200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World is an extraordinary book featuring portraits and words from 200 of the most influential and brilliant women today.
Across a wide range of passions — from activism and art to science, politics, and entrepreneurship — these woman have made a meaningful and lasting impact on the world we live in. Accompanying each of their portraits is a series of five questions offering insight into their motivations, fears, and expertise:
What really matters to you? What brings you happiness? What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? What would you change if you could? Which single word do you most identify with?
From May 16 to June 30, the portraits featured in this book will be on view for the public at Pen + Brush gallery in New York City. To celebrate the opening, Chronicle Books has shared with BuzzFeed News a selection of the portraits, as well as each woman's thoughts on what happiness means to them.
The following in an excerpt from the book, 200 Women: Who Will Change the Way You See the World.
Cleo Wade — artist, speaker, and poet
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: The journey of investigation — the pursuit of truth and meaning — is such a thrill for me, because, even when it makes me uncomfortable, I know that I’m gathering information that I can convert to tools for others. And I’m happy when I know I’m creating tools that can provide clarity for others.
Dolores Huerta — teacher, lifelong labor activist, and community organizer
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: It brings me happiness to see people taking power, to see them working together and taking collective action, thereby developing leadership. We are seeing the end result of the work we are doing.
Jane Goodall — primatologist, conservationist, author, and environmental activist
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: I love the planet, I love nature, and I love being out in the rainforest.
Mpho Tutu van Furth — teacher, writer, and Episcopal priest
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: I couldn’t choose one thing; I have at least seven! I’d like to say "joy" instead of "happiness," though. My joys are in moments with my children and in the kind of intense engagement I can have with my wife. When I am presiding at the Eucharist, I feel completely in my own body. And I sometimes get lost — absorbed — in drawing or painting. And I love to cook.
Ai-jen Poo — activist and labor organizer
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: All the things that we have been able to achieve and receive recognition for as a movement have been achieved through the power, courage, and hard work of thousands of women: domestic workers, nannies, housecleaners, and caregivers who sacrificed a day’s pay to travel to state capitals to lobby and share their stories, to march with millions of other women, to negotiate, take risks and assert their dignity.
Caster Semenya — middle-distance runner, 800-meter-event world champion, and two-time Olympic gold medallist
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: I got married a few months ago, so that is my happiness; more than anything else, happiness is being with my wife. She supports me in everything I do and is the most precious thing in my life.
Gillian Anderson — actor, activist, and writer
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: The greatest sense of joy and happiness that I have experienced is the result of mindfulness and meditation; I am able to open my gaze onto the world — see the sunset and the trees — and come from a place of compassion and kindness. And my children are what I love the most and what bring me the most happiness. But I have come to know that, even if they are in joy, if I have not connected to joy myself, it is very hard for me to recognize and honor it in them.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied — mechanical engineer, activist, and television personality
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: It comes in the small moments; it’s laughing so hard it hurts and beautiful afternoons spent with people I care about.
Margaret Atwood — writer, inventor, activist, environmentalist, and conservationist
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: The pursuit of happiness was always a bit of a red herring, because happiness in itself is not a goal — rather, it is a byproduct. So, doing things that you really want to do, being with people who you really want to be with and pursuing goals you find worthwhile will probably bring you happiness along the way.
Nadya Tolokonnikova — artist, political activist, and founding member of Pussy Riot
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: Being helpful and meaningful to others, sharing the beauty I see in the world, and staying sensitive to the tiniest details of life.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela — anti-apartheid activist and politician
Q. What brings you happiness?
I have the greatest wealth; I may not have dollars, but my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren are the best thing God has ever given me — I live for them today.
Roxane Gay — writer and professor
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: I don’t know; I’m still looking for it. Writing makes me happy and reading makes me happy. Being with my best friend — that feeling of being with the right person, at the right time, in the right place — makes me happy.
Vidya Balan — actor and activist
Q: What brings you happiness?
A: It makes me extremely happy to see anyone living their life on their own terms. In India, the social conditioning runs very deep and the family bond is very, very strong. At times we all limit ourselves because of the expectations our families have of us – we don’t want to do anything that might topple the apple cart or overthrow the status quo.