👾And speaking of video games...An
Afghan girl hero is the star of this new game from an all-female team of coders. Leila Azizi, one of its creators said: “We chose the main character as a princess because we wanted to show the abilities of girls and make people realise that girls can also be the saviours of their families and other people. Girls face challenges and can handle them well. We want to show that
girls are capable of important and difficult tasks, and deserve equal rights. We want families to believe in their daughters and their abilities.”
🎸The latest round of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions were announced recently, and Whitney Houston is the only woman honoured, raising awareness of the strong gender imbalance in the representation of women inside this historic space of musicians. Here are
41 women that should be in the hall of fame that aren’t–the list includes Dolly Parton, Carole King, and Cyndi Lauper.
🇩🇰 Danish-Kurdish author
Sara Omar receives the literature prize De Golden Laurel for her novel "The Shadow Dancer." The recipient of the prize is selected by all Danish bookstores. Omar's novel tells the story of Frmesk, a girl born in Kurdistan who defies her father while in university by going without a headscarf and writing critical articles on women's rights.
🎀Barbie has come such a long way in the last decade–and just recently, they announced that the collection is expanding to include a
doll with vitiligo and another without hair.
🚶Geneva is
replacing men with women on half of the pedestrian-crossing signs across the Swiss city—and facing a fair bit of backlash over the decision. The new signs feature six different silhouettes of female figures, including a pregnant woman, a woman with a cane, a woman with an Afro, and two women holding hands. Notably, the figures wear both skirts and pants.
🎥For those who want to learn more about the ongoing conflict in Syria, its origins, its consequences, all from a gender sensitive lens: good news! You can now
stream the Oscar-nominated documentary For Sama. Across five years of the brutal Syrian conflict, a young woman named Waad al-Kateab kept her camera rolling — while falling in love, getting married to one of the last doctors in Aleppo, becoming a mother as her city crumbled, and facing the impossible choice of whether to stay or go. Now, her family’s story of perseverance and survival as told in the documentary
For Sama, has earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
🧬10
women in science everyone should know. (I knew 4/10...Did any of you know all 10??!).
📣Calling all young women with a passion for skateboarding and a powerful idea to get more girls on boards in Germany, Greece and the Netherlands!
Skateistan and
Women Win are excited to be teaming up to launch the first round of the ROLL Models program, supporting female leadership in skateboarding and inspiring the next generation of girls to be empowered, active and healthy. They’re
currently seeking applications from young women (ages 18-30) who have an idea for a project that will use skateboarding to improve the physical and mental well-being of girls (ages 5-18) and promote gender equity. The ROLL Models program will be supported through Skateistan's Goodpush Alliance, and is a unique opportunity for women with a passion for skateboarding in Germany, Greece and the Netherlands to connect with and support each other.
🏈Katie Sowers is the first
woman (and openly gay) to
coach in a Super Bowl. Her goal: ‘Make sure I’m not the last.’
🧠Brain food: They say that when one door closes, another opens. Here’s my take: when one door closes, an infinite number of doors you could not have foreseen show themselves and, sometimes, you might even find the strength and motivation to build your own damn doors.
