The main events of the year that changed the lives of women
Summing up the year, we cannot but tell about important socio-cultural events and global trends that in one way or another influenced the lives of women in 2013. Be it a wave of protests in India that made the government of the country finally take care of the basic right of local women to protect them from violence; the birth of a British prince or the inspiring speech of a young human rights activist Malala Yusufzai, who survived the assassination of the Taliban, but did not lose faith in herself and her strength.
Jennifer Lawrence - Woman of the Year
Not the smartest, not the most beautiful, amazingly open - the world is going crazy over it, and so are we. BuzzFeed makes a special listing “Not so she is stupid,” the masters call on TV shows, and in the list of Google requests for the year she is on the 23rd place. Meanwhile, Lawrence refuses to lose weight at the request of the producers and offers them "you can go fuck yourself" in an interview. She tells how the hotel cleaner found her numerous anal plugs, which the actress hid under the bed. She advises ladies to “study their vagina” and admits that she likes to shoot in the water most of all for the opportunity to urinate at any moment. A crowd of younger fans loves her for Katniss Everdeen from the “Hunger Games” - a feminist in a square that is torn between two men, simultaneously saving the world and herself.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi speaking on TEDx with a speech about feminism
Writer from Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi, spoke at TEDx in April with a brilliant speech, "We all need to be feminists." It was better not to think of the moment: 2013 was distinguished by the number of disputes about sexism victims and the role of women in the world. Pop culture has not bypassed it: first, in an interview with British Vogue, Beyoncé describes herself as a "modern feminist", and then Adichi's speech in the song "*** Flawless" from the last "visual" album.
Hashtag on Twitter #solidarityisforwhitewomen
In early August, African-American writer and activist Mickey Kendall launched a hashtag, which bypassed the entire twitter, - #solidarityisforwhitewomen. The discussion began because of Hugo Schweiser, an American blogger and researcher for women studies, who repeatedly gave racist comments about black women in the feminist movement. Everything was immediately disowned from him, and Schweiser himself said that he was "leaving the Internet." At the same time, he became involved in a Twitter dispute that touched four continents and once again proved that feminism is too tough for men, and racism is characteristic even of women's freedom movements.
Swedes offered a feminist movie rating
In November, a new movie rating was introduced in some Swedish cinemas. He checks whether the film passes the Behdel test - it is a favorite scale of many feminists for studying cultural works. According to him, the film must have at least two women (this time) who talk to each other (these are two) about something besides men (these are three). To receive an A-rating, a film must satisfy all three points. Accustomed to the freedom-loving Swedish madness, the world community laughed, but at the same time patted it approvingly. The Swedes themselves were not thrilled: the local psychiatrists advised “to make their own films, and not to point fingers at others”, and critics argued that many films that are not running under a new rating help make society better. Despite this, the Swedish Film Institute supported the initiative, and the Scandinavian cable TV channel Viasat Film confirmed that it would start using the rating in movie reviews.
First female prime minister in Senegal
In Senegal, for the first time a woman was elected to the post of prime minister: while Aminata Toure is not the first woman politician in Africa. So, in Rwanda, the majority of seats in parliament are occupied by women deputies, and African feminists are considered the most unrestrained by the statements and the most productive by actions. Despite the instability of the region as a whole, women do not forget to fight for their rights; therefore, it’s not necessary to save Africa: they cope much better than us.
Malala Yusufzai as the main underage human rights activist in the world.
The 16-year-old Pakistani human rights activist has become famous for her blog on the BBC website, which she started four years ago. Malala Yusufzai methodically described the atrocities of the Taliban regime and spoke about her views on women's education and its accessibility. Last year, she was returning from school on a bus that was stopped by a group of militants who tried to kill her in the head. Malala was seriously injured, after which she recovered for about six months. The Pakistani government organized her treatment in the UK, and local priests made a fatwa (a decision on an issue based on the principles of Islam and Islamic law) against the organizers of the assassination. Yusufzai was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in October her autobiography was released, after which the Taliban spokesman declared that he would definitely try to kill her again. On the day of her 16th birthday in July of this year, Malala delivered an inspiring speech, full of feminist messages like "We can not all succeed if half of us are holding back." The awards, indirectly related to Russia, were not spared by the girl: she was awarded the Anna Politkovskaya Prize and the Sakharov Prize.
Lady Gaga against Photoshop in gloss
At the ceremony of the magazine Glamor "Woman of the Year" singer Lady Gaga criticized the gloss policy of the endless embellishment of reality. Slowly and sedately, she resented Carnegie Hall on stage and wished the editors to put Malala Yusufzai on the cover instead. “I feel that my skin looks too perfect. My hair looks too soft. I don’t look like that when I wake up in the morning. I don’t even look like that,” the singer said, implying her makeup for the evening. "Writing about changes is right. But I would like to see changes on your covers. When the cover changes, the culture changes." Not the most appropriate speech at the Glamor ceremony, but obviously the most important in the history of the magazine.
Royal child
Kate Middleton and Prince William in their novel excited the media of Great Britain and the world: they then converged, then diverged, announced their engagement, riveted the attention of every viewer on the planet with the marriage ceremony. When the official representative of the royal family said that Kate was expecting a baby, the economy of Britain fell into a mad rush: the market of the country did not yet know such a number of publications, gifts, clothes and footwear for children. Not without a tragedy: Nurse Kate committed suicide after a raffle, arranged by two DJs. In July, the Duchess of Cambridge was born, and the world merged in affectionate emotion. The Washington Post quite seriously released a huge amount of information about whether the royal child is so important (no), feminists called for paying attention to the starving children of Africa. One thing was clear: you are a feminist or not, everybody loves babies. All the more royal.
India doubles rape sentence
This year India’s media was shaking: a student was brutally raped and killed. A wave of protests conquered the world, and on March 19 the government of India issued a law that doubled the punishment for rape: "... the minimum sentence for gang rape, juvenile rape, rape by a police officer or government representative will be doubled to 20 years and can be extended to life without early parole rights. " India has repeatedly fallen under the hood of public indignation: according to the UN, two women are raped every hour in the country, and the head of the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation once said that if violence cannot be avoided, then they should enjoy it. Bollywood actresses began to say that India is "backward and depressive"; Indian men put on skirts in support of women for the Don't skirt the issue action, and a parody video of the All India Bakchod company “It's your fault” appeared on the Internet - in it women released sarcastic comments about the absurdity of culture and stereotypes of violence. After the events in India, the subtitles were screwed to Hindi.
Women on tv
There have been an amazing number of women on television, and they not only play, but also shoot, write scripts and perform with stand-ups. The Nashville series - an American musical drama with two main characters who fight for the career of country singers - was created by Callie Khury, author of Thelma and Louise, and one of the actresses migrated from American Horror History, which last season features women, and witches. Claire Danes drives the audience crazy in Homeland. Tina Fey and Amy Poeler are leading Golden Globe, showing that girls are joking better, and the public buzzes with displeasure when the TV series Orange Is the New Black about women in prison is coming out. And that's not all: a transgender woman plays a transgender woman in it.
Facebook forced to recognize violence against women
The social networks are full of assholes, but this time the Rubicon was passed. Huffington Post has published an open letter to activists calling on Facebook moderators and administrators to remove and ban pictures and texts with degrading and provoking violence against women, such as “The bitch just didn’t know when to shut up” and “Not pregnant next time”. Activists also asked advertisers, whose Facebook banners are showing along with similar jokes, to pick up ads before it stops. The corresponding petition on change.org collected about 250,000 votes, and Facebook made an official apology, recognizing that "the systems that need to detect and remove heyte spokes did not work," and promising to deal with the problem.