fearless female friday

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS: 5 KICKASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ Gaby Iori / Leave a comment

It’s the end of another week, vinas! You know what that means…time for another roundup of amazing women in the news!

AGNÈS VARDA

Image courtesy of iMDb.

Agnès Varda, French filmmaker, passed away on Friday, March 29th in Paris. She was a pioneer in the French New Wave cinema scene of the 1950s and 1960s, paving the way for many women to follow in her footsteps and become filmmakers themselves. She frequently addressed feminist issues in her films and progressive ideas about race and gender. She will be greatly missed, but her legacy will continue in the film industry and serve as a reminder for female filmmakers everywhere that they can be whoever they want to be.

MUFFET McGRAW

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Muffet McGraw is the head women’s basketball coach at Notre Dam, where she is campaigning for equality in sports. In a press conference, she said that she has no intention of hiring men for her coaching staff, saying, “when you look at men’s basketball, 99 percent of the jobs go to men, why shouldn’t 100 or 99 percent of the jobs in women’s basketball go to women?” She’s absolutely right, and it’s great that as a result of her stance on this, more girls will get to see themselves represented in sports.

EMILIA CLARKE

Image via iMDb.

Emilia Clarke recently wrote an essay for The New Yorker about her struggles with two brain aneurysms right around the time she was finishing her first season of HBO show Game of Thrones. She recalls the anxiety and fear she felt during some of the most terrifying health scares possible. As she enters the last season of the show, she took some time to reflect on what she learned from one of the hardest times in her life and expresses her gratitude for where she is now.

ZUZANA ČAPUTOVÁ

Image via Wikipedia.

Zuzana Čaputová was recently elected to be the first female president of Slovakia! It’s a huge achievement for someone who is both a woman and political newcomer. She said to some of her supporters that she hopes to change the tides of Slovakia’s political climate to a more just and fair environment, and turn away from the more conservative and populist movements that the country has seen thus far.

BAILEY DAVIS

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuxQOhmHTvX/
Image via Instagram.

Bailey Davis, a cheerleader for the New Orleans Saints, has been leading the charge to end sex discrimination against cheerleaders after she was fired from the team for posting a picture of herself in an outfit deemed inappropriate by the Saints. Since then, she has filed a discrimination lawsuit herself, saying that the NFL holds their football players to different standards than they do for cheerleaders. People have taken notice and as a result, cheerleaders for the Saints have been given more conservative outfits to wear. We applaud Davis for not backing down!

Want more fearless ladies? Start swiping on Hey! VINA to find ’em.

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAY: 5 BADASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ Jordan Meyers / Leave a comment

LORI LIGHTFOOT

Courtesy of @lightfootforchi on Instagram

Lori Lightfoot, 56, has officially become Chicago’s first black woman elected as mayor! Not only that, but she will also be Chicago’s first openly gay mayor. Look at American making progress, vinas!

“The only way we are going to carve a new path for the city, to take us in a direction that our communities don’t continue to be resource-starved, is to vote for change,” said Lightfoot.

We stand with you, Lori! We can’t wait to see you make some much-needed changes.

ALI WONG

Courtesy of @aliwong on Instagram

We love Ali Wong because she’s the creator of a fabulous book just for girls, featuring personalized letters to her two daughters that delve into life lessons, dating advice, and female empowerment. This comedian is taking things to the next level for women — young and old — and we adore her for that! Go Ali! We can’t wait to read your book.

US WOMEN’S HOCKEY TEAM

Photo via Wikipedia

The United States’ women’s hockey team is seeking to be seen as equals to their male counterparts. They threatened to boycott USA Hockey over equal pay, and they’ve received a grand sum of $71,000 each, every year.

We feel you, gals. Just know that here at VINAZINE, we think you rock so hard, and we stand with you!

AGNÈS VARDA

Photo via Wikipedia

Agnès Varda passed away this week at the ripe age of 90, and we want to recognize her for her triumphant artistic works in the realm of film. She incorporated feminist elements in many of her films, exploring the themes of romance, curiosity about human interaction, nature, and political activism. We’ll miss you, Agnès; you won’t be forgotten.

ERICA VLADIMER

Courtesy of @EricaArden on Twitter

Erica Vladimer was sexually assaulted by a New York State Senator. To transcend her pain and suffering, she has decided to help other women heal their wounds. She is now the leader of the Sexual Harassment Working Group, which is working to change the culture of sexual harassment for the better. We stand with you, Erica!

Know of any other badass women in the news? Want to discuss it with other badass women? Check out Hey! VINA to have conversations of a lifetime.

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS: 5 KICKASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ Gaby Iori / Leave a comment

Another week means another dose of amazing women to celebrate! We’re so here for all the amazing ladies in the news this week.

LILLY SINGH

Image via Instagram.

Late night TV just got better. Lilly Singh (otherwise known as IISuperwomanII on YouTube) announced that she’s going to be hosting her own late night show, A Little Late with Lilly Singh! She will be replacing Carson Daly’s show — Last Call with Carson Daly — making her the first woman to have her own show among the current line-up of late night hosts. We can’t wait to tune in!

KAREN KESKULLA UHLENBECK

Image source via Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Uhlenbeck is an American professor and mathematician, currently teaching at the University of Texas at Austin. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced last Tuesday that she would be the recipient of the Abel Prize, seen by many as the Nobel Prize of mathematics, making her the first woman to ever receive the prize!

JACINDA ARNDERN

Image via Wikipedia.

After the horrific terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Arndern made the pledge to immediately change New Zealand’s gun laws just six days after the attack. Fast action is key in these types of situations, and we applaud Arndern for making a decision that will prevent these attacks from happening again in the future.

LESLEY REGAN

Image via Twitter.

Lesley Regan, one of the United Kingdom’s top gynocologists (who is also a professor!) has announced that she will be co-chairing a women’s health task force with government minister Jackie Doyle-Price. This aims to help women and girls receive the help and care they need — particularly with their reproductive health. In an article for The Guardian, she says, “In an ideal world, ‘an adolescent girl can go along to a well-woman clinic, facility or shop and she can access her smear, her contraceptive advice, she will get very simple, preferably infographic, information about what she needs to do to prepare herself to have safe sex and when she wants to get pregnant to have the best possible outcome for her pregnancy.'” Way to go, Dr. Regan!

MEGHAN MARKLE

Image via Wikipedia.

Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex since her marriage to Prince Harry last May, gave a powerful speech on International Women’s Day where she spoke about gender, feminism, and menstruation. It was her first public unscripted appearance since her wedding, and she spoke as openly as she could about the issues that she felt were pressing to women and girls everywhere. In an interview for the New York Times, journalist Anne McElvoy says in regard to Markle’s activism compared with the history of the royal family, “I think she has kind of moved the dial. I think the rewards now very clearly outweigh the risks.” We love to see Markle changing the norms and we hope she continues to do so!

Find your own group of fearless ladies using Hey! VINA today!

Featured

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS: BADASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ Gaby Iori / Leave a comment

A new week means a new round-up of kickass ladies to celebrate. From the Oscars to the open seas, take some inspiration from some incredible women making headlines. And here’s a bonus: we’ve gathered seven awesome women to cheer for this week! Score.

MELISSA BERTON & RAYNA ZEHTABCHI 

oscars-2-edited-ht-er-190225_hpEmbed_19x12_992

Berton and Zehtabchi (producer and director, respectively) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for their film Period. End of Sentence. The documentary focuses on the taboos surrounding menstruation in a rural village near Delhi, India, and discusses how the stigma still surrounding periods prevent young girls from receiving appropriate sanitary products and result in having to drop out of school. Berton said that because of the film’s nomination, their team has received tons of requests to install sanitary pad machines in various communities across the world, with the help of a non-profit called “The Pad Project,” which you can learn more about here.

SERENA WILLIAMS

download

In addition to being an incredible tennis player, Serena Williams is also a fierce advocate for equality. In a new Nike ad, featuring all women, aired during the Oscars and Williams narrates a list of all the adjectives women are called to undermine their passion: hysterical, irrational, crazy, etc. Williams urges young women to go out and find their voice, regardless of what anyone says about them.

KATE McCUE

kate-mccue-qa-hero

Kate McCue became the first American woman to captain a cruise ship in 2015, and beginning later this year, will sail a billion-dollar ship (the Celebrity Edge) designed entirely by women. In an interview with The New York Times, she talks about how she knew she wanted to sail cruise ships since she was 12 years old, and eventually worked her way up from working on banana boats to working on a Disney cruise as a third mate, where she climbed the ranks from 2003 to 2015. Read more about McCue here.

ILHAN OMAR

60B

The 119th Congressional committee is the most diverse it’s ever been. Ilhan Omar, one of first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress, spoke to Rolling Stone about what her first experiences in the United States (she immigrated when she was 12) and what it feels like to now represent her country during a contentious political climate. She discusses the importance of advocating for people like herself, as well as the necessity of owning up to her mistakes. Read the interview here!

 

HANNAH BEACHLER & RUTH E. CARTER

Hannah-Beachler-Ruth-E.-Carter-Black-Panther

These two women made history at the Academy Awards last Sunday when they won Oscars for Production Design and Costume Design, respectfully, for their work on the Marvel hit Black Panther. They each became the first African-American women to win awards in their category, as well the first African-American women to win in a non-acting category since 1984! Their contributions allowed Black Panther to be an authentic and beautiful film that will live on in history.

Want to meet some badass ladies of your own? Check out the Hey! VINA app today and start swiping!

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS: 5 BADASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ Samantha Bagby / 2 Comments

We’re back with another series of FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS! Rounded up this week are five *kickass* women who are proving that the future is female. Let’s keep celebrating the amazing things women are accomplishing around the world today and every day 💪🏼💃

JASMIN PARIS

Jasmin Paris became the first woman to win Britain’s 268-mile Montane Spine Race on Jan. 16. Paris beat her closest male competitor out of the 125 race participants by 15 hours and simultaneously broke the course record by 12 hours. Get. It. Girl. 🙌 Paris completed the course in 83 hours, 12 minutes, and 23 seconds–a full day faster than any woman had ever completed the course. Even more impressive, Paris was expressing milk from her recent pregnancy throughout the race.

Paris has a long list of brutal races under her belt, but the Montane Spine Race is known as one of the world’s most extreme. It takes place on the Pennine Way National Trail that starts in Edale in Derbyshire and ends in Kirk Yetholm, Scotland. Knowing how to navigate well is a must, as little marks mark the path through the muddy fields, steep climbs, sinkholes and gorges that racers must climb through in the middle of winter.

Paris has since been selected to race for Britain in the 2019 Trail World Championships in Miranda do Corvo in Portugal next June!

Check out Paris’s full story over at The Guardian.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was sworn into Congress as the youngest representative ever on Jan. 3 to represent New York’s 14th Congressional District. Ocasio-Cortez is also the first woman of color ever to have run for the NY-14 seat, which is distressing when, according to censusreporter.org, 75 percent of the NY-14 district are people of color. Ocasio-Cortez won the popular vote over Republican Anthony Pappas with 78.2 percent of the vote. Born and raised in the Bronx, Ocasio-Cortez is committed to making education more accessible, reforming the criminal justice system, improving the job market, and expanding Medicare. Politics aside, Ocasio-Cortez is making history and continuing to prove to women everywhere that we can make big changes.

Find out more about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s background and mission at her campaign site.

MARI COPENY

Mari Copeny, 11, made waves on Twitter in December when she responded to conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren’s tweet, which stated that the “$5 billion spent on a wall will be the BEST $5 billion taxpayers EVER spent!” In response, Copeny noted how far $5 billion dollars could go in repairing Flint’s infrastructure to provide clean water to the nearly 100,000 citizens in her city. Copeny earned the nickname Little Miss Flint in 2016 after her activism for the Flint water crisis earned her national attention and a visit from President Obama.

Read more about Mari Copeny’s activism for Flint!

MILLIE BOBBY BROWN

Screen Shot 2019-02-01 at 10.56.17 AM.png

Courtesy of Millie Bobby Brown Instagram.

Millie Bobby Brown, 14, became the youngest ever UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador on World Children’s Day, Nov. 20. Appropriately, she will be advocating on behalf of children and young people everywhere to promote awareness of problems faced by the vulnerable population, including deficient education and the lack of safe places to learn, the prevalence of poverty and hunger, and the detrimental effects of violence and bullying.

Brown’s new title was celebrated at the United Nations Headquarters in New York where she said it was “a dream come true,” and “a huge honor” to join the Goodwill Ambassadors at UNICEF.

Brown has been involved with UNICEF since 2016 when she hosted the United Nations 70th anniversary celebrations. She was also active in promoting UNICEF’s World Children’s Day in 2017, leading her to the symbolic appointment last fall.  

Read more about Millie’s ambassadorship!

NNEKA OGWUMIKE

Nneka Ogwumike is the president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association and announced in November that the association will be opting out of its collective bargaining agreement with the Women’s National Basketball Association in an effort to demand more equality between the NBA and the WNBA. In her essay “Bet on Women,” Ogwumike said:

“I don’t want the best and the brightest female athletes in the world dreaming about playing in the NBA. I don’t want the best and the brightest young girls growing up thinking that men are the pinnacle… I want them to dream about the league that I know ours can become. A league that has a fair and consistent work environment.”

Writer Alana Glass, a contributing sports writer for Forbes, wrote that Ogwumike’s coming changes will likely be “the most impactful collective bargaining agreements in women’s sports history.”

Ogwumike has quite the year ahead of her, but she’s armed with a passion for her league and for female athletes. 

“To me, opting out means not just believing in ourselves, but going one step further: betting on ourselves, but going one step further: betting on ourselves. It means being a group of empowered women, in the year 2018, not just feeling fed up with the status quo, but going one step further: rejecting the status quo,” she said.

Read Alana Glass’s article to hear Ogwumike’s full story, or read Nneka Ogwumike’s essay to hear her perspective.

The world is changing. Women are moving up. The future is female. Find the women who will lift you up on Hey! VINA!

FEARLESS FEMME FRIDAYS: 5 BADASS WOMEN IN THE NEWS

/ brittanygalla / 4 Comments

Hey vinas! Welcome to our new series, Fearless Femme Fridays. Each week, we’ll be rounding up a list of badass women who gave us major inspo. We’re giving a huge 🙌 to these amazing females. Meet them below!

SHALINI AGNIHTRI

222.jpg

Twenty-nine year old Shalini Agnihotri is a bus conductor’s daughter who just beat the odds and became the best Indian Police Service Trainee in India. According to The Better India, her dream started when she was a young child: “While traveling with her mother on a bus, a man standing beside them was holding the headrest of the seat where she and her mother were seated. Despite repeated requests to remove his hand, the man did not oblige. He ultimately asked Shalini’s mother if she was the District Collector (an Indian Administrative Service officer), whose word he then would have to obey.” As a child, Shalini had no idea what a DC was, but she connected the word with power. At that moment, she decided she wanted to be a powerful person as well. So she worked her ass off—and made it as the #1 trainee. Slay, girl.

Read more about Shalini here.

DJENEBA N’DIAYE

kante-djeneba-ndiaye-unique-femme-candidate-au-mali.jpg

After escaping slavery for 35 years, Djeneba is running to become the president of Mali—the only woman running against 24 male candidates. “Her candidature comes at a time where women in Mali are the most affected by inequality in the country, something N’diaye, dearly referred to as Jebou, hopes to change,” reported Face2Face Africa. On her list of things todo, Djeneba hopes to improve social cohesion issues and create a fair distribution of resources across the country. Your vinas support you, Djeneba!

Read more about Djeneba here.

EMELIA HOLDEN

eh4-1.jpg

While working her waitressing shift at Vinnie Go-Go’s in Savannah, GA, Emelia Holden was assaulted by a man who grabbed her butt. Surveillance footage shows 31-year-old Ryan Cherwinski grabbing Emelia’s backside as he walks behind her. How did she respond? By turning around, grabbing him by his collar and slamming him into a counter.

“I looked at him and I said, ‘You don’t touch me, motherf—–!’” Holden told PEOPLE. “I didn’t even think, I just reacted.” She told a coworker to call the police and Ryan was arrested. Emelia said that she never expected her act to get so much attention, but she’s glad that the situation could inspire women everywhere to take a stand against inappropriate behavior.

Read more about Emelia here.

AMANDA NGUYEN

5b51f0661900002b00c6725c.jpeg

Twenty-six year old Amanda Nguyen, a rape survivor and creator of the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, is ensuring rape victims are protected throughout their entire legal process after a rape case is reported. “She’s fundamentally changing how the American criminal justice system approaches sexual violence and the survivors of those crimes,” said the Huffington Post. Amanda founded the national civil rights nonprofit group, Rise in 2014 which is focused on protecting the rights of sexual assault victims. Now, she has created the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, which is legislation that gives basic civil rights to victims when they first report being raped and throughout the medical and legal ordeals that follow. She is now being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize—and she deserves it!

Read more about Amanda here.

ALYSHA UMPHRESS

122635.jpg

Broadway actress and singer Alysha Umphress called out a New York Times journalist who body shamed her in an article. The reporter, Laura Collins-Huges wrote this in her piece about Alysha’s costume in the off-Broadway musical, “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller:” Alysha, “bigger than the other women onstage, the costume designer, Alejo Vietti, doesn’t seem to have known how to work with that, dressing her in an unnecessarily unflattering way.”

Alysha responded by tweeting this:

“It’s shocking to see a woman (especially a whose social media would suggest she is pro woman) body shaming an actress who isn’t a size 0 and praise one that is. Her wording wasn’t constructive. It was full on mean girl. It’s 2018. We should be celebrating women’s diversity in the arts, not shaming them, by the way, for being the biggest of girls. And while the overall point was to malign the costume designer, her phrasing made me the sacrificial “fat” lad. Truly disappointed and saddened by her ugly and pointless description. Also, I think I look pretty ferosh.” *Standing ovation for you, Alysha!*

Read more about Alysha here.

Do you know of any women making history right now? Tell us about them in the comments! And want to find empowering vinas in your area today? Start swiping today!