV series “Batman,” but there was a second Catwoman as well! Actress and singer Eartha Kitt took over the role in 1967. Kitt was already famous by this time, having danced with the Katherine Dunham Company, recorded several songs and had been acting for many years.
Kitt played Catwoman from 1967 to 1968. Not bad for a woman Orson Welles called “the most exciting woman on Earth.”
Madame C.J. Walker (Biography)
If you don’t know who Madame C.J. Walker is, get on that! The former Sarah Breedlove worked as a laundress and a singer before developing her own line of hair care products. Walker eventually extended her product line into a beauty school and trained hairdressers in her products and specific methods. Through Walker’s entrepreneurship, she taught other black women how to run their own businesses and become financially independent.
By the time Madame C.J. Walker died at age 51, she’d become the first female millionaire, and a self-made one at that. Her net worth at the time of her death in 1919 was $600,000. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $8,757,479.29 in November 2017 money.
Gender Pay Gap by State (Business Insider)
You know the old saying that women make 75 cents for every dollar a man makes? (Gah, that makes me want to punch something.) Well, it’s not strictly true. Yes, women on the whole make less than men, but it’s not always exactly 75 cents.
The above graphic comes from “Business Insider,” which broke down the gender pay gap by state. Notice from the key at the bottom of the map that no percentage range rises about 90%. So no state pays women 90 cents for every man’s dollar. The closest states are New York with 87% and Nevada with 85%.
This is just depressing, There’s so much more progress to be made.
Mildred and Richard Loving (The New York Times)
Virginia newlyweds Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested shortly after their wedding in 1958. The reason? As Life magazine would later put it, “the crime of being married.”
The Lovings had violated Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which banned interracial relationships and marriage. The couple avoided prison time be agreeing to leave Virginia and not come back for 25 years.
In 1964, the couple took their case to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court. On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Racial Integrity Act was unconstitutional. The decision made states’ anti-miscegenation laws unenforceable (though many of the laws remained on the books for years later).
Today, nearly 50 years later, the Loving v. Virginia case continues to resonate. In 2015, the decision was cited in Obergefell v. Hodges in arguments in favor of marriage equality to the case’s success. A documentary “The Loving Story” was released in 2011, and “Loving” was released in 2016 with Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the historic couple.
Jennifer Garner in ‘Elektra,’ 2005 (Ouch Press)
Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the 2005 movie “Elektra,” but per IMDB, here’s the synopsis:
Elektra the warrior survives a near-death experience, becomes an assassin-for-hire, and tries to protect her two latest targets, a single father and his young daughter, from a group of supernatural assassins.
The movie, starring Jennifer Garner in the title role, was spun off from 2003’s “Daredevil” (which starred Garner’s eventual ex-husband Ben Affleck). “Elektra” didn’t do well at the box office: It only grossed $56M+ worldwide on a budget of $43M+.
“Elektra” would ordinarily be a footnote in the history of superhero movies, except for one thing: It’s the most recent movie starring a female superhero.
Until “Wonder Woman.”
United States’ Serena Williams celebrates after winning the first set against Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championships in Melbourne, Australia, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
In January, tennis superstar Serena Williams beat her sister, fellow tennis star Venus Williams, in the final set of the Australian Open. The win was her seventh Australian Open title, and 23rd Grand Slam singles title. Williams is now back to being the #1-ranked tennis player in the world.
Williams was also in the early weeks of pregnancy during the Australian Open. So there’s that.
Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle Gellar win “Best Kiss” at the MTV Movie Awards, 2000 (IBTimes)
Let’s take it all the way back to the year 2000. Remember when? I was in middle school, about to go to high school, and the MTV Movie Awards were a big deal. You had to watch them, and see who got awards like “Best Movie,” “Best Hero,” and “Best Villian.”
But the above categories (and all the rest of them) paled in comparison to “Best Kiss.” Each year, we voted to see which of our fave onscreen couples would win, get up onstage and give the audience what we so obviously wanted. And each year would be the same: they’d tease us, before finally going in for the kill. And the crowd went wild!
In 2000, actresses Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair won for “Best Kiss.” This was based off their now-iconic scene in “Cruel Intentions” (also, watch the whole movie if you haven’t seen it). Their acceptance kiss was light and quick, and both women giggled. But it became a seminal moment in pop culture history.
‘Ghostbusters,’ 2016 (Geek)
2016 saw the release of the rebooted “Ghostbusters: Now With More Women!” OK, that wasn’t the actual title, but it might as well have been. The remake of the classic comedy film boasted Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones as the titular Ghostbusters. The film battled high expectations from all corners: nail-biting and hand-writing over whether (gasp!) funny women could open a movie, and unreasonable standards from people for whom the original 1984 movie stood as an unassailable classic.
Fortunately, the movie proved that people (and not just women) would turn out to see funny women in a remake. The film ranked second in its opening weekend with $46M+ and went on to rake in $229M+ worldwide.
Halima Aden’s burkini in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant, 2016 (WFDD).jpg
In November 2016, Halima Aden competed in the Miss Minnesota USA pageant. Naturally, the pageant had the typical swimsuit portion. While other contestants strutted out in colorful bikinis, Aden went in a different direction. The Somalian model chose to put her Muslim faith front and center. She wears hijab, and wore a burkini for the swimsuit portion of the event.
Aden is the first woman to compete in hijab and burkini. Though she didn’t take home the title, Aden’s sartorial choice and adherence to her values made headlines.
Beyonce at the VMAs, 2011 (The Daily Mail)
By now, everyone in the entire world knows that Beyonce is pregnant with twins. (And if this is new to you, who are you? Do you even exist? I have so many questions.) The superstar revealed her pregnancy in an Instagram post to her personal account, followed by more shots of her pregnancy photoshoot to her website.
Remember, this is the second time Beyonce has unleashed a pregnancy announcement on the unsuspecting world. Way back in 2011, she announced her pregnancy at the MTV Video Music Awards (a.k.a. the VMAs). Technically, she announced it twice: once on the red carpet, cradling her bump while clad in a flowing orange gown, and then during her performance onstage. During the latter, Beyonce rubbed her bump and said to the crowd, “I want you to feel the love that’s growing inside of me.”
Of course, we now know that daughter would be Blue Ivy, age five.
Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang 