Five Influential Women From San Francisco Who Left Their Mark
PPS-SF would like to celebrate some amazing women who trail blazed San Francisco culture, art, education, and activism for the past 100 years. Below you will find highlights of their contributions to our great city- San Francisco!
1. Honey Mahogany
Honey Mahogany is the first Black transgender person to be elected as the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party California’s history, making her one of the political party’s highest-ranking transgender officials in the country.
Honey is also the co-founder of the first Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, which is the first of it kind in not just the nation but the world. Six blocks of the Tenderloin neighborhood are legally recognized as the transgender district in the world, in part thanks to Honey’s activism.
2. Dorothea Lange
During the 1930’s Great Depression, Dorothea Lange humanized the years through her distinguished photography and photojournalism work. Her first portrait studio was opened in San Francisco after she settled in the city from New York.
Lange was then awarded the honorable Guggenheim Fellowship in 1941 for her work. Her work was especially notable because it showed the everyday people working together to survive the poverty during the Great Depression.
3. Alice Waters
Since 1971, Alice Waters is an advocate and the trailblazer for clean eating. Alice organized a network of local farmers along the peninsula to provide organic ingredients where she started her mission for healthy cuisine. Alice is not a San Francisco resident, but her impact on the Bay Area’s current “green culture” was heavily if not completely influenced by her.
Her mission for healthy food awarded her the 2014 National Humanities Medal for her work around healthy eating.
4. Ruth Asawa
Ruth Asawa is a nationally recognized sculptor and best honored for her work on the “Hyatt on Union Square Fountain,” although her impact still remains beyond just her art. She also founded the Ruth Asawa School of Arts as well as served on the San Francisco Art Commission and on the board of trustees of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In Kenneth Baker’s 2013 obituary of Asawa, he described her as “one of California’s most admired sculptors and the first Asian American women in the nation to achieve recognition in a male -dominated discipline.”
5. Margaret Cho
Margaret Cho is an SF native and also a multi-talented person, with success in stand-up comedy, writing and as a political activist. She has received recognition from organizations like GLAAD and Lamda Legal.
In 2017, Rolling Stone named her as one of the 50 Best Stand-Up Comics, and in 2019 she appeared in an episode of Law & Order: SVU. She is also a five time Grammy/Emmy nominee and earned an additional Grammy nomination for her second studio album American Myth. She also received the First Amendment Award from the ACLU of Southern California for her activism.
“Women across diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds are the fabric the binds our communities together, enriching educational culture and serving as the nourishment for our children.” PPSSF Executive Director, Vanessa Danielle Marrero.
Source: https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/california/articles/10-trailblazing-women-from-san-francisco/
https://abc7news.com/honey-mahogany-trans-transgender-rupauls-drag-race/10739307/
https://secretsanfrancisco.com/influential-women-of-san-francisco/
https://margaretcho.com/bio/
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Reader-picks-Notable-Women-throughout-the-Bay-6152999.php#photo-7621973