She was the sole named class plaintiff in the federal sex discrimination lawsuit that opened the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) to women firefighters.

[5] Brenda Berkman was enrolled in her third year of law school when the New York City Fire Department announced that women could take the exam to become firefighters in 1977.

It was stated by an official that their physical test was “the most difficult the department had ever administered, [and] was designed more to keep women out than to accurately assess job-related skills as they were required to perform such feats as carrying a 120 pound dummy up a flight of stairs, climb an eight foot wall, and jog for one mile.”[7] After Berkman's requests for a fairer test were ignored, she filed an ultimately successful class-action lawsuit: Brenda Berkman, et al. v. The City of New York (1982).

Most 9/11 accounts reinforced the notion of heroes as men, often referring to firefighters as “firemen’ instead of the gender-neutral term and paid little attention to female workers at the scene.

She drew and created the stone lithograph print “2001”, a self-portrait depicting a bent over figure, covering her head and moving away as if under attack from above.

[23] The series of stone lithograph images she drew and printed over three years (2015-2017) is titled “Thirty-Six Views of One World Trade Center.

The entire series was acquired by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum permanent collection, St. Olaf College (MN) and a private collector.