Last Thursday, Stéphanie Frappart made history by serving as the first female head referee in a men’s World Cup match. She actually led a trio of women, who were served as the first all-female on-field crew in the men’s World Cup. The best part? It was really no big deal.

In taking charge for Germany’s showdown with Costa Rica in the final round of games in Group E, Frappart became the first woman to officiate in a men’s World Cup and it felt decidedly normal.

Frappart is used to making history: she was the first woman to referee in men’s Ligue 2, then Ligue 1 in France and the first woman to referee in the Champions League and Uefa Super Cup.

In recent years, more and more women have served as coaches and officials in men’s sports, and it’s an excellent thing to see.

Last month, on Southwest flight #3658, Captain Holly Petitt and First Officer Keely Petitt made history. With Holly at the helm, and Keely acting as her co-pilot, they became the airline’s first-ever mother-daughter pilot duo.

Holly began her career as a flight attendant, before deciding she’d rather be a pilot. I have to imagine that is not a transition that’s made very often. Keely, meanwhile, knew she wanted to fly in her mother’s…wing…steps (?) from a very early age. Now, they’re plying the skies together.

Back in 2018, New Zealand MP Julie Anne Genter cycled to the hospital 42 weeks into her pregnancy, to have labo(u)r induced. That was impressive, but last weekend, she topped it. This time around, while actively in labo(u)r, she made the trip via bicycle again. From her Instagram post:

My contractions weren’t that bad when we left at 2am to go to the hospital – though they were 2-3 min apart and picking up in intensity by the time we arrived 10 minutes later.

Now that is some real bad-assery.

Dr. Khama Ennis is the chief of emergency medicine at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Massachusetts. Despite that impressive accomplishment, she’s had to put up with far too much nonsense over the years.

Once, as I walked past a patient’s room, I heard the family berating their nurse, demanding to be seen by a doctor because they had been waiting for hours. I popped in to reassure them that I was, in fact, their doctor. I’d already been in the room several times. I had done a rectal exam. All I could think was, “Why would you let me do that if you didn’t think I was your doctor?”

I wonder how much of what Dr. Ennis has experienced can be attributed to racism, how much to sexism, and how much to a combination of the two. But mostly, I marvel at how she powers through.

In the 1970s, Rosemary Mariner finished college at just 19, in order to become part of the first group of women to earn their wings as United States Naval Aviators. Not long after, she became the very first female jet pilot in the American military. She was far from the last. At her funeral last week, a missing woman salute was performed by an entirely female flyover crew.

In the late 1960s, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered the first four known pulsars while working as a grad student. A few years after that, a Nobel Prize was awarded for this discovery, but it didn’t go to Bell Burnell. Instead, her adviser Antony Hewish was the recipient, along with another man. While Bell Burnell has always downplayed the controversy, many feel she was unjustly excluded from recognition.

Now, she’s being recognized with a Breakthrough Prize:

On Thursday, half a century after her pioneering work, it was announced that Bell Burnell will receive a $3 million Breakthrough Prize, one of the most lucrative and prestigious awards in science. The special award in fundamental physics, given for her scientific achievements and “inspiring leadership,” has only been granted three times before.

Good for her! However, the very best part of this story is what the 75-year-old Bell Burnell plans to do with the money.

“I don’t need a Porsche or Ferrari,” she said. “I don’t have an affluent lifestyle.”

Instead, the funds will go to creating scholarships for women, underrepresented minorities and refugees who want to study physics. The funds will be administered by Britain’s Institute of Physics.

Discovering pulsars is very cool, but helping other women and minorities make the next discovery is what really kicks ass.

When an engine failed catastrophically on Southwest flight 1380, veteran pilot Tammie Jo Shults knew exactly how to handle it.

Some feel safer with a male pilot, but I go the opposite way. All pilots are incredibly well-trained, but when I have a female pilot, I feel even safer. She likely had to be far better than the average just to get the job. Industry veterans back up this thinking:

One thing, however, is clear: while the times are a changin’, they are changing slowly—and women are often held to a different standard. “Men are assumed to be able to do their job well until they prove they cannot. Women are assumed to not be able to do it until they prove they can,” says Cheryl Pitzer, a captain at FedEx. “We have to be better than average or we get criticized for not being good enough,” says Wendy O’Malley, captain on a business jet for a Silicon Valley company.

In North America, women represent only about 5% of commercial pilots. Here’s hoping the powerful example set by Tammie Jo Shults helps improve that number.