Just Take a Look at These Five Women, Who Show What
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Female Touch Ever have any doubt about your abilities? Just take a look at these five women, who show what can happen if you overcome self-doubt to give free rein to your dreams, talents and ambitions. Text Bregje Hofstede Gograph (left page), Getty Images (right page) Gograph (left page), 66 Power Women Human Rights Malala was born in 1997 in Swat, event on her 16th birthday. “They Pakistan. When she was a child, are afraid of women. The power of the region became a stronghold the voice of a woman frightens them.” Malala for the Taliban, Islamic extremists who banned girls’ education Just a child and demolished schools. When Malala currently studies at Oxford Yousafzai Malala was 12, she began blogging University in the UK, but is still a for the BBC, speaking out about tireless advocate for the power of her right to go to school. education, especially for the 130 To win a Nobel Peace Prize million girls who are out of school at 17, you have to be An activist’s daughter (according to a 2016 UNESCO extraordinary. And Malala When her father, Ziauddin report). Her Malala Fund extends Yousafzai (21) is extraordinary. Yousafzai, was 12, he had quite grants for secondary education to The Pakistani girl who was different ambitions: to become shot in the head by the Taliban a Jihadi himself. But he came to “ The power of the survived to become a recognise he had been brainwashed. world-famous activist for As a boy, a stammer had made him voice of a woman children’s educational rights, conscious of what it is like to be frightens them” unfazed by either great shut out, and this drew his attention statesmen or death threats. to discrimination against women. more than 100,000 girls, and in “There is a moment when you He became a teacher, campaigning 2014, she became the youngest have to choose whether to be for girls’ education and setting up ever laureate of the Nobel Peace silent or stand up.” a school where they could study Prize. In interviews, she seems so as well. When his daughter was young and just a child, giggling born, he named her after a local behind her hand or enthusing about activist who had died standing cricket. But she shows the world just up for her rights. what ‘girl power’ can entail, hopefully inspiring millions of Forgiveness girls who could, if given half a On 9 October 2012 – Malala was chance, be extraordinary too. just 15, but already an outspoken campaigner – a Taliban fighter Malala’s life lesson boarded the bus she was on while If you have ever been treated on her way home from school and aggressively, this might be because shot her in the head and neck. When you are powerful. What power she regained consciousness seven does your voice have, and what days later, she was in Birmingham, can you use it for? UK, where doctors would spend months rebuilding her skull. She survived, deaf in one ear and half Another power woman of her face paralysed. She later said Who: Iraqi-Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad (25). that the man who had shot her was Why: Murad was kidnapped and young, ‘just a boy’, and that his sexually enslaved by ISIS in 2014, hand had been shaking. To her, but managed to escape. She’s now Islam means forgiveness, and so living in Germany and – through her own organisation, Nadia’s Initiative – she could never hurt him, ‘not even is dedicated to helping women and with a needle’. The whole experience children escape from, and rebuild has, amazingly, convinced her not of their lives after, mass atrocities and her vulnerability, but of her power. human trafficking with. In 2018, she “The extremists are afraid of books was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Congolese gynaecologist and pens. The power of education Denis Mukwege, for their efforts to end frightens them,” she said, while at the use of sexual violence as a weapon Gograph (left page), Getty Images (right page) Gograph (left page), the United Nations’ Youth Takeover of war and armed conflict. 67 When she was just one year old, empathy, by naming and not Jane Goodall’s father gave her a numbering the chimps, for stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. example. Yet, she didn’t doubt But she had a long way to go before herself. She soon rose to fame and she would be the world-famous was admitted to the University of primatologist she is now. For one Cambridge for a PhD. Her career thing, she was a girl. “I wanted to not only blazed a trail for women do things that women didn’t do back then, such as travelling to “I didn't have any Africa, living with wild animals and writing books. I didn’t have female scientists any female explorers or scientists to look up to” to look up to,” she would later write in TIME magazine. So, after scientists around the world; it also secondary school, she became a showed that the ‘feminine’ quality waitress and secretary. of empathy is not an obstacle for rigorous science. Many women feel Barefoot in the jungle they must stress their masculine In Kenya, she became secretary qualities to succeed, but sensitivity to anthropologist Louis Leakey, and empathy are pros, not cons, who asked her to study chimpanzees according to Goodall. in Gombe, Tanzania in 1960. And so, at 26, Goodall set up camp in The activist the jungle and would spend years Goodall’s empathy grew to alone there. Footage shows her encompass the whole world. In barefoot in a tree, binoculars at 1986, she attended a conference hand. What she lacked in knowl- at which every single researcher edge, she made up for in determi- reported the destruction of Science nation and courage, resulting in chimpanzee habitats. And so, groundbreaking discoveries. For after 25 years of research, she left instance, she soon noticed that her beloved troop to devote her Jane chimpanzees are not just the patience and purpose to lectures friendly fruit eaters people thought and committees. Her NGO, the Jane they were but can indeed fight each Goodall Institute, is a global leader Goodall other fiercefully and hunt for and in the effort to protect chimpanzees. eat other (small) mammals as well. Animals do have emotions. Plus, being admitted into their Goodall’s life lesson If that sounds like common troop, she saw that chimpanzees Never doubt yourself. You can knowledge to you, this means have complex emotional lives, just indeed bridge the gap between British primatologist Jane like humans. And that they use dream and action. Goodall (84) has left her mark. branches to extract termites from When the world still thought mounds, proving that using tools differently, her work with isn’t something that sets humans chimpanzees proved that apart. Goodall’s work drastically animals are intelligent, changed humanity’s understand- Another power woman French biochemist Emmanuelle complex beings, and should be ing of itself. Who: Charpentier (50) and American treated accordingly. In the biochemist Jennifer Doudna (55). process, she became a Too much empathy Why: They revealed in 2012 that the trailblazer for female scientists But scientists sneered at this young CRISPR-Cas9 enzyme can be used to around the world. woman without a degree, saying reprogramme genes. This is one of the most important discoveries in biology her success was due to her looks. and medicine ever. It will help to cure She was doing it all wrong, they many diseases but is also useful in lots said. She showed too much of other territories, such as agriculture. Getty Images (right page) ANP (left page), 68 Power Women Entertainment In 2013, Beyoncé caused a stir by performing in front of a giant putting feminist phrases in her backdrop reading ‘FEMINIST’. hit song ‘Flawless’: “We teach girls Her sixth album, Lemonade (2016), Beyoncé to shrink themselves, to make saw her masterfully dissing her themselves smaller. We say to girls: cheating husband, rapper Jay-Z, you can be ambitious, but not too making the ‘scorned woman’ into Knowles much.” Instead of shrinking herself, a hugely powerful figure. But she has become such a phenomenon besides personal wrath, the album She is one of the world’s that words have been invented to is filled with social anger and black best-selling musicians, has describe her: ‘Bootylicious’ for her empowerment. At the 2016 Super won 22 Grammy Awards, is curves, and ‘Beygemony’ for an accomplished actress Queen Bey’s untouchable status. “ We teach girls to and runs a clothing line.But that’s not all. Increasingly, Hard work shrink themselves, the 37-year-old American At six, little Beyoncé would sing to make themselves known worldwide as for the clients in the hair salon run Beyoncé is using her by her mother Tina, who “taught smaller” limitless success as a me the principles of hard work”. means to an end, After a succession of dance classes, Bowl (the highly popular annual bringing politics and talent shows and choirs, Beyoncé American football championship female empowerment to became part of an R&B girls’ group game), Beyoncé put her political mainstream pop. in 1990, which would later change beliefs on a world stage. She | its name to Destiny’s Child and and her dancers wore costumes become one of the best-selling referencing the Black Panthers female groups of all time. But their (a political party in the US fighting 60 million-sold records pale in for Afro-American rights from 1966 comparison to the sales Beyoncé to 1982).