By Sam Alder

If you haven’t heard, March is women’s history month. I have a lot of feelings about these months or ad hoc holidays dedicated to the observance and celebration of minority groups who have contributed plenty of their skills and knowledge to the betterment of society. An issue I have with women’s history month is that it allows people to become socially inclined to only praise women during this short time period.

If you take anything from this article, please continue to support and follow female leaders past the month of March, and encourage your peers to do the same. It was nearly impossible to choose only ten millennial women for this list. There are so many more that exist and I’m uncovering new trailblazers each day, but for now these are my top ten millennial women that are kicking ass and taking names.

1. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

This influential latina you may have heard of, she’s the 29-year-old Bronx native who was just elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Not only is that impressive on its own, but she’s also a Democratic socialist who unseated a 10-term congressman in NY. If that’s not badass, I don’t know what is.

2. Anna Valencia

Another feminist politico dream, Anna Valencia was sworn in as Chicago’s City Clerk in January 2017. Her goal is to make city services more accessible to all the people of Chicago. She is the second Latina to hold office for this position and is passionate about women’s rights and the Chicago Public School system.

3. Yiqing “Pocket” Sun

This 27-year-old Chinese native immigrated to the US in 2009. She became the co-founder of a multi-million-dollar venture capitalist firm after experiencing how male-dominated the venture capitalist industry can be. Her VC firm,SoGal ventures is a female-led, millennial venture capital firm operating in the multi-million-dollar range.

4. Cassandra Levesque

At 19 years old Cassandra ran for the U.S. House of Representatives after attempting to abolish child marriage in the state of New Hampshire. She was elected as a Democrat from the Strafford 4 district in 2018.

5. Andreja Pejic

This Bosnian-Australian beauty is a top supermodel and now successful actress, recently starring in The Girl in the Spider’s Web. She came out as a trans woman in 2013 and has been one of the most sought after runway models ever since.

6. Jennifer Lambert/Jihan Thomas

These ladies are business partners so I’m grouping them together (my article, my rules). They are the co-founders of SWIVEL Beauty. The app connects women of color to hair professionals across the US. If you didn’t know, it’s extremely difficult to find a hair stylist that can properly style black women’s hair. Lambert and Thomas saw an opportunity to fill this need. Even before becoming tech entrepreneurs Lambert attended Harvard Law School and Thomas had an education from the University of Pennsylvania.

7. Tara Baker

Frustrated with the state of the current wedding industry, Baker partnered with her fiancé to create a wedding magazine dedicated to LGBTQ+ brides. “Dancing With Her” started as a mini digital magazine and soon skyrocketed to hold a global readership of 85,000 people per month.

8. Alice Brooks

You might have seen Brooks and her partner on ABC’s hit show Shark Tank. As an ivy league educated engineer Brooks saw a lack of toy options for girls that would encourage them to be creative and explore the world of engineering and building. She and her partner developed Roominate, a now very successful toy line that allows children to create structures with full mechanics and circuits. As a result, Roominate has won Forbes “Top 10 Toys to Watch in 2015,” TIME “Toy of the Year” and 2015 TOTY Finalist.

9. Jessica Williams

At just 23 years old she joined the cast of The Daily Show as one of the youngest correspondents to ever be hired. Ever since then she has become an iconic ball buster who advocates for women’s equality. Her comedic skills and political know-how have made her a fan favorite and you can currently catch her and her gal pal Phoebe Robinson on their hit HBO stand-up show “2 Dope Queens”!

10 Millennial Women That Are Kicking Ass and Taking Names