Li Tingting, second from right, laughs as she is lifted off the ground by her wife Teresa Xu, right, outside of a beauty salon where the two were preparing for their wedding as clerks from an adjacent shop look on in Beijing, Thursday, July 2, 2015. Li, a 25-year-old prominent women's rights activist who was released from detention in April, held the wedding ceremony with her partner Teresa on Thursday and announced their marriage in an effort to push for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights in China. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

In 1949, LIFE magazine sent famed photographer Nina Leen to document the daily life of a sassy troupe of young women who had run off and joined the famous Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, Fla. What developed was a portrait of a sisterhood formed over acrobatics that mixed high-flying wire acts with fashionable high-waisted shorts. Sarasota was once considered “the home of the American circus”. Here: an aerialist smoking while rehearsing for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in Sarasota, FL in 1949. (Photo By Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

The maid-themed cafe in Hangzhou, China on September 29, 2016. A cafe has been bringing in droves of new customers after hiring young women to dress up in Frech maid costumes while serving diners. Curious coffee- and coffee-lovers are coming from all corners of Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province, to get a taste of the “maid cafe” experience. The business is said to have been opened by a man surnamed Yu and his friends, all whom are natives or graduates of the city. The all-female staff who donned the black and white French maid outfits are also students currenting living or studying in Hangzhou, allowing them to marry their passion for serving with the part-time job. (Photo by AsiaWire)

A picture made available on 13 May 2016 shows A Tiwa girl performing her traditional dance as they celebrated the Wanchuwa festival in Karbi Anglong District of Assam state, India, 11 May 2016. Wanchuwa is one of the most important festivals of the Tiwa tribal community living in the hills as it is related with agriculture which is the mainstay of their economy. Tiwas pray for a bountiful harvest during this festival and to protect their crops from pest and other natural calamities. Tiwa is a major tribe of Assam state who practice Jhum or shifting cultivation for their living in the hills. (Photo by EPA/Stringer)

A man stands between thousands of paper lanterns, which were displayed and lit up the precincts of the shrine, where more than 2.4 million war-dead are enshrined, during the Mitama Festival at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, Japan July 13, 2016. “Mitama” is a respectful word that means “the soul of a dead person” in Japanese, and this “Soul Festival” honors just that. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

Venezuela's food shortages, inflation and crumbling medical sector have become such a source of anguish that a growing number of young women are reluctantly opting for sterilizations rather than face the hardship of pregnancy and child-rearing. Traditional contraceptives like condoms or birth control pills have virtually vanished from store shelves, pushing women towards the hard-to-reverse surgery. While no recent national statistics on sterilizations are available, doctors and health workers say demand for the procedure is growing. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

79 year old Constance Ngubane spars in the ring as she takes part in a “Boxing Gogos” (Grannies) training session hosted by the A Team Gym in Cosmo City in Johannesburg on September 19, 2017. The grandmothers, many of whom are over 70 have been training with coach Claude Maphosa and claim that they no longer suffer from the ailments they had before, and are stronger than ever. The grannies travel from all over Cosmo City for the twice weekly sessions. Coach Maphosa is in the process of planning events in other areas for grannies who have been inspired by the story, to join in. (Photo by Gulshan Khan/AFP Photo)

Ravi Nath poses for a photograph with a cobra snake in Jogi Dera (Snake charmers settlement), in the village of Baghpur, in the central state of Uttar Pradesh, India November 10, 2016. An ancient tribe of snake charmers, known as Saperas, have thrived over the generations by catching venomous snakes and making them dance to their music. Snakes are revered by Hindus in India and snake charmers are considered the followers of Lord Shiva, the blue-skinned Hindu god who is usually portrayed wearing a king cobra around his neck. (Photo by Adnan Abidi/Reuters)