Women in positions of power are, indeed, very powerful. Mary Therese Winifred Robinson, the first female President of Ireland and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights until 2002, has been fighting the good fight since she first entered the political arena.

Mary Robinson first stepped into the spotlight as a member of the Dublin City Council then moved up to the University of Dublin's Seanad Eireann, where she actively campaigned for women's rights and public access to contraception. This made her highly unpopular with her colleagues and with conservatives, but Robinson kept on doggedly. She was the legal advisor for the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, served in the Irish Senate then was approached by the Labor Party to be the first woman presidential candidate, a race that she won. Her term as President of Ireland, from 1990-1997, turned everything around by reaching out to everyone, no matter who or what they were, and finally allowing the country to take two giant steps forward by signing into laws the two bills she had so strongly been pushing for: legalization of contraceptives and equality for homosexuals.

When Mary Robinson was offered a role as High Commissioner for Human Rights with the United Nations, she resigned as President and took on the job from 1997-2002. In 2007, famous human activist Nelson Mandela formed The Elders, a group of well-known world leaders set out to solve the world's most important crises. 

After stepping down from her post at the UN, Mary Robinson continued to work for various international causes, most especially regarding climate change, poverty, injustice, discrimination and human rights. She founded the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice to create leaders who will be the champions for the marginalized who have been victims of climate change. She has been awarded multiple times for her work, including the highly prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by US President Barack Obama himself.

To date, Mary Robinson is the Honorary Co-Chair of the World Justice Project, remains as the first female Chancellor of the University of Dublin, is on several boards and continues to be a pillar and a beacon of hope and light for all those whose voices need to be heard.