Female Leaders To Inspire Your Day
Emma Jeong
When you hear the word ‘leader’, who comes to your mind? Steve Jobs? Bill Gates? Warren Buffett? These are all names of great leaders that I’m sure everyone has heard about at least once in their lifetime. Now, let me ask you a different question: How many of the people you just thought of - no cheating here - are women? You could say that we are living in a world where the media celebrates representation and equality. Sure, we have come a long way, there’s no denying that; but that does not mean we are fully there yet. We still have a lot of work to do to create a global environment where every single individual feels safe and is encouraged to speak up and share their ideas. And as the first step of breaking the wall of prejudice and stereotypes, I decided to present you with 3 amazing female leaders and their stories that will hopefully inspire your day.
Elaine Welteroth: Providing Vision That Challenges The Status Quo
“The universe is calling you to be a little bit braver.”
Elaine Welteroth is a journalist who is most well-known as the former Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue. She was the first African American to hold the title, and the youngest EIC in the 120 years of existence of the Condé Nast, a global mass media company that is home to some of the world’s leading brands including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. Over the past years, she has worked towards the goal of renovating the realm of magazine and journalism by using the platform as a way to promote discussions about diversity, race, and gender.
From a very young age, Elaine knew that she was different. The fact that she was ‘black’ and a ‘woman’ kept getting in her way of achieving her dream of becoming a magazine editor. Why did she want to become an editor, you ask? Well, other than the fact that she loved fashion and writing, she was determined to make a change. Back when she was a little girl, she would flip through magazines filled with beautiful celebrities and models, and realize that none of them looked like her or her family. Everyone was the same; it was either pretty white girls with straight, blonde hair or handsome white men with double-breasted suits with fancy collars and buttons. From that point on, she promised herself to represent voices that were being ignored and overlooked.
But as you can imagine, the journey came with a lot of challenges. As a biracial person who identifies herself as ‘black’, Elaine often, if not always, felt othered, excluded, and underestimated by her bosses. As a result, she had to work multiple times harder than her white colleagues to impress people around her and prove her value. She made her way through Ebony and Glamour before landing on Teen Vogue, fighting against people’s disapproval and comments that are rude and ignorant comments. Even when she was technically given the responsibility of an EIC , it took some time for her to officially obtain the title and the wage that she clearly deserved. But when she finally did become the Editor-in-Chief, Elaine used her own experiences to make her dream into a reality. The magazine took a drastic turn; for the February 2016 issue, Elaine photographed and interviewed Amandla Stenberg, a young black star who had become an important voice in her generation, to talk about culture appropriation. For the May 2016 issue, she and her team cast real girls - not celebrities - with different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds to share their opinions on what beauty meant to them and their culture. Later in December, she introduced an editorial franchise called In Conversation to host cross-generational conversations about privilege, feminism, activism, and politics. And so much more. Clearly, what once started out as a place designed to talk about fashion, style, and beauty in the eyes of whiteness had turned into an international medium where young people could engage in activities to express themselves and their ideas without being judged. It was a big deal, both to the magazine and its readers all over the world. Elaine became the face of millions of people whose voices had been taken away by society’s prejudice against them for a long period of time.
In 2018, Elaine resigned from Teen Vogue. Some might say that she made a mistake, that she should have stayed in a world-famous company that could give her security and a soft place to fall back on. But she knew that there was something more for her to dream and achieve, and is now working as an activist. She also published a memoir called More Than Enough, where she shares her story with the hope of inspiring women and girls that feel like they are not good enough. You might be thinking, ‘Wow. How could she do those things in such a short period of time?’ Well, to me, it’s clear. She believed in herself. She believed in her ability to make a change in a world that constantly told her to shrink and stay quiet. She was confident in her vision to challenge the status quo.
Greta Thunberg: Being the Change You Want To See Happen
“The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.”
Greta Thunberg is a 17-year-old environmental activist from Sweden who has recently gained international acknowledgement. She became a leading voice in uniting people - especially the younger generation - in fighting against climate change and criticizing political leaders for their lack of action and failure to bring effective solutions.
“This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you!” Perhaps you have heard of these words already. That is an excerpt from the speech Greta has given at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City that was held in September 2019. The Summit kicked off with the mission of coming up with “concrete, realistic plans” to reduce greenhouse gas emission; in a room filled with representatives from all over the world, a teenage girl had the courage to call them out.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Who is this girl and why do so many people seem to be in support of her? Greta’s journey started at the age of 15, when she won an award for writing an essay about climate change for a local newspaper. Later in the year, she started protesting in front of the Swedish parliament building until the government met the carbon emissions target agreed by the world in 2015. Since then, Greta began to go on strike on Fridays, urging students from all around the world to join the cause. Her protests quickly went viral on social media and turned into an international movement carrying the hashtag #FridaysForFuture. But that’s not the end of the story. She took the entire year off in 2019 from school to continue campaigning, protesting with other students, and speaking at important climate conferences. In September, she traveled all the way to New York City to attend the Summit; due to environmental impact, she refused to fly and instead made her way there on a yacht for 2 weeks. For her work, Greta was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2019, and had been nominated for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize.
Initially, Greta’s protests focused on holding the Swedish government accountable and asking other students to do the same in their own countries. However, with international support, she now speaks for the entire globe and how some of its biggest companies and businesses are not moving quickly enough in response to climate change. She has over 10 million followers on Instagram and is now recognized as one of the most influential people of our society.
It would be worth mentioning that Greta has a developmental disorder called Asperger’s Syndrome. However, instead of being ashamed and hiding behind the curtains, she chose to embrace it as a gift and a superpower that sets herself apart from other people. And with that superpower and belief in herself, she is speaking up about things that some people are still too afraid to discuss. Greta is a reminder that everyone has the potential to contribute positively to the world. She tells us that no matter how young we may be, and despite all the stereotypes people seem to throw at us, we have to remember that we can and should become the change we want to see happen.
Emma Watson: Advocating For What You Believe In Despite the Challenges
“Girls should never be afraid to be smart.”
Emma Watson is most well-known to people as the British actress who played the role of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movie series. Despite her talent as an actor, Emma has made her way into activism. As an activist, her focus is on fighting gender inequality, promoting feminism, and advocating for women and girls’ education all around the world.
I can already hear questions burning in your head: “How and when did Emma Watson become an activist? Was she not just an actress?” Well, let’s start from the beginning. Following her successful career in Harry Potter, Emma set off to pursue her studies in English Literature at Brown University. Since then, she has promoted education for girls, visiting countries such as Bangladesh and Zambia. Later in 2014, she was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. Only 3 months later, she delivered an address at UN Headquarters in New York City to launch the UN Women campaign called HeForShe. The campaign is primarily aimed to create a universal perspective that gender equality is not just a women’s issue, but a human rights issue, one that men and boys should also be part of. It stands by the definition of feminism that Emma has introduced during her speech: A belief that women and men should have equal rights and opportunities.
However, despite such definition, ‘feminism’ has become a word that a lot of people restrain from using in a public setting, mostly due to the haters. Extremists against feminism often try to find a link between ‘feminism’ and ‘man-hating’, which tends to be the result of misconception. Women, throughout history of the human race, have been deprived of some of the basic human rights guaranteed to men, that the process of restoring such basic needs can easily be seen as ‘radical’ or ‘too much’. Sure, there may be individuals that actually hate men; but the perspective of a few people simply cannot speak for the whole group. It is extremely important to make sure that you take an idea or a concept as it is, without any distortion or prejudice.
Nonetheless, conflicts and miscommunication do exist, and Emma’s journey of advocating for feminism and bringing people to conversations about gender equality has not been an easy one. For example, within less than 12 hours after Emma gave her speech at the UN, there were websites and online trolls that tried to threaten her by releasing private photos of her - although they didn’t exist in the first place. Not only that, there was a time when the validity of her feminism was questioned simply because she posed ‘topless’ in a cover shoot for Vanity Fair, to which Emma had to respond by explaining that “Feminism is about giving women choice...not a stick with which to beat other women.”
You would expect that she was disheartened by people’s misconception about the word ‘feminism’ and hatred towards her. Well, not really. Instead, Emma decided to channel her anger to motivate herself to work harder and present her ideas better. In January 2016, she started a book club focused on female empowerment: Our Shared Shelf. The club is open to anyone in Goodreads - a website for readers to communicate through books - and the goal is to share feminist ideas and encourage discussions on the topic. In addition to that, in 2018, she participated, along with many other Hollywood stars, in launching the Time’s Up Movement, a global initiative with the vision of fighting sexual harassment and gender inequality in workplaces. She also showed support to the #MeToo Movement that deals with sexual violence against women in a larger spectrum.
Right now, Emma Watson is constantly communicating with people about these issues through social media as well as through public activities such as the launching of a legal helpline for individuals who are suffering from sexual harassment at work. Surely, the process of presenting herself as an advocate of one of the most controversial topics in the world has been very challenging. Yet, she still chose to use her voice as a way to increase awareness of important issues that must be addressed and resolved. And the world is listening to her.
Elaine Welteroth, Greta Thunberg, and Emma Watson. Some of these women you might have already known, and some you might have not. The three of them come from different cultural backgrounds and upbringing, and yet their passion and love for what they do and their ability to lead people along the way is all the same. But we need to remember that there are so many more incredible female leaders, innovators, and bosses out there that we are not aware of. Writing about women’s stories of finding their power and using it as a way to make the world a better place has been absolutely inspiring for me. I hope they inspired you, too.
Works Cited
“Greta Thunberg: What Does the Teenage Climate Change Activist Want?” BBC News, BBC, 28 Feb. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49918719.
“Movement.” HeForShe, www.heforshe.org/en/movement.
Staff, NPR. “Transcript: Greta Thunberg's Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit.” NPR, NPR, 23 Sept. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit.
“10 Reasons Why Emma Watson Is a Role Model.” BORGEN, 20 Apr. 2018, www.borgenmagazine.com/10-reasons-why-emma-watson-is-a-role-model/.
“Emma Watson.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Watson.
Bate, Ellie. “13 Times Emma Watson Totally Nailed The Whole Feminism Thing.” BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed, 14 Sept. 2019, www.buzzfeed.com/eleanorbate/emma-watson-feminism-quotes.