We’re still celebrating Women’s History Month and will be proudly for the remainder of March, so as per our usual Friday tradition, we’re celebrating women making history this week!
SUSAN LONTINE
Susan Lontine is the Colorado State Representative for House District 1 and has just introduced a bill to change the way sex ed is taught in public high schools in Colorado. The bill, HB19-1032, requires that sex education be taught inclusively. This means doing away with using religious ideology or gender stereotypes, along with requiring the inclusion of sexual minority experiences. Additionally, it would rid sex ed classes of shame-based language, teachings, or instructional tools. “I’d rather they just don’t teach anything if they can’t be honest,” said Lontine, noting the drastic lack of scientific and objective sexual education made available to students. This bill, if put into law, would be a huge leap forward in destroying gender and sexual-orientation bias in our society. Not only that, it would provide people of many more experiences access to crucial knowledge about their own bodies and health.
Read more about Lontine’s HB19-1032 bill and how things are changing in Maya Salam’s New York Time’s article about sex education.
LISA SMOSARSKI
As you clearly know, even if just by reading this article, we over here at VINAZINE are really into the whole women supporting women thing. Big fans. And Lisa Smosarski is leading an entire campaign about it. As Editor-in-Chief of the women-championing magazine Stylist, Smosarski is a big part of their #visiblewomen campaign. More recently, Smosarski spearheaded Stylist’s Remarkable Women Awards, recognizing women across the board who are remarkable in their field. This year’s ceremony was this week, honoring everything from Mentor of the Year to Entertainer of the Year to Sports Star of the Year. Other awards including the Equality Award, Triumph Award and the Glass Ceiling Award were among many that duly recognized the women who are so often left recognition-less, but who are none-the-less accomplishing big things, and not only hard and meaningful things, but things that are changing the world we live in as women.
EMILY WEISS
Our favorite makeupreneur, beauty blogger and Fortune 40-Under-40 Most Influential Young Person recipient has been busy. Besides her usual kick-ass routine of empowering women, leading the way for female entrepreneurs, and generally being an icon for living her best life, the NYU graduate and Glossier founder and CEO launched the brand’s newest offshoot this week, Glossier Play. I don’t know about you, but there’s not too much that inspires me more than genuine, kind, intellectual, and politically active women succeeding in business – and succeeding big time (her company is currently estimated to be worth $532 billion). (Added bonus, she’s a branding master, and, if you know me, you know that’s kind of my *thing*.)
Read about Glossier’s fiscal success or check out the magician herself.
JAMEELA JAMIL
If you’re looking for some serious (and simultaneously funny) body positivity woke-ness, this woman’s Twitter is the one to follow. Jameela Jamil, who stars in NBC’s The Good Place, leads the iWeigh movement in an attempt to rewrite the societal script women are given about how they should feel about their bodies. Jamil just posted an inspiring and F-bomb-littered moment she had at the BlogHer Health 2019 conference on her Twitter. In the clip, she talks about the body-shaming-entrenched culture we’re apart of and why she is fighting so aggressively to change it. The short, 2-minute clip is a must see for some added fuel to your self-love fire, so go watch, enjoy, and spread the self-love.
VIRGIN ATLANTIC EMPLOYEES
Virgin Atlantic announced on Monday that their female flight attendants are no longer required to wear makeup and are now given pants along with the traditional skirt to wear for their uniform. Virgin Atlantic Executive Vice President Mark Anderson attributed the change to the mounting voices of Virgin Atlantic employees. The long-standing skirts-only, makeup-required flight attendant regulations popular among the airline titans are reflective of retired social norms that just aren’t as acceptable today as they were, say, 50 years ago. Women at Virgin Atlantic made their voices heard and were part of a movement that may soon be followed by more airline regulation updates across the industry. Regardless of what’s to come, these women are demanding equality and breaking down archaic sexist traditions one company at a time.
Read New York Times’s full account of the event.
We love to write about the goddesses out here changing the world, but strong, intelligent, society-altering women are everywhere. If you want to see a particular vina who’s challenging the status quo on next Friday’s Fearless Femme update, email your nominations to samantha.bagby@yahoo.com or find fearless femmes in your own city on the Hey! VINA app today.
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