International Women's Day: Women who helped shape Montreal

Today is International Women's Day.

To mark the occasion, here arefour of themany Montreal women who have helped change their city for the better.

Who are your Montreal heroines? We invite you to use the comments section below to tell us more about them.

Daisy PetersonSweeney

Born Daisy Peterson in 1920, Sweeney is an accomplished musician andteacher, and a pillar of Montreal'sblack community. Sweeney is best known for setting her famous younger brother Oscar Peterson on his path to jazz greatness and teaching Montreal jazz legendOliver Jones, among others. In 1974 she and Trevor Payne founded the Montreal Black Community Youth Choir, which became the internationally celebratedMontreal Jubilation Gospel Choir.

• Read Oliver Jones's 'Letter to my teacher'

Henrietta Muir Edwards(1849-1931)

Montreal's contribution to Canada's Famous Five, Henrietta Muir Edwards and her sister Amlia founded the Working Girls' Association in the city in 1875. Muir also startedthe magazine Working Woman of Canada while living in Montreal. After moving west, Muir,Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby led the court case that resulted in the legal reinterpretation of the word 'persons' in the 1867 British North America Act to include women.

• 1929: Women become persons

Ellen Gabriel

Mohawk artist and aboriginal rights' activist Ellen Gabriel came to the public's attention as a spokeswoman for the Kanesatake Mohawk protesters during the 1990 Oka Crisis. Since that time she's become a leading advocate for the collective and individual rights of Indigenous peoples and a prominent defender of the rights of First Nations women.

• Truth and Reconciliation report brings calls for action, not words

Marie-Marcelle Godbout

Marie-Marcelle Godbout is an icon of Quebec's movement for transsexual rights and founder ofthe Association des personnes transsexuelles du Qubec in 1980. Godbout became a popular figure in the 1960s for her cabaret magic act Mimi de Paris and used her prominence to promote the rights of the province's transsexuals in the decades to come.

• Quebec makes strides toward more trans-inclusive policies