What is a role model? In 2019, it’s a woman who makes change happen. We are now living in what often feels like a chaotic world – so it’s little wonder that the women we talk about the most often in Grazia, and on social media, in offices and bars all around the country, are the ones who step forward, do something meaningful and change the conversation.
To mark International Women’s Day on Friday 8 March, Grazia has joined forces with one such woman: Edwina Dunn, founder of the non-profit organisation The Female Lead, which is dedicated to shouting about women’s stories and providing girls with role models who range far beyond pop stars and influencers. ‘I found myself in an incredibly male- dominated industry,’ says Edwina, a data science entrepreneur who, through her company Dunnhumby, co-founded the Tesco Clubcard – which went on to influence loyalty schemes worldwide.
‘I ended up on a global stage and worked with retailers with all-male boards. There were very few female role models and, when I sold the business in 2011, I thought, “If we could surface more great stories about women, it would make it more normal and more obvious that there are multiple paths to fulfillment.”’
The result is The Female Lead, which gathers together inspiring women across fields including human rights, film, science, finance, journalism and politics and tells their stories. The organisation has produced a beautifully photographed book featuring everyone from Meryl Streep to the anti-FGM(female genital mutilation) activist Nimco Ali; 18,000 copies, along with teaching materials, are being donated to schools and colleges in the UK and US. ‘In schools, we keep talking about dead superstars, like Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace, who were wonderful, but they’re no longer alive,’ says Edwina. ‘Every moment there are women doing incredible things – we just have to want to talk about them, and let girls see them.’
Grazia collaborated with The Female Lead for this list of 10 women who’ve inspired us and changed the narrative over the past year. ‘Achieving change is a great statement of success – that your voice counts, and that you have made something happen,’ says Edwina.
Jameela Jamil
Actor and activist, who has blazed a trail to improve women’s body image.
Her outspoken methods may ruffle feathers, but there’s no doubt that in persistently speaking up against diet culture, Jameela Jamil has started an important and potentially life-saving conversation. From her ‘I Weigh’ Instagram account – which encourages followers to assess themselves not in terms of their weight but their achievements, relationships and values – to her ongoing campaign against diet pills and appetite suppressants, she is a woman on a fierce mission to improve female body image.
Harriet Wistrich
The human rights solicitor who helped keep rapist taxi driver John Worboys behind bars.
Harriet, an award-winning human rights solicitor and founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice, last year represented two victims of the black cab rapist John Worboys, who police believe may have carried out more than 100 rapes and sexual assaults between 2002 and 2008. Though he had originally been given an indeterminate sentence, meaning he could be kept in prison for as long as he was considered a danger to the public, in January last year a parole board announced that he would be freed after serving only 10 years. Harriet successfully challenged this in the High Court, and Worboys will for now remain in prison. She remains more determined than ever to continue her crucial work. ‘Our current focus is actually around the prosecution of rape,’ she tells Grazia. ‘There has been a dramatic drop in prosecutions in the last couple of years, and that’s hugely alarming and something we’re focusing our legal challenges on.'
We speak to Harriet about making the legal system work better for women here...
Grainne Griffin
The campaigner who helped changed Ireland's law on abortion.
Grainne was a director of the pressure group Together For Yes, and is one of the many women (including co-directors Orla O’Connor and Ailbhe Smyth) who successfully campaigned for the landslide pro-choice result in last year’s Irish abortion referendum. ‘Repealing the Eighth Amendment is something that women in Ireland have been giving away their evenings and lunchtimes to do for a very long time,’ she says. Campaigning for free, safe and legal abortion has long been an important part of her life – she was involved in setting up the Abortion Rights Campaign in 2012. ‘The result of the referendum was a huge relief, but the actual scale of the yes vote meant, in the end, it really was about much more than abortion,’ she says. ‘The yes vote in Ireland came to represent a vote for women. I think that the next day, women in Ireland held their heads a little higher.
Read our interview with Grainne about the fight to legalise abortion in Ireland here.
Tulip Siddiq
The Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn, who’s made working in Parliament fairer for new parents.
The last two years have brought more ‘key’ Brexit moments than anyone other than Theresa May can keep track of. And yet, when MPs filtered into the Commons on 15 January to vote on her Brexit deal, Tulip Siddiq’s arrival was such an arresting image it became instantly memorable. At 37 weeks pregnant and on the day she was supposed to be undergoing a C-section, Tulip was brought into the House in a wheelchair, after being denied a proxy vote. She delayed surgery and the birth of her son to be there to represent her constituents.
The public backlash to an archaic system showing so little care for a vulnerable woman was enough to trigger change. The next day, Tulip was granted a proxy vote, and a year-long trial to allow proxy voting for MPs on parental leave was announced later. By this point, Tulip had given birth to her son, Raphael. ‘So many pregnant women and new mums had been let down by a backwards voting system dating back hundreds of years,’ she tells Grazia. ‘Dragging Parliament into the 21st century from my hospital bed was quite a feeling. I whispered to Raphael, “Finally!
Read our interview with Tulip about making politics work harder for women here.
Charlie Craggs
The trans activist who has opened up the conversation on transphobia.
In fighting transphobia, activist Charlie explored a subversive medium that few campaigners have considered: nail art. Under the name Nail Transphobia, she sets up her free pop-up salon around the country, everywhere from the V&A Museum to Gay Pride London, using the relaxed conversations that come about during a manicure to educate people about trans issues.
She’s also become a public speaker, called upon by news channels, schools and LGBTQ+ organisations to share her own experiences and raise awareness of transphobia. ‘It is really draining, because often while I’m talking to people they will be mis-gendering me – because they just don’t understand that I’m a “she”,’ says Charlie. ‘But the reason I do it is because at the end of each session with a person I can see the change it’s made, and I know I’m sending another ally out into the world.
Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené
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The authors who have given British black women a new roadmap.
Elizabeth and Yomi were both 22 when they started writing Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible. To write a book at all, in your early twenties and with no industry contacts, would be impressive, but it turned out to be more than just another book: it was fought over at auction by nine publishers, and went on to become one of the most talked- about non-fiction titles of 2018.
Slay In Your Lane was intended to fill a glaring gap in the market for careers and life advice that took into account the complexities of being a black woman in the UK. It’s a roadmap to succeeding in a culture weighted towards white people, and it’s packed with inspiring role models and compelling research on bias. ‘It’s sparked so many different conversations,’ says Yomi. ‘Last year we did nearly 50 events, with more than 5,000 people in attendance. As much as we had massive high hopes for the book, we definitely didn’t expect it to go as big as it has.’ Want more? Elizabeth has good news: ‘Book two is on its way.'
Read our interview with Yomi and Elizabeth about what it was like to write THE book of 2018 here.
Gina Martin
The campaigner who changed the law on upskirting.
When Gina Martin caught a stranger looking at a photo that he’d taken up her skirt, she was shocked to hear that there was nothing police could do beyond telling him to delete it. Some of us would have chalked this up as a horrible and disappointing experience and tried to forget it; instead, Gina set out to stop it happening to anyone else.
Running what became an 18-month campaign to petition for stricter regulation around upskirting was not easy. ‘I don’t have any political or legal experience and I had a full-time job, plus I was getting a lot of online abuse and rape threats,’ she recalls. ‘But I really didn’t want to fail all of the young women and girls who had messaged me telling me to please change the law, because they can’t.’ Her persistence paid off: in April, upskirting will become a criminal offence, for which o enders could face two years in prison and be placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Read our interview with Gina about becoming an activist here.
Scarlett Curtis
The writer and activist, who has inspired a new generation of feminists.
When she curated the book of essays Feminists Don’t Wear Pink, which came out in autumn 2018, writer and activist Scarlett was giving a platform to a generation of women for whom feminism is not a dirty word, but simply the default position. They included Saoirse Ronan, Adwoa Aboah, Keira Knightley and Dolly Alderton, who shared personal stories and wrote about what the F-word means to them. While the collection functions as an inspiring rallying cry for teenagers and women alike, it’s having a very practical impact too: royalties from sales of the book are being donated to the UN’s international girls’ charity, Girl Up, which strives for gender equality worldwide.
Read our interview with Scarlett about white privilege and The Pink Protest here.
Alex Scott
The Former England footballer who became the first female BBC pundit to be taken to a World Cup.
Alex may have earned 140 caps playing for England, but when the former Arsenal defender became the first woman pundit taken to a World Cup by the BBC last year, she took her role-model status to the next level. For those of us who’ve felt excluded as women from football coverage, the presence of this supremely talented, assured expert (who just happened to be female) felt like a victory. ‘Having belief in yourself can drive you as far as you want to go,’ Alex says. ‘One person’s opinion is just one person’s opinion, and while I respect what people have to say, only my own judgement of myself has importance. At times, those who speak negatively are those who are too fearful to make the moves you are making.'
Read our interview with Alex about finding space in a male-dominated industry here.