A Time magazine special project known simply as "Firsts" celebrates women who have made big achievements. These women have made their mark in business, entertainment, politics and more. The project hopes to provide girls and women with positive examples who assure (使确信)them that they can succeed.
The "Firsts" project includes video features (特写), a book and a webpage. The webpage has the women's pictures and short descriptions of their achievements. The project's producers, Spencer Bakalar and Diane Tsai, made video profiles (简介) of 37 of the 46 original women featured by the project. And the webpage anticipates that more women will be added as they become new "Firsts".
The women featured in "Firsts" have achieved success in many fields. Eileen Collins was the first woman to command a space shuttle. Jennifer Yuh Nelson was the first woman to direct a major Hollywood movie alone—Kung Fu Panda 2. Serena Williams set a record for tennis Grand Slam singles titles.
The road to success hasn't always been smooth for these women. It took hard work to reach excellence. Many of them also put up with rude comments because they were women. But they also received support from key people, especially parents. Many of the women also speak about the difficulty of balancing work and family life. Their work sometimes required them to sacrifice time with their children or miss important family events. Yet several of them also say that they see their work as setting a good example for their children. They want their sons and daughters to see them working and know that they, too, can achieve remarkable things.
Michelle Phan was the first woman to build a US $500 million company from a web series. She tells entrepreneurs (企业家)to find a problem that they care about and then offer a way to solve it. That is vital advice that anyone in any field should follow.
