PART FOUR

LIST OF POWERFUL MOTHERS.

These women are brazen They are tough, independent and smart. They waited for
no one. Someone needed to compile a list of
POWERFUL MOTHERS. The time has come.

There are many more mothers to be added.

The list keeps getting longer, so it will be divided into parts.

Wangari Maathai

Nobel Peace Prize winner, environmental and political activist. Mother of three children
and single.

In 2004 she became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her
contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Maathai was an
elected member of Parliament and served as Assistant Minister for Environment and
Natural Resources in the government of President Mwai Kibaki between January 2003
and November 2005. She is of Kikuyu ethnicity.
Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt movement in Kenya in 1977, which has
planted more than 10 million trees to prevent soil erosion and provide firewood for
cooking fires. A 1989 United Nations report noted that only 9 trees were being replanted
in Africa for every 100 that were cut down, causing serious problems with deforestation:
soil runoff, water pollution, difficulty finding firewood, lack of animal nutrition, etc.
Wangari Maathai's husband ran for Parliament in the 1970s, and Wangari Maathai
became involved in organizing work for poor people and eventually this became a
national grass-roots organization, providing work and improving the environment at the
same time. The project has made significant headway against Kenya's deforestation.
Wangari Maathai continued her work with the Green Belt Movement, and working for
environmental and women's causes. She also served as national chairperson for the
National Council of Women of Kenya. In 1997 Wangari Maathai ran for the presidency of
Kenya, though the party withdrew her candidacy a few days before the election without
letting her know; she was defeated for a seat in Parliament in the same election.
"Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya,"
the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement announcing her as the 2004 Nobel
Peace Prize winner.

Sarah Palin

American Governor of the U.S. state of Alaska and the Republican Party's vice-
presidential nominee for the United States presidential election of 2008. Mother of five
children and married to Tod Palin.
During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss
Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality"
award. She then attended the Matanuska-Susitna community college in Alaska for one
term. The next year she returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three
semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism,
graduating in 1987. In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV and KTVA-
TV in Anchorage, Alaska, and for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman as a sports
reporter. She also helped in her husband’s commercial fishing family business. Palin
was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska city council from 1992 to 1996 and mayor from
1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002,
she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004. She
was elected governor of Alaska in November 2006 by defeating the incumbent governor
in the Republican primary and then a former two-term Democratic governor in the
general election. She is the first female governor of Alaska, and the youngest person
elected to the position. On August 29, 2008, presidential candidate John
McCain announced he had chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate in the 2008 U.S.
presidential election. Palin was formally nominated at the 2008 Republican National
Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is the first woman to run on the Republican
Party's presidential ticket and the first Alaskan nominee of either major party.
 Shirin Ebadi
Iranian lawyer, human rights activist and founder of
Children's Rights Support Association in Iran. Mother of
two children and married to electrical engineer.
Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her
significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and
human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee
rights. She is the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.
Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her
significant and pioneering efforts for democracy and
human rights, especially women's, children's, and refugee
rights. She is the first Muslim woman to receive the prize.

Susanna Brisk

Australian Comedian and actress. Mother of two children and married to Producer Barry
Katz.

She started modeling at the age of 16, performing stand-up comedy at the age of 17 and
did her first televised stand-up spot live on Australian national television at the age of 19.
Over the next four years, Brisk performed stand-up and sketch comedy on every
Australian television network including The Australian Comedians in Concert (twice) at
the Melbourne Concert Hall in front of 2,500 people. In addition, she wrote and
performed characters for FOX Breakfast Radio, was featured in many national TV
commercials and wrote, produced and performed numerous shows including Pout, Slut
and White. Brisk produced and performed her one-woman show Megababe, a send-up
of models and the fashion industry, when she was twenty, as part of the Melbourne
International Comedy Festival. The show took place at the Universal Theatre, using a
chorus of models which Brisk choreographed, and which attracted national publicity on
television, radio and print media. She performs stand-up regularly at the Improv, the
Comedy Store, Dublin's and the Laugh Factory. Stand-up gigs include her headlining
tour with the Star Spangled Girls of US Military Bases in the Balkans, including Bosnia,
Hungary, Macedonia, Sarajevo and Kosovo and opening for international acts at The
Riviera in Los Vegas. She recently screened "Whim", a short film which she wrote,
produced, directed and starred in. She has also produced and performed a workshop
reading of a new show Waiting to Breed, at the Larry Moss Studio. Susanna Brisk’s one-
person show Mamafied was a hit in Los Angeles.

Gloria Vanderbilt

Artist, actress and socialite. Mother of four children and married to fourth husband author
Wyatt Emory Cooper.

Vanderbilt studied art at the Art Students League of New York. She became known for
her artwork, giving one-woman shows of oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels. This
artwork was adapted and licensed, starting about 1968, by Hallmark (a manufacturer of
paper products) and by Bloomcraft (a textile manufacturer), and Vanderbilt began
designing specifically for linens, china, glassware and flatware. During the 1970s, she
licensed the use of her name on a line of fashion eyeglasses, perfume and clothing.
(Initially, her involvement in clothing consisted of putting her name (in place of the
previous brand name, "Lucky Pierre") on a line of blouses produced by
the Murjani Corporation). In 1979, Murjani proposed launching a line of designer
jeans carrying Vanderbilt's brand name; they were more tight fitting than other jeans of
the day, with the heiress's name embossed in script on the back pocket. Vanderbilt also
appeared in a series of television ads promoting her products. Her designer label has
flourished, with the Gloria Vanderbilt "swan" logo eventually appearing on dresses and
perfume as well. She married her fourth husband, author Wyatt Emory Cooper on
December 24, 1963. They had two sons, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, in 1965, and
future CNN reporter Anderson Hays Cooper, born in 1967.
Jane Maynard

American graphic designer, photographer, writer. Mother of two children and married to

This Week for Dinner(TM)! My name is Jane Maynard and I am a wife, mom
and graphic designer living in the Bay Area. She has been working exclusively as a
freelance graphic designer for the last 3+ years. prior to that, she worked for a corporate
communications & graphic design company and a management consulting & non-profit
sector company. She graduated from Boston University summa cum laude and has a
DETC–accredited certificate in graphic design. She is best known for her blogs about
food and her delicious photography of the food she creates.

Catherine Zeta Jones

Welsh actress, presently based in the United States. Mother of two children and married
to actor Michael Douglas.

Starring in a number of UK and US television films and small roles in films, she came to
prominence with roles in Hollywood movies such as The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro,
and Entrapment in the late 1990s. She won an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and
a Screen Actors Guild Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for
portraying Velma Kelly in the 2002 film adaptation of Chicago. Apart from her acting
career, Zeta-Jones is also an advertising spokeswoman, currently the global
spokeswoman for cosmetics giant Elizabeth Arden. She has appeared in numerous TV
commercials for the phone company T-Mobile. She is also the spokeswoman for
DiModolo jewelry.

Kara English
CEO and Co-Founder of CandlesAndSuch.com, a unique site that sells party favors and
gifts. Mother of two children, and married to Starr English.

Rosie O’Donnell

American television host, stand-up comedian, actress and author. Mother of four children
and married to former Nickelodeon marketing executive Kelli Carpenter.

She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT
rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation
company R Family Vacations. In May 1996, Warner Books advanced O'Donnell $3
million to write a memoir. She used the money to seed her For All Kids foundation to
help institute national standards for day care across the country. On December 15, 2006,
at a one-night charity event on the cruiseship Norwegian Pearl, Elizabeth Birch,
Executive Director for the Rosie's For All Kids Foundation, confirmed that $50 million
from her five-year contract with O'Donnell's talk show were donated in an
irrevocable trust to charity. She is also reported to have contributed several hundred
thousand dollars to rehabilitate contemporary war veterans who have lost limbs in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Since 1997, Rosie's For All Kids Foundation, overseen by Elizabeth
Birch, has awarded more than $22 million in Early Childhood Care and Education
program grants to over 900 nonprofit organizations. On October 30, 2006, she was
honored by the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.
On November 1, 2006, Nightline aired a video report about the opening of The Children's
Plaza and Family Center in Renaissance Village, a FEMA trailer park in Louisiana. In
2003, Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell collaborated with Artistic Director Lori Klinger to create
"Rosie's Broadway Kids", dedicated to providing free instruction in music and dance to
New York City public schools or students. In 2000, O'Donnell partnered with the
publishers of McCall's to revamp the magazine as Rosie's McCall's (or, more
commonly,Rosie). In 2002, O'Donnell wrote Find Me, a combination of memoir, mystery
and detective story with an underlying interest in re-uniting birth mothers with their
children. In September 2006 O'Donnell replaced Meredith Vieira as a co-host and
moderator of the daytime women-oriented daytime talk show The View. On March
27, 2007, O'Donnell started a video blog on her website Rosie.com answering fans
questions, giving behind the scenes information and serving as a video diary.

Kelli Carpenter-O’ Donnell

American former Nickelodeon marketing executive and co-founder of R Family

Vacations. Mother of four children and married to television host, stand-up comedian,
actress and author Rosie O’Donnell. Rosie and Kelli currently operate R Family
Vacations, a travel company geared towards gay and lesbian families. A documentary
film about the maiden cruise that set sail on July 11, 2004, was a look inside the lives of
some of the 500 families that cruised from New York to the Bahamas.
Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham

Maternal grandparents of Barack Obama, the United States

Senator from Illinois and Democratic nominee in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Mother of one child and married to Stanley Dunham.

Madelyn worked on a Boeing B-29 assembly line in Wichita. Her brother Charlie
Payne was part of the 89th Infantry Division, which liberated the Nazi concentration
campat Ohrdruf, a subcamp of Buchenwald, a fact Barack Obama has referred to in
speeches. She was the first female bank vice presidents in 1970. In 1970s Honolulu,
both women and the minority white population were routinely the target of discrimination.
Stanley Dunham was a fourth cousin, twice removed, of President Harry S. Truman.
Stanley was also a seventh cousin, once removed, of Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

American editor and wife of the 35th president of the United States, First Lady. Mother of
two children and married to 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.

Mrs. Kennedy was among the most popular of the First Ladies. Her hairdo, the "Jackie
Look", became fashionable. She was a stark contrast from her recent predecessors who
were all much older. She was not only young and attractive, but intelligent and cultivated,
and possessed an innate sense of style and elegance. Though she was sometimes
criticized for her aloofness, expensive tastes, and European ways, the American public
quickly took to her, and made her its idol. On February 14, 1962, Mrs. Kennedy took
American television viewers on a tour of the White House with Charles
Collingwood of CBS. In the tour she said, "I just feel that everything in the White House
should be the best — the entertainment that's given here. If it's an American company
you can help, I like to do that. If not — just as long as it's the best." Working with Rachel
Lambert Mellon, Mrs. Kennedy oversaw redesign and replanting of the White House
Rose Garden and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy
Garden after her husband's assassination. Focus and admiration for Jacqueline
Kennedy took negative attention away from her husband. By attracting worldwide public
attention, the First Lady gained allies for the White House and international support for
the Kennedy administration and its Cold War policies. Her son said, in announcing her
death to the world, "My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her
books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her own way, and on
her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that." Famous quote: “If you bungle raising
your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much.”
Caroline Kennedy

American author and attorney. Mother of three children and married to exhibit
designer Edwin Schlossberg.

She is the daughter and only surviving child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his
wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Kennedy is an attorney, editor, and writer and is a
member of the New York and Washington, D.C. bars. She is one of the founders of
the Profiles in Courage Award, given annually to a person who exemplifies the type of
courage examined in her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name.
Kennedy is currently President of the Kennedy Library Foundation, a director of both
the Commission on Presidential Debates and the NAACP Legal Defense and
Educational Fund, and Honorary Chairman of the American Ballet Theatre. She is also
an adviser to the Harvard Institute of Politics, a living memorial to her father.

Janice Dickinson

American supermodel, fashion photographer, actress, author and agent. Mother of two
children and single.

She opened her own modeling agency, The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, after
judging for four cycles on America's Next Top Model. By the 1980s, Dickinson had
become a supermodel, as she "possessed the kind of name and face recognition" that
the majority of women in the modeling industry strive to achieve. Dickinson appeared
within and on covers of magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Playboy. She
worked with some of fashion's best-known names, including Giorgio Armani, Gianni
Versace and Calvin Klein. Her controversial opinions and attitude towards life, sexuality
and herself has given her a tabloid popularity.

Jane Fonda

American Academy Award-winning actress, writer, political activist, former fashion

model and fitness guru. Mother of two children and many step children. Married to

Fonda is biological mother to two children, adoptive mother and stepmother to a passel
of others, including the daughter of a couple of Black Panthers. She rose to fame in the
1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou and has appeared in films ever
since. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other awards and
nominations. She initially announced her retirement from acting in 1991, and said for
many years that she would never act again, but she returned to film in 2005
with Monster in Law, and later Georgia Rule, released in 2007. She also produced and
starred in several exercise videos released between 1982 and 1995. Through her
production company, IPC Films, she produced films that helped return her to star status.
The 1977 comedy film Fun With Dick and Jane is generally considered her "comeback"
picture. Fonda has served as an activist for many political causes, one of the most
notable and controversial of which was her opposition to the Vietnam War. She has also
protested the Iraq War and violence against women. She describes herself as
a liberal and a feminist. Fonda has been a longtime supporter of feminist causes,
including V-Day, a movement to stop violence against women, inspired by the off-
Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues, of which she is an honorary chairperson. She
was present at their first summit in 2002, bringing together founder Eve Ensler, Afghan
women oppressed by the Taliban, and a Kenyan activist campaigning to save girls
from genital mutilation. In 2001, Fonda established the Jane Fonda Center for
Adolescent Reproductive Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; the goal of the
center is to prevent adolescent pregnancy through training and program development.
Fonda has also won two Oscars. She revolutionized the exercise industry before
marrying a mogul and giving up her professional life. She's suffered from bulimia,
anorexia and a Dexedrine addiction. She has found God and runs a teen pregnancy-
prevention program. On February 16, 2004, Fonda led a march through Ciudad Juárez,
with Sally Field, Eve Ensler, and other women, urging Mexico to provide sufficient
resources to newly appointed officials helping investigate the murders of hundreds of
women in the rough border city. In the days before the Swedish election on September
17, 2006, Fonda came to Sweden to support the new political party Feministiskt
initiativ in their election campaign. Fonda continued to participate in political activism,
particularly in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In September 2005, Fonda
and George Galloway postponed their anti-war bus tour due to the slow start of relief
operations in the Gulf Coast, which had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina.