(photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Making fists to signify Baltimore sisterhood and the solidarity of women lawmakers in Congress, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), left, hosts a Women’s History Month reception to honor Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), right, who has achieved the longest-serving woman in Congress title, on Capitol Hill Wednesday, March 21, 2012.
(photo by Erin Scott) Courtney and Alexis share their first kiss as a married couple in the spring of 2012. The couple traveled from Texas to DC, where their wedding would be legally recognized.
(photo by Alexis Glenn/GMU) Students from the George Mason University Chi Omega Sorority celebrate winning Greek Week Field Day in Fairfax, Virginia on March 29, 2012.
(photo by Linda Davidson/The Washington Post) Stage-four breast cancer patient Samantha Seinfeld is alive and enjoying her cat and the little things in life after undergoing a clinical trial that has given her more time and quality of life. Single and born in Australia, Seinfeld has set up and apartment in Fairfax while undergoing treatment. She says creating a calm, soothing and loving environment in her temporary space has had an very therapeutic effect as well. Clinical trials often attract patients in late stages of the disease who want to contribute to experimental research as well as extend their life by months or even years. Seinfeld says it's her way of paying it forward to future patients.
(photo by Astrid Riecken) Hotel 17 celebrity tenant Amanda Lepore, an American model, nightlife and fashion icon and transgender public figure, poses for a photograph in New York, NY, January 17, 2012.
(photo by Allison Shelley) Akaancha Kumari, 8, center, points to the hand of bride Suman Kumari, left, as she and other young family members have their own hands decorated with henna in preparation for the wedding, to be held later in the day, at Suman's family home in Bakarour village, Bihar, India, December 9, 2011. Though Indian law strictly prohibits marriage before age eighteen, 69 percent of girls in rural Bihar are married by that age.
(photo by Allison Shelley) Pratima Devi, 15, is comforted by her mother-in-law Asha Devi, as they publicly mourn the death of Pratima's first child, who died the night before after being born a month prematurely and living for only two days, in Mounia village, Bihar, India, November 14, 2011. The family believes that the baby was poisoned before the birth by pain pills prescribed to Pratima by a village doctor who did not realize that she was having contractions. Less than 5% of rural births in Bihar are registered with authorities and a person's birth and death can go entirely unrecorded in government records.
(photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post) Sister Mary Alice Chineworth joined the Oblate Sisters of Providence when she was 19. Now 94, she's celebrating 75 years of marriage to Jesus at the motherhouse in Catonsville, MD.
(photo by Melissa Golden) A woman weeps for her teenage daughter who was arrested at an Occupy the Caucus event at the Michele Bachmann headquarters outside Des Moines, IA in December of 2011.
(photo by Gabriela Bulisova) Lashawna Etheridge-Bey, 38, was recently paroled after 20-years of incarceration. With more than one million women under the control of the criminal justice system, women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population. 2012.
(photo by Ellie Van Houtte) 2012 Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann addresses the audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Forum at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, December 7, 2011.
(photo by Anuska Sampedro Carballeira) Metal faceplates are worn by some women in addition to the niqab and abaya, used to hide cheeks and nose in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. 2012.
(photo by Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times) Ravyn Bias, 9, portraying Rosa Parks, gets help adjusting her microphone while Everett Evans-Kearney, 12, as Martin Luther King Jr., stands in position before giving the mayor a sneak preview of the annual "Blacks in Wax" performance.
(photo by Shannon Jensen) A young girl rubs her eyes after tripping on the asphalt in the Southwood mobile home park. She is from one of the community's many Mexican immigrant families.
(photo by Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times) From left, Ava Ferry, 3, Lua Songer-Johnson, 4, Stephanie Bonilla, 3, and Mattie Keller, 4, all of Reston, Va., line up at the barre in the pre-ballet class at the Reston Community Center.
(photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post) Eva Yesenia Martinez, 40, of Guatemala, spends most afternoons on the porch of her apartment in Langley Park, MD, September 19, 2011. Her oldest son was killed when he was 16, four years ago, only blocks away. She has a tattoo of him on her arm.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) A father and daughter dance by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, on the 44th anniversary of King's assassination, in Washington, on Wednesday, April 4, 2012.
(photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World) Tohomina Akter washes pots and dishes in a pond near her home on the morning of Thursday, April 19, 2012, in Char Baria village, Barisal, Bangladesh. Tohimina and her daughter Adia, 17 months, participate in a maternal and infant nutrition program called Nobo Jibon run in part by Hellen Keller International. The program stresses proper nutrition in a child's 1,000 days from pregnancy to age two, with an emphasis on breastfeeding and cultivating nutritious vegetables in home gardens.
(photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World) Women who are part of the jjajja (grannies) group at St. Francis Healthcare Services in Njeru, Uganda, rest after a morning of planting matoke trees. Many grandmothers in Uganda raise their grandchildren since their own children died of AIDS. Teaching the grandmothers to grow their own food is one way for the women to remain self-sufficient.
(photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post) The first female Secretary of State Madeleine Albright during a Washington Post interview pauses while speaking about her families' past in Czechoslovakia during WW II, at her home in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington DC, Friday April 20, 2012.
(photo by Rebecca D'Angelo) Lisa Cowan, visting Alexandria, Virginia, from Austin TX, contracts the flu, the apparent curse for the traveling Cowan, August 5, 2011.
(photo by Shannon Jensen) Peggy sits next to her daughter Charlotte as they wait for the end of a police roadblock in June 2011. Charlotte graduated high school pregnant by choice although she is no longer in contact with the father.
(photo by Suzheila Reyes-Bunnag) In the Philippines, there is a major gender gap between men and women who have limited access to work and end up in vulnerable low-paying jobs without benefits or breaks. In 2010, these women from Palawan working in a fruit market cannot leave their stalls because there’s nowhere else to go.