INNOVATION
Dear Global Girls COVER DESIGN BY SOPHIA LEE
27 02 Invention 03 Feminism & Fashion 04 Trousers 05 Swimwear 06 Changemaker Stories
INNOVATION C O N T E N T S
08 Beauty Micrometer 09 Innovation in Sci-Fi Through Octavia E. Butler
@dearglobalgirls
Our Team
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION AND DEDICATION!
Sandra Cheah
Talia Caskey
Rithvika Payala
Anaís Fernandez
Dominique de Castro
Thaiana Zandona
Christina Poulin
Sophia Lee
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WRITER
WRITER
COO
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Lauren Byun HEAD DIRECTOR
WRITER
COVER DESIGNER
Invention By Christina Poulin
Press your forearms against the fire escape, swallow the wind, and dream of Anna, who watched flames devour tenements and vowed never to lose another. Smooth creases from a crumpled sleeve and remember Sarah, unafraid to iron out the faults she saw in “women’s work.” Send a text, search a term and think of Hedy, who torpedoed Nazis with flying frequencies and wove the invisible strings that tie our world together. Drag the knots from your tangled locks (thank you, Lyda). Spin the planet with your fingertips (thank you, Ellen). Raid the fridge on a summer’s day (thank you, Florence). Blot mistakes from crooked lines of ink (thank you, Bette). Check the screen before unlocking and think of Marie, who did what the police wouldn’t to keep her family safe. Pass a hospital and remember Ann, who found life where no one thought to look and wielded secret cells to combat cancer’s spread. And on cloudless nights when constellations bloom, find Yvonne there, Yvonne who yearned to brush the sky and found a way, who launched us to float among the stars. 02
Rithvika Payala
When you walk down the street of your town or do a quick swipe on Instagram, it is easy to see the wide array of fashion aesthetics and styles for women. Some choose more femme with flowy dresses, floral prints, and organic patterns, while others dress more androgynous with stark silhouettes and structured blazers. The truth of today is that women have more luxury in how they decide to portray themselves through fashion. We are no longer constricted to one cookie-cutter stereotype; we all have different interpretations of our personal femininity all thanks to the intersectionality of feminism and fashion. 03
s r e s u o r T Joan of Arc was famously known for dressing in men’s armor in the 15th century, and many Greek legends portrayed women fighting alongside men in a similar fashion. In the past, history and stories created a clear line between clothing that was deemed feminine and masculine. This line resulted in concrete gender norms and stereotypes. Women and trousers were vaguely explored prior to the first wave of feminism, but it wasn’t until Coco Chanel arrived in the fashion scene when the view of femininity began changing. She questioned the frills and lace of the past and revolutionized women’s wear by introducing them to trousers. Most famously she said, "I gave them back their bodies: bodies that were drenched in sweat, due to fashion's finery, lace, corsets, underclothes, padding." Pants were no longer just fashion statements, but political statements as they challenged traditional feminine norms.
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Swimwear
In 1946, designer Mary Quant caused public criticism in response to her newest project: the 2 piece bikini. Although perspectives of modesty were gradually changing by the 1940s, bikinis were seen as quite vulgar in the public’s eye. In response, Quant said “People call things vulgar when they are new to them." She recognized that a person’s choice to show off or cover their body can be a symbol of taking back their power. In the case of bikinis, Quant celebrates sexuality in a way that does not revolve around satisfying society. Wearing a bikini, in her perspective, is taking back control and embracing femininity and sexuality. Through the introduction of the two-piece swimwear, Quant bluntly communicated every woman's right to sexuality and aesthetic expression.
Hopeful Future of Representation Now more than ever we can see women of many backgrounds strut the runway. From different body shapes, to stretch marks, scars, skin conditions, and crooked teeth, the fashion industry is not painted in one standard. In fact some women have made a name for themselves by embracing their uniqueness. Winnie Harlow with Vitiligo and Barbie Ferrier a are just a few examples that portray the diversity of beauty in the modern world. This isn’t to say that the fashion or advertising industry is perfect. The reality is that social media and influencer culture has made stereotypical beauty norms easily consumable. There, however, have been great strides made for inclusivity as women break the boundaries of society. 05
Changemaker Stories
One thing that social movements, activism, and democracy have taught us is the importance behind civil participation, and even further—how each one of us can generate change and innovation. Here are 3 young women around the globe who are actively promoting gender equality, opportunities, and inniativities.
Thaiana Zandona
Isabelle Christina is passionate about technology and how it can change people’s lives, especially Black women in Brazil. She noticed how little to no representation Black women have, so in her junior year of high school, she created the Black Girls Project. It supports young Black girls in Brazil as they themselves say “We aim to prepare them completely, so they can change their current realities and be women of integrity, indispensable for society!”
Throughout her life, Apoorvi Bharatram noticed her sister’s struggles with depression and the quality of access to the health system. In 2019, she founded the Happiness Project, which encourages students to share their mental health struggles and ask for help, and trains teachers about the subject. She is now developing an app to increase the project’s reach across India.
One of the world’s biggest taboos is still menstruation. Millions of girls and women around the globe have neither the necessary basic hygiene products, nor open discussions about menstruation and sex education. This is increasingly worse in rural or poor areas of developing countries. Sanjana Dixit understood the problem and decided to act. In 2018, she founded HutuChakra, working to achieve menstrual equity and dignity. RutuChakra has distributed over 154,000+ menstrual products and conducted workshops and Period Talk sessions in both urban and rural areas. These girl’s inspirational stories show the power behind a simple idea. Anything can initiate something new and change lives. It is a great reminder to us all that we can act, transform, lead, and innovate our way toward a future that includes everyone. We just have to start it.
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Anaís Fernandez
A Small Featurette on the Beauty Micrometer The Roaring Twenties was a time of wealth, innovation, and changes in cultural dynamics. One of the biggest contributors to this period was the advent of film and movies. The film industry redefined not only entertainment but also beauty standards especially for women. Movie stars like Jane Harlow, Judy Garland, and Clara Bow became the golden standards of beauty and desirability. Because of this, the cosmetics industry boomed. Out of this revolution came Max Factor, a Polish immigrant and one of the most famous cosmeticians of his time. Aside from coining the term “makeup”, Factor is credited with the invention of the beauty micrometer, a device used to measure how beautiful a woman was.
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To many, the beauty micrometer looked more like a torture device. According to Modern Mechanics, a newspaper advertising the beauty micrometer (also known as the beauty capacitor) in 1935, the device “fits over the head and face with flexible metal strips which conform closely to the various features. The strips are held in place by set screws, allowing for 325 possible adjustments.” The article goes on to explain how the micrometer will identify “flaws” in the face so that “corrective makeup” may be applied. Max Factor marketed his invention mainly towards actresses. The prevailing theory at the time was that any flaws in a woman’s face would be distracting when magnified on the big screen. Needless to say, this applied only to women, not men. Men did not need their features to be corrected, as unattractiveness on their part would not be distracting. Possibly due to its terrifying appearance or its incredibly sexist message, the micrometer never gained much traction. Only one exists today, located at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. It’s safe to say that beauty standards and the makeup industry are changing, at least compared to its role in the 1930s and 1940s. Social media has turned makeup into an art form practiced by both feminine and masculine-presenting people. Makeup no longer holds the previous role of disguising women’s flaws and imperfections. On the other hand, the film and music industry are still struggling to promote body positivity and demote golden beauty standards for both men and women. In such a spotlighted business, the binary idea of “flaws and corrections” is rampant. One might even go so far as to say that we don’t need a device that measures imperfections: we have no problem doing it ourselves.
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I think people get caught up in the glamour of awards and acclaim when they think of any famous person’s life. By no means am I saying I’m famous now and, indeed, I wouldn’t say I was famous in life by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, when people think of the name Octavia E. Butler, they think of the first sci-fi writer to win a McArthur Genius Grant. I’m not saying it’s not important; the first sci-fi writer to win a McArthur Genius Grant being a Black woman is of course important. It was even more so given the times I lived through even if it was awarded to me in 1995. When I was growing up, Black people still had to enter through the back door so the awards I won were no small feat, but I think people get too caught up in them. By the same token, I think people get too caught up in their own fantasies and the ways that the media they consume serve to fuel those fantasies. The funny thing about people is that they are so focused on living for a future self that they torture their present selves and live in fantasies to escape that torture. Sci fi as a genre of course plays into that. At least most sci fi, but not my sci fi, a distinction I will make clear in a second. Most sci fi is focused on a distant and terrifying future that is a little too outlandish to be true. How that is escapist from a horrifying present for readers is ironic, but simple to comprehend: it shows that life could be worse and gives people the chance to self insert themselves as the hero of a dystopian life. It gives them power over a horrifying situation while they themselves have no power in their own real lives. So then, how is my sci-fi different? I never wanted people to escape real life; I wanted them to think about it, to really ponder the reasons their lives were challenging and how they might be making life challenging for others. I didn’t write frivolous stories about aliens invading Earth and a random white man stepping up to save the day. No, my stories investigated the ways that real life affected women and Black people; how the powerful affected the powerless. There was no escaping real life, only an extension of it. 08
I think many artists, writers included, feel the pressure to conform to the fantasies of their consumers. They need to give them escapism through their art; they needn’t challenge the reader to critically consider their surroundings. There are of course many artists who don’t conform to such a standard, but that doesn’t negate the pressure they may feel in order to guarantee their success. In any case, I think art that doesn’t challenge the status quo very quickly loses potency and it was that potency that I wanted my art to have for readers. The intensity that comes with being unable to escape in stories about white men saving the world when you are not and cannot relate to a white man; I wanted my readers exposed to that. I never had the option of true escapism from my life in media because life’s challenges were always in every nook and cranny of my environment. I grew up a shy, tall, Black girl in Pasadena, CA. My father passed when I was quite young and so I was primarily raised by my mother. My mother worked as a maid and we were still being ruled by Jim Crow laws and segregation so every time my mother took me to work with her because she didn’t want to hire a sitter, I witnessed the mistreatment she faced at the hands of her white employers and white people in general. In fact, it would be these experiences that would inspire my most popular book, Kindred. I wanted readers to feel the pain that Black people had to endure both during history and during my time in order to survive. Beyond what I witnessed as Octavia the daughter, was my struggles as Octavia the student. I had dyslexia and though I was an avid reader, especially growing up, I struggled in school. Reading passages out loud was particularly difficult, but teachers weren’t sympathetic to my struggles with school--- most just assumed I was lazy. Being tall and shy didn’t aid me neither. I stuck out like a big Black tree and felt very self conscious about it. Nobody was writing for someone like me to escape my circumstances; no one was trying to help me make them better either. If writing was a way to communicate my views of the world to others, then I would rather they felt what I felt not to be tortured by my perspective, but to humanize my experiences.
In light of that, I would say I changed the sci fi genre. Not me alone, but I contributed. It wasn’t through awards or recognition though. In fact, people didn’t really recognize me while I was alive; it wasn’t until I was close to my death that people really started to pay attention, but I didn’t do it intentionally. I didn’t set out to change the genre; I set out to write about my experiences. I put my heart into my writing, waking up at the early hours of the morning just so I could write before working several odd jobs. At one point, I was a dishwasher, at another a telemarketer, I was even a potato chip inspector. All this in order to support myself while I lived out my own fantasy. As I stated earlier, I think people have a tendency to live for a future in a fantasy world while torturing themselves in the present and perhaps I did the same for much of my career. That may make me sound hypocritical, but I’ll close with this: living out your fantasies is not a bad thing on its own, but think critically about the fantasy you are constructing. Who is left out? Who is powerful? Who is powerless? How might you change that?
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