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Global-Woman
In HerStory By GlobalWoman

Meet Women Who Do

When I first visited India, I remember coming out of my apartment with a bag of garbage, enquiring of the building care-taker where I should dispose of my rubbish. He pointed to a huge pile on the side of the road which local people appeared to be sorting through.

I soon came to understand that as a westerner, I created a lot of waste. I also came to learn that local Indians sorted through garbage looking for what could be recycled, used or sold. In the end, very little was wasted. With seven or so billion of us on planet earth, disposing of garbage is an issue that will continue to ask questions of us as individuals, societies and humanity.

  • Professor Veena Sahajwalla loves garbage and believes in making the best of waste. In 2014 she was awarded the Australian Research Council Laureate fellowship to develop environmentally and economically sustainable micro-recycling of e-waste.

I look at hard rubbish and I think ‘How can you throw that out?

  • After 30 years as the creative editor at US Vogue, Grace Coddington announced her retirement in January. Miss Coddington is often describedas one of the most influential editors of the past 30 years and the woman who made fashion art. She prioritised fashion as a power to transport and transform over fashion as a commodity.

I prefer imperfections — they’re more interesting. Perfect is boring.

  • Since May 2014, Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad has been encouraging Iranian women to share pictures of themselves flouting strict rules requiring women to remain covered whilst driving under the meme, ‘My Stealthy Freedom’.

Being out became more important than any movie.

  • Rocket Women founder Vinita Marwaha Madill is one of many women advocating for more women in science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM). Natalie Panek is another. When Panek isn’t helping build and test rovers, she says, she’s working hard to make sure women see reflections of themselves in her industry.

Having positive role models in the media can change the game and allow young people to see engineering and technology as fields that are attainable by anyone.

  • Speaking of astronomy, after Mike Brown announced a possible ninth planet he arrived home to find the following image from his daughter on his front door. Plus a request to call Planet Nine the Lilah Planet. Sounds like Lilah was born bold, original and empowered.

If you’re not being groundbreaking, then what are you doing?

  • Did the passing of David Bowie impact you as much as it did me? So many great articles were written about Bowie but New Zealand musician Lorde’s eloquent words touched me the most.

That night something changed in me - i felt a calmness grow, a sureness. I think in those brief moments, he heralded me into my next new life, an old rock and roll alien angel in a perfect grey suit. I realized everything I’d ever done, or would do from then on, would be done like maybe he was watching. I realized I was proud of my spiky strangeness because he had been proud of his.

When people don’t expect things of you, that makes you want to prove them wrong.

  • Ashima Shiraishi is a fourteen-year-old New Yorker who has been called the most talented rock climber in the world. Even more impressively, she started climbing when she was six years old. This just over two minute video of Ashima is mesmerising.

Climbing is this beautiful thing. Climbing is like a puzzle. When you look at a climb, you have to solve it.

What if we thought about adding things to our lives — new foods, new skills, new classes, new walking routes — instead of taking things away?

I’d love to hear from you

 

Leaving a comment below as to who is inspiring you to find a life that is yours.

 

Kathryn xx

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