So badass!

Where I sit at the PACIFIC office, I am surrounded by some major badass women. While our magazine features a lot of freelance contributors, internally we are comprised of a core team that is all women.

So, when we realized March 8 was International Women’s Day, we thought, what better way to pay tribute to other badass females from around San Diego than to highlight them in this month’s magazine. But, before I let you in on some of those women featured in the pages that follow, here are some of the ways we define being a badass:

Urban Dictionary, which lays out seven rules for being a modern day badass said it best when they defined the characteristic as: “A badass stays true to themselves, always. This means being themselves for themselves, and not being fake to impress others.” Continuing on to say “A badass does not give up. Badasses will always push themselves for the better, no matter how hard it gets.”

Amen.

And from a 2014 Thought Catalog article by Tyler Protano-Goodwin (don’t let the first name fool you, she’s a female writer), a badass woman is one that “has dreams so big that sometime(s) they scare her, yet she refuses to stop believing in them and she knows that yours are just as attainable.”

We did not choose women based on looks or style; they are wave makers, status-quo interrupters and persistent — they have staying power. They are strong in body, mind and soul. They are, quite simply, badass females, and that makes them oh so beautiful.

With that in mind, I encourage you to seek out and surround yourself with badass women in your everyday life and about town, including in the following areas:

Comedy

As a co-host of the podcast Mueller, She Wrote, which is described as “a binder full of women unraveling the Trump/Russia Investigation,” it’s hard not to appreciate the laughs brought into the world by stand-up comedian Jordan Coburn.

The “Industry”

We tapped our friends over at the Facebook group Eating and Drinking In San Diego (14,500 loyal and talkative members who love all things food and drink) and asked them to help us ID some badass female industry professionals (chefs, bartenders, managers, restaurateurs, brewers and every job in between) then added a couple of our own nominees for one mega list of badassness. Read more about the women we think are deserving of the title.

Beer

Yes, we covered some women in the brew world in the previous “industry” feature, but March also marks International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day and Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day. Several women working in all facets of beer gathered at Second Chance Beer Company to create a unique blend to mark the occasion.

Music

This month’s cover girl, Chantel Jeffries, is breaking the mold as a badass in the DJ world. The model and YouTube star may have upped her pop culture status when she dated Justin Beiber, but the 26-year-old is pushing past that noise to create a sound that’s her own.

And just because International Women’s Day is only one day in the calendar, it doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate badass women every damn day of the year. Share with us some of the badass women in your life by mentioning @PacificSD and tagging #badass on your social accounts.

Cheers,

Leslie Hackett

leslie@pacificsandiego.com