Stories About Champion Women

IW Features’ Champion Women series showcases the remarkable women who make up the fabric of America. These are women who inspire generations, give back to their communities, seek change for good, reach new heights, break barriers, tell the truth, care for their families, and believe in what they do. Independent Women believes it is stories that help shape the course of history. The IW Features Champion Women series is inspired by the incredible work of Charlotte Hays, Independent Women’s first storyteller, and will continue her great legacy of bringing these stories to life.

Originally from Greenville, Mississippi, Charlotte Hays arrived in the nation’s capital in 1980 and started working at Independent Women’s Forum nearly 20 years later as editor of the Women’s Quarterly in 1999. Hays began writing the “Champion Women” series in 2012 and has shared the stories of hundreds of accomplished women in the U.S. and throughout the world as inspiring examples of impact and change. 

Speaking to IW Features about the series, Hays said: “The idea behind Champion Women was if you’re a left-wing woman, you get all of these write-ups. You’re featured in the style section, the New York Times writes about you, all the magazines write about you. And so the idea behind Champion Women was we were going to do the profiles of women who were conservatives, who had achievements, who were interesting, who had something to say, but who would never be written up in the Washington Post. And that was really sort of the guiding principle.”