Better Than the BBC’s List of Women

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BBC List, BBC panda, Born This Way, Christine Lagarde, Gabrielle Giffords, Jodie Williams, Jody Williams, Lady Gaga, Miki Ando, notable women, outrage at BBC, Strong women

STRONG NOTABLE WOMEN

The more I started thinking about the BBC list, the more I was sure I could make a better list of notable women for 2011. So I did. It is important to say that this list is, of course, in no way comprehensive. It was in fact hard to make because there are a gazillion women doing so much in the world, most of them not famous, but I chose some to represent 2011. I will post 6 today and 6 tomorrow.
Enjoy- they are fascinating- all of them!

In no particular order:

1. Gabrielle Giffords is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. She has represented Arizona’s 8th congressional district  since 2007 and is the third woman in Arizona’s history to be elected to the U.S. Congress. Her stances on health care reform and undocumented immigration have inspired many, but also made her a target of criticism from various conservative groups.

On January 8, 2011, she was shot and critically injured near Tucson in an assassination attempt on her, at a supermarket where she was meeting publicly with constituents. She was critically injured by a gunshot wound to the head and has spent much of 2011 recovering. Thirteen people were injured and six others were killed during the shooting.

Jody and Jodie

2. Jodie Alicia Williams is a junior British sprinter. Her father was English and her mother Jamaican. Both were sprinters. Jodie Williams specializes in the 100 meters and the 200 meters. She is the former World Youth Champion over both distances, the reigning World Junior and European Junior Champion in the 100 m and European Junior Champion in the 200 m. In 2011, Williams became the youngest winner of the UK Indoor Championships over the 60 m.

3. Jody Williams is the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. She is the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and has overseen its growth to more than sixty countries. As the ICBL coordinator, she has written and spoken extensively on the problem of landmines and the movement to ban them. She and the seven other women Nobel Peace Prize winners alive today. Only 12 women have won the Nobel Peace Prize in its 110 year history, by the way. There have been 98 men winners. Anyway, she and the other seven women have gotten together and are working as the Nobel Women’s Initiative to support women around the world who are working for peace. She was on the Colbert Report in March 2011 and has been on TED talks where she speoke about peace as “sustainable peace with justice and equality.” She says this peace is “a sustainable peace in which the majority of people on this planet have access to enough resources to live dignified lives.” TED Talk link:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jody_williams_a_realistic_vision_for_world_peace.html

4. Miki Ando– is a Japanese figure skater who was the 2007 World Champion and won the Championship again this year in 2011. She also won The Four Continents Figure Skating Championship in 2011. She began skating at the age of 8 and has won numerous medals. She began college as an adult and graduated from Chukyo University in March of this past year 2011.

5. Christine Lagarde– the Former French Finance Minister became Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. This position is a big deal. She is the first woman in the job, ever, since 1944 and she is ranked No.9 on Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/worldviews/2011/07/07/lagardes-next-challenges-at-the-im

 

 

 

 

6. Lady Gaga, or Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta makes art, music, and fashion, all which beg the question what are the intersections between the three? Her song “Born This Way” is the #2 single for 2011. “Born This Way” is a full-on self-esteem raiser that promotes self-acceptance no matter who you are, especially regardless of your sexual orientation, race, or otherwise. It has been wildly popular and sold more than 3 million digital copies in the United States by this past October 2011, becoming her eighth consecutive single to sell more than two million copies. I wrote more recognizing her success a few weeks back. To check it out, go to: https://matrifocalpoint.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/give-it-up-for-2011s-top-female-artists/

Honor the women you know- they are all notable! Come back tomorrow for the rest of the list!

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We’ve Been Called All Kinds of Animals, But Pandas?

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BBC, notable women, objectification of women, outrage at BBC, panda, Sweetie, women in headlines, women of the year

If I had a dime for every time I heard women called bitches by men and women alike, I’d be rich. I have heard women be called cows, horses, whales, elephants, rats, cats, chickens, foxes, jackals, and cougars. But pandas?

The BBC listed, by month, different women who made headlines in 2011. In December, they put a picture of Sweetie, Scotland’s new panda by way of China.  I guess there were no notable women in December’s headlines. To me that says that under this patriarchal system, women are still not being recognized.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16203296

But seriously, who decided on the panda? I didn’t see any animals listed for the notable men. Whoever decided to put an animal in couldn’t have put in a picture of their mother at least?

Was it too political to put in a friend? I have a friend Jennifer who volunteers at a food bank. A friend Mindy who works at an art program for homeless people. A few other women friends who work at a Rape Crisis Center and another two who work with immigrants fighting for immigrant rights. My sister is a nurse. I know tens of poets. I know four or five teachers and eight or so social workers. I know several women with more than one job outside of their homes. I know stay at home mothers and working mothers alike who feed, play with, teach, and love their children every difficult moment of every day. I know women writers and poets. I know women who clean other people’s houses and care for other people’s children in addition to their own. I  know a musician is also a barista.

So, explain to me how the only choice for a notable woman was a panda bear.

It did prompt me to look up pandas and on Wikipedia it says female pandas are not tolerant of other female pandas in their area. So the BBC noted a female animal who doesn’t get along with other female animals of her kind. The plot thickens.

All I can say is screw the list. Someone is going to say, Oh see, feminists can’t laugh about anything. You take things too seriously. See, you can’t even laugh about things like this. But someone is always going to say that and how many times do we have to laugh at things like this. In some ways it’s funny, it makes the list less serious, but how serious was it anyways? Three are about fairy tale weddings. Of course there was the really negative one about the nurse “cleared of hospital saline murder plot.” I guess the panda helps with that one.

Grrl Code: Women can be together and grow stronger through offensive things like this where you simultaneously kind of want to laugh and also cry. And you know what else- we can get along. Look at all those women I listed, they’re all cool women and all of them fun to chill with drinking coffee or tea. And ALL of them remarkable, notable, headline worthy women. Don’t believe the subtext, there are awesome women who should have been named instead of the panda and it doesn’t matter how cute that panda is.

Women- solidarity- Don’t be a panda. And men: don’t just grin and bear it.