Rachel McLish has been labeled many things in her life. It doesn’t matter which moniker you choose from role model, icon to pioneer; they are all fitting. Rachel won the first Ms. Olympia competition in 1980. She became the first female bodybuilding champion and her efforts not only changed her life but also those of women every where and created a fitness revolution in the process.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has produced a documentary, that will air on February 26, featuring women who help change America. The project, MAKERS: Women Who Make America, is a three-part series on the women’s movement with an online component at www.makers.com.
PBS President Paula Kerger said in a recent press release that MAKERS will tell the story of how women have helped advance America in the last 50 years.
The film is built from first-person, intimate accounts of women who experienced this time of change and confronted the dramatic social upheaval in their own lives including movement leaders such as author and feminist activist Gloria Steinem and actress, author and activist Marlo Thomas; media moguls like Oprah Winfrey and Katie Couric; and political influencers like former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. – Businesswire
Rachel was raised in Harlingen, Texas and began weight training at an early age. She tells MAKERS that growing up she identified with her father because he had strength, freedom, money and he made the decisions. She wanted to be like that. It was that drive and determination that helped her become not only a champion bodybuilder but also an actress and author. Rachel helped dispel the perception that females who lifted weights had to be masculine and were unattractive. Her involvement in the fitness industry helped make physical fitness part of women’s daily lives.
She wanted to empower women and improve their self-confidence. Rachel said, “I wanted to show them you could be sexy, beautiful and you can be as strong as a man.” Rachel helped do that by opening South Texas’s first health club and getting women involved in lifting weights.
Visit MAKERS.com for video interviews with Rachel and hear her speak on a variety of topics.
images from makers.com interviews
