Influential Women

The magazines are full of women who, whether we want it or not, influence our lives. By sheer exposure, it is suggested to us that their way of living, their bodies, the point of view is desirable. So, let's check out current covers of the three most popular US tabloid magazines, those we cannot avoid because they are staring at us at every checkout lane, every gas station and in the nail or hair parlor:

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Seriously, apart from their personal stories or challenges, which one of these women serves as a positive role model? Which one of them do we want to be influential? Who of you wants their children model themselves after them?

Quite honestly, I don't think that any of them is a positive role model, and none of them should be as influential as the media makes them. There are many, many more women in this world who should get the exposure those celebrities get, to provide positive images of women in this world, to empower all women, and to have someone our children can look up to.

Here are a few women who are and truly deserve to be influential:

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Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani woman who fought for girls' right to an education from her earliest teenage years on. Despite being shot in the head by Taliban extremists to silence her forever, she survived and keeps fighting. For her activism she earned the earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

What Malala teaches us: Courage to the point that not even threats to her life will silence her.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany's first female head of government,, ruling Europe's strongest economy (which by itself is no. 4 in the world) since November 2005. She's a scientist by profession (she holds a PhD in physics), who dared to show up at the Wagner Opera Festival in the same dress two years in a row.

What Chancellor Merkel teaches us: it's not necessarily the looks but resilience and a brilliant mind that makes us successful. Stand up for yourself, no matter who you are up against, and always follow your goals.

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Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. Working as a assembly line worker at a textile company and parachuting in her free time, she was selected from among over 400 applicants. In 1963, after months of extremely extensive training, she spent 3 days orbiting Earth in the Vostok 6. After her flight, she went on to study engineering and earned her doctorate in 1977.

What Valentina Tereshkova teaches us: No matter where you come from, not even the sky is your limit with the right amount of commitment, hard work, and even luck.

Who do you think is or should be an influential woman?


This post is part of the Strong and Influential Sisterhood project.

What It Means To Be A Woman

What does it mean to be a woman?  Well, in most cases, having a double-x chromosome will make you a woman (not excluding women who may be born with an xy-chromosome combination, or any other combination of the two).  So yes, being a women is compelex, even at the chromosomal level.

Being a woman can be both beautiful and awful. I love being a woman in a time and a part of this world where I have so many chances and opportunities. Where I can be who I am without having to fear retributions. Where I can study, work, drive a car, and wear what I want (to a degree); where I can stay single or get married, and if the marriage doesn't work out, can get a divorce. Where I could remarry after a divorce or after being widowed. A world where I can chose to have children or remain childless. Where I can persue a career inside and outside the home.

As this month the world remembers the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a place or horrors  for which no real words exist, I also remember that Germany was not always a place for women to be free.

During the Nazi-regime, the women's place was at home, as a homemaker and mother. Women with seven or more children received medals of honor; work outside the home was only acceptable if the husband was unable to provide for the family due to injury, desease, disability, or death. From a very early age on, girls were trained and brainwashed to fulfill their only duty to the Reich: to birth new soldiers for the Fuehrer. Female students at universities were berated for wasting their youth and beauty buried in books while they should be getting married and become mothers. In a speech at the Munich university, the Gauleiter (regional leader) went as far as to offer his adjutants as mates to the uglier students, should they have issues finding a husband.

We have come a long way from this time of terror, but in other parts of this world, women still suffer oppression, humiliation, and restriction. But there are strong and brave women everywhere, fighting for their natural right of equality, from Mahlala, who was attacked and nearly killed because of fighting for girls' right to education to the unknown women who get on the driver's seat of a car and hit the road in Saudi Arabia. And because of these women, who never give up, one day the world will be a place of equality for everyone!


This post was written as part of the Strong & Influencial Sisterhood project