13 Badass Women And Girls You May Not Have Heard About In 2017

The 22-year-old from Stillwater, Minnesota, won two prizes at the 2017 Miss Minnesota USA pageant: the Spirit of Miss USA Award and the Director's Award.

"I was super shocked, I was in tears," she told BuzzFeed News at the time. "I went from a special needs pageant to the biggest pageant in the world. It's kind of crazy."

Holmgren was inspired to enter the contest after winning the Minnesota Miss Amazing, a pageant for women with disabilities, in 2015. She is currently a student at Bethel University's Inclusive Learning and Development program, and plans to graduate next year.

Holmgren, who is also a dancer, said she hopes to prove to the world that women with Down syndrome can participate in the arts and "blaze a trail."

"I want to do some modeling and more dancing," she said. "I have a big future."

Roem, 32, beat incumbent Del. Bob Marshall, a Republican with anti-gay views, for a seat in the Virginia General Assembly.

She won 54% of the vote after a race that saw her opponent misgender her in interviews, saying she was a "male" who "goes against the laws of nature and nature's God.”

However, Roem brushed off the attacks and came out on top. "I’m dealing with it," she told BuzzFeed News in October. "I’m a big girl — I can take care of myself."

Sinohara told BuzzFeed News in May that she has mostly male friends, as she is one of the only female engineering students in her classes.

Rather than skip the fun pics, she decided to do it her own way.

"When the bride doesn't have any girlfriends, it's time to call her bros. This is what happens to a girl in Computer Engineering," she wrote on Facebook.

The Kumamoto Muni assembly member was told to leave the floor and return without her 7-month-old son because of a rule prohibiting non-staff members from going to the meetings.

Ogata has pushed to bring her child before, and was told to "hire a babysitter." The moment garnered her a ton of support in her country and online.

"[I] wanted the Kumamoto Municipal Assembly to be a place where women who are raising children can do a great job," she told press in Japan.

Omar fled Somalia with her family, moving to the US when she was 12.

Besides her job as Minnesota's House representative for District 60B, Omar is also the director of policy initiatives at Women Organizing Women and a mother of three.

Jones' Twitter thread in May encouraged many other women to own what makes them special.

"It's not a new idea, but in my own experience when [a man] complimented me and I say, 'I agree,' they get upset," Jones told BuzzFeed News. "It’s the idea that they bestow the compliment on you, and you’re not supposed to be aware of it."

Jenny Sowry's photo of her 22-month-old daughter went viral after she posted it on Facebook, saying "#inherownwords #shespeaksforherself."

She told BuzzFeed News her daughter made the sign all on her own while she, her husband, and their son made placards for the march.

"She had been watching us make our signs and she had grabbed the markers and she had gone to town on it," Sowry said. "She obviously had something to say and she did it herself."

Waters told BuzzFeed News she had been feeding her 11-week-old daughter Alia when she had to go to the chamber unexpectedly.

"She was still on the boob, so I had to take her off, run down there, [and] put her back on when I was back in the chamber," she explained.

She said the reaction to the moment left her with "mixed feelings."

"The fact that it is news that a young woman ... can breastfeed in parliament, goes to show how far we have to go in making our parliament look like our community," she said. "It's been 116 years in the coming, and it's tragic that it's taken that long."