American Masters: The Women’s List on PBS is an uplifting celebration of women

If you are a woman, love a woman, are raising a woman-in-the-making or teaching them, tonight’s American Masters: The Women’s List on PBS is can’t-miss TV.

The latest of filmmaker/photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ List documentary series (The Boomer List, The Black List, The Latino List, The Out List),  The Women’s List features intimate and inspiring interviews with Madeleine Albright, Gloria Allred, Laurie Anderson, Sara Blakely, Nia Wordlaw Margaret Cho, Edie Falco, Betsey Johnson, Alicia Keys, Aimee Mullins, Nancy Pelosi, Rosie Perez, Shonda Rhimes and Wendy Williams — all of whom share their own experiences and advice on making it big as a woman in what remains a man’s world.

The launches with a thrilling summation by the novelist Toni Morrison:

“It’s sometimes surprising to discover the cumulative progress women have made in recent times. Just think. What field has not been enriched by females? In art, theater, finance, politics, law, entrepreneurship, science — the list is as impressive as it is enlightening. T0 realize that we’re no longer pioneers … the startling exception … the first to fly or sail or swim prodigious distances in bad weather. No longer the first to be elected. The first to discover cures in medicine or the first to untangle problems in science, math or physics. No. We are multitudes, and society is clearly the better for our peaceful invasion. There is no modernity and no justice without the talent, the passion and the steely intelligence of women.”

If you don’t have goosebumps then … well, keep watching. While each of the women are entirely individual, powerful themes run through their stories. The gift of a strong and independent mother — and motherhood, itself. The determination not to let other women falter from challenges they themselves faced. The incredible freedom of not giving a damn what others think when you know your cause — and your heart — is right.

Singer/songwriter Alicia Keys and uber producer Shonda Rhimes salute their mothers for giving them the freedom to speak their minds, communicate effectively and relate to the plight of others.

Rhimes’ own mother had a rule that she could read whatever she wanted, but she had to look up what she didn’t understand in the dictionary.

“Obstacles aren’t obstacles and challenges aren’t challenges,” she says. “If people reject you, it’s something wrong with them, not you. It takes a great arrogance in that that I’m really proud that I was instilled with … I stare into my daughters face and I see my childhood reflected back at me and I think oh my God, I am so grateful for my mother.”

“When you become successful, you are only the person always were,” says Keys, who quotes Stevie Wonder: “Make sure that you’re in it, but not of it.”

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and attorney Gloria Allred cite the influence of motherhood in their path to success in male dominated fields.

“I went from the kitchen to the Congress,” says Pelosi, who was raised in an intensely political Baltimore family. “From the home to the House Speaker. So it wasn’t like I was on a road or a path to this job. I only returned to political life as an extension of my role as a mother. It just seemed so unfair to me that our children had every possibly advantage in terms of personal attention and love and affection, opportunity and the rest and so many other children did not.”

“The reason I am a feminist and so devoted to justice for women is because of my own life experience. It should be a word of which we are all proud,” says Allred. “Men of quality are not threatened by a woman of equality.”

Rhimes has something to say about feminism, too. “Nobody ever asks a man how he gets stuff done. Nobody ever asks a man how he finds balance,” she laments. “I’m disturbed by the fact that people think feminist is a bad word. I’m disturbed by the fact that young women think that feminist is a bad word. …They would rather be cute than equal, which is really disturbing.”

It’s a wonderful time of opportunity but don’t forget how hard it’s been. Help each other,” says Albright.

Sara Blakely, the former fax machine sales woman who invented Spanx salutes her dad for seeing failure as opportunity and not trying as the sin. “Out of love and concern, million dollar ideas and billion dollar ideas get squashed,” Blakely says.  “If I had heard those things the day I cut the feet out of my panty hose, I think I’d still be selling fax machines. …Spanx came from my own butt. $5000 in savings, an idea and some cellulite.”

Nia Wordlaw, one of just 20 female pilots flying for major airlines today, talks about overcoming the horrors of 9/11 to honor the legacy of her heroines and continue to live her lifelong dream. “It’s a birdseye view of what God created,” she smiles of her vocation.

“It’s an objective fact that I am a double amputee, but it’s a very subjective opinion as to whether or not that makes me disabled,” says Aimee Mullins who, at age 19, landed on a cover of a magazine that boasted “Disabled athlete Aimee Mullins runs faster than you can.”

“I was like right,” Mullins grins, “so why am I disabled?”

American Masters: The Women’s List premieres tonight at 9/8CT on PBS. Check your local listings to confirm time and station.