Culture

International Women’s Day: The Year’s Best Moments For Women

It's not a comprehensive list; the well is far too deep for that. But if you're after a little inspiration, look no further.

by Hattie O'Donnell  6 March 2015

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It’s not at all hard to find examples of women who inspire and empower us. In fact, it’s delightfully easy. So with International Women’s Day coming up this Sunday March 8, we decided to put together some of our faves.

This list features a few key moments from the past twelve months, featuring creative geniuses, international ambassadors, national heroes, and fearless ladies we just really, really like. It’s not comprehensive — there’s far too much to draw on for that — but if it’s inspiration for world domination you’re searching for, then look no further.

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Women In The Arts

When it comes to the creative arts, women continue to kill it. Memoirs like Amy Poehler’s Yes Please and Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind Of Girl shed light on the inner-lives of a couple of our screen favourites, full of hilarious anecdotes, brutal honesty and important life tips for career-driven women.

Female storytelling is taking centre stage in film and TV, too – just look at Girls or Orange Is The New Black. The latter particularly gives voice to identities that have been historically under-served or largely ignored by pop culture, like the LGBT community and women of colour.

If you’re too busy being excellent in your chosen field to read a whole book or watch a whole show, take a look at the Power of Story: Serious Ladies panel from the Sundance Film Festival this year — featuring Kristen Wiig, Mindy Kaling, Lena Dunham, Jenji Kohan and Emily Nussbaum.

The friendship group of your dreams explores everything from anti-heroes to archetypes, the problem with the term “female comedy”, and (of course) what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated industry. As Kaling says, it’s a hilarious, inspiring panel of show creators who not only create “the best shows with strong  female characters, but they’re the best shows on TV”.

Want another steaming hot cup of comedic genius? Sass queens Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted the Golden Globes again — and this ten minute clip is a slice of tongue-in-cheek goodness that, like the above panel, is best enjoyed multiple times.

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Lessons In Self Love

While most of us keep our insecurities close to our chest, others own and embrace them, and encourage more to do the same. Self-acceptance can be extremely difficult, so it’s refreshing to hear that even the most talented struggle with it.

At last year’s Black Women in Hollywood Awards, Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o gave an incredibly moving speech about dealing with poor body image. She relates her own struggle with her body and skin colour, and calls out the “seduction of inadequacy” that plagues us all: “You can’t rely on how you look to sustain you,” she says. “What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you.”

Nyong’o gave another speech at the 10th annual Massachusetts Conference for Women in December, about embracing dreams and weaknesses and overcoming fear.

It’s half an hour long, but worth it:

Back home, columnist and screenwriter Michelle Law — who suffers from alopecia areata — discusses the topic of baldness in her TED Talk A Bald Woman’s Guide To Survival. She explores the historical and cultural representation of bald women as “disadvantaged, undesirable, weak… or Satan” — think Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta, Anjelica Huston in The Witches, and the devil in The Passion Of The Christ.

Sydney singer/songwriter Megan Washington gave a TED Talk too: an uplifting exploration of overcoming her stutter. “[Singing] is more than making nice sounds or nice songs, more than feeling known or understood, more than making you feel the things that I feel. It’s not about mythologising myself to you,” she says. “Somehow through some miraculous synaptic function of the human brain, it’s impossible to stutter when you sing.”

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Winning Women

International Women’s Day this year is all about ‘Making It Happen’ (and also, apparently, some seriously heavy irony). LNP blunders aside, there are some fantastic achievements to celebrate on Sunday March 8. From the Nobel Peace Prize to the Fields Medal, the Australian of the Year Awards — in which, for the first time ever, women were honoured in all four categories — and even in the Queensland state elections, there have been a whole bunch of women recognised this year for their active roles in society.

Women’s and children’s education activist Malala Yousafzai is the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Having suffered from the Taliban’s violence first hand, she is an incredibly eloquent ambassador, with a wealth of personal experience.

You’ve probably heard of Rosie Batty – a fierce campaigner against domestic violence, who was announced the Australian of the Year for raising awareness of the issue after her son was tragically killed. Batty’s acceptance speech addresses the serious epidemic of domestic violence in Australia, with 57% of women in Australia experiencing sexual or physical violence during their lifetime.

The speech is particularly important given the recent cuts to women’s services over the past year. It serves as a call to action, and is at the very least worth watching for the staggering statistics she relays.

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Starting A Conversation

When powerful, eloquent and visible people publically discuss difficult issues like reproductive rights, domestic abuse, and rape culture, it forces the rest of us to talk about them, too.

Author and former model Tara Moss’ appearance on Q And A in May was particularly significant. A survivor of sexual abuse, her book, The Fictional Woman, shone a light on the issue.

On the panel, and again on A Current Affair this week, Moss emphasised the need to improve the forums of discussion around sexual violence; keeping silent, she says, only serves to protect the perpetrators.

Similarly, Clem Ford’s wonderfully named TED Talk, Your Vagina Is Not A Car, offers a great explanation of rape culture, and underlines why speaking out about sexual abuse and sexism matters.

#Gamergate was another defining moment last year, when sexism in video game culture led to misogynistic attacks on female game developers and critics. Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian all received death and rape threats as a result of an “organised online harassment of women, thinly disguised as a defence of gaming ethics.”

This article offers a particularly good explainer for those of us who found the whole thing hard to follow, and the following takedown by Anita Sarkeesian on The Colbert Report is pretty damn good, too.

[embed_media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L_Wmeg7OTU[/embed_media]

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FEMINISM!

It still has a long way to go, but the number of celebrities in the past year who have publicly identified themselves as feminists has amplified debate.

From Queen Bey to T-Swiz, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to Emma Watson, people seem to be more comfortable aligning themselves with the movement (although it’s not everyone’s cup of tea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

It’s clear that the debate surrounding gender equality is nowhere near finished, especially with the backlash from anti-feminists, and hashtag campaigns such as #WomenAGainstFeminism and #NotAllMen (the latter of which is explained rather well in in this Jezebel article.)

Happily, there are some really on point parody tweets out there to soften the blow:

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This is Hattie O’Donnell’s last piece as a Junkee intern. Follow her on Twitter.