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Yesterday marked International Women's Day. Celebrated the world over, this is a time to honour and celebrate all the women who have made the world a better place and to look more deeply into women's causes. This year's theme is "Make it Happen"

Historically, women have often faced tremendous challenges in doing the things we take for granted: voting, working outside the home, receiving education, and more. A woman with a disability may have even a more frustrating experience.

Here are three Canadian women who fought for disability rights and awareness.

Theresa Ducharme
Polio survivor and political candidate

Ducharme was born in Winnipeg and contracted polio later in life. She was often in and out of the hospital and required an iron lung to support breathing. She was an avid disability rights activist and was the first person needing an on-board life support system to fly as a regular passenger on an Air Canada flight in 1981.

Bonnie Sherr Klein
Filmmaker

Bonnie worked in Montreal for a number of years for the National Film Board of Canada. In her time there, she directed Not a Love Story, an anti-pornography documentary, as well as Shameless: the ART of disability. In 1987, at the age of 46, she suffered a massive stroke, which led to months of hospitalization and then several more years of rehab.

To learn more about Bonnie's extraordinary life, be sure to check out  Slow Dance: a story of stroke, love and disability.

Mona Winberg
Journalist

Winberg was born in Toronto with cerebral palsy. She went on to become a highly respected journalist and strong advocate for independent living for people with mental and physical disabilities. Between 1986 and 1999, she regularly wrote a column for the Toronto Sun about disability issues – she was the only columnist in North America doing so at the time.

Her book, Solitary Courage, is a collection of some of her finest columns as well as a look into her life.

Living the edges explores the many voices of disability, in a collection of writing that challenges the stereotypes of living with disability. While society traditionally views having a disability as "weakness" and that women are the "weaker" sex, this collection points to the strength, persistence, and resilience of women with disabilities.