Irene Stuber

In 1995, Irene Stuber -- a retired newspaper journalist in her sixties -- noticed that women's interests, women's accomplishments, and women's history were non-existent in the media, even the internet, which supposedly had everything for everybody. So she suggested to the National Organization for Women that they do something about it. When they didn't, she did. And so Catt's Claws (named after in-your-face woman Carrie Chapman Catt) came into being.

Her family wasn't happy. According to Stuber, they told her she "should be sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair instead of in front of a computer screen raising hell with the status quo." But she didn't listen (one of the marks of a true in-your-face woman when she's on a mission). And women ever since have been glad she didn't.

Catt's Claws started out as a commentary blog on what was going on in the world and lasted until 2001, but over time, Stuber collected, published and archived an impressive mountain of information on women's contributions to life on earth. Today, it's a permanent part of the women's and families' resources available at The Liz Library, a website belonging to lawyer Elizabeth J. Kates. Irene Stuber's work (augmented by the work of thousands of women whose daily emails not only added to her information, but convinced her of its need and importance to other women) has become a monument to "herstory." In-your-face women almost always leave a legacy.