Garage Magazine: Feminism Issue by Tako Natsvlishvili

Editor’s Letter Welcome to the Feminism Issue By Tamara Natsvlishvil

Welcome to our feminism issue. Often when I’m asked to explain why I feels so passionately about women’s issues, I say it’s because I always wanted to proove that women are as equal as men. But that isn’t where I should start the story of this: Garage’s first-ever Feminism Issue. Why have I devoted a whole issue of your fashion magazine to feminism? I believe we are at a tipping point in the history of women’s rights and – as this is a magazine for and about smart women – your voice and the voice of those who inspire you should be heard. As the years passed, I witnessed a groundswell on the issue of women’s rights. Now this, the so-called fourth wave of feminism, has developed an urgency that cannot be ignored, and I believe it should be of interest to you. fourth wave of feminism, has developed an urgency that cannot be ignored, and I believe it should be of interest to you.

I sense it’s a new, more playful and hopefully more inclusive brand of feminism – one that says everyone is welcome. This is not a club you must pass a test to join – there is no such thing as the wrong or right sort of feminist. My instinct that we should enter the debate was confirmed as I witnessed our cover star model Emily Ratajkowski and actress and UN Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson to talk about their experiences and share their thoughts about feminism. Not only did Watson’s watershed words make the fight for equality relevant for a new generation, the #HeForShe campaign she launched delivered the debate directly into the hands of men. You can only have a truly equal society if both halves of humanity want it, and so they feature prominently in this issue. During the making of this issue, I found some extraordinary women and I discovered some uncomfortable truths. In the magazine there are articles about

feminism in today’s fashion, articles about strong and empowering women, interesting illustrations and short stories about women and also Editorials dedicated to feminism. Today it can be more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in areas of conflict. There are many reasons that feminism is necessary in our society. Of course, equality is very important. But women deserve to live in a community where we don’t have to live in constant fear for our safety. eminism has become a clothing trend because it responds to how women are feeling today. Why do we choose to wear the things we do today? The best way to explain it is that, as women, we are literally wearing our anger on our sleeves. And we are right to do so. Equality is not a women’s issue, it is a human issue.

Contents 5 14 18 20 26 28 36 40 48 50 58 62 72 82

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter Malala on Life at Oxford University This Beautiful Game Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s soccer Hear Us Roar Finding Feminism in Fashion That Time Feminists on the Miss America Pageant Emma Watson Interview Emily Ratajkowski Cover Girl: Explores What it means to be Hyper Feminine A Huriccane in My Veins Editorial Ableism & Body Shaming The Princess is Here Editorial Powerful Feminity All Things Bright Editorial 2 short feminist stories project 2020 Feminist events calendar

Malala on Life at Oxford University

& WHY EVERY

GIRL DESERVES THE SAME CHANCE As Malala Yousafzai begins her second year at university, she reflects on her life at Oxford. With my subfuse academic dress at the ready, pre-reading completed and new walking boots waiting in my wardrobe, I started my first week at Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall in October of last year. University life is a big change for any student and I was no exception. None of the food in the dining hall could compare with my mum’s chicken and rice, and in the beginning I missed my parents, and sometimes even my little brothers, too. They often complain that I don’t miss them as much as they miss me — which is probably true. But that is because life at Oxford is busy.

take advantage of everything university has to offer. I joined the cricket club, Oxford Union and the Oxford Pakistan Society. I attended lectures and film screenings and became a tour guide to encourage younger students, especially those from under-represented groups, to apply to Lady Margaret Hall. I made wonderful new friends, and I had too many overscheduled days. Last year, I would find myself running between classes, study groups, cricket matches and meetings with extracurricular groups. I would go to a friend’s room or they would come to mine to chat after dinner; when I would look at the clock again, it would be three in the morning! A few – well, many – times, I started an essay at 11pm the night before it was due.

I had long lists of books to read and many essays to write to keep up with my Philosophy, Politics and Economics course. Along with studies, you also want to socialise – to hear speakers, go to balls, cheer at sporting events. The hardest part for me is managing I overwhelmed myself with the possibilities my time, as, on top of my studies and bal- of university life. And I’m grateful for that. ancing work with Malala Fund, I want to I know how lucky I am to have access to

an incredible education, lectures, art, sport and new perspectives. At 11 years old, I woke up one morning and could not go to school because the Taliban had banned girls’ education in Swat, the region of Pakistan where I was born. I am so pleased that I spoke out and for my years of campaigning that have followed. Now 21, I am able to study at a prestigious university — but I want to live in a world where every girl is able to weigh her future career options in the way I hope to when I graduate. Today, there are more than 130 million girls who are out of school around the world. Many are forced to marry as young as 11 or 12 years old, so instead of learning, they are cooking, cleaning and raising children of their own. In many places, poverty forces girls to go to work so they can support their families. Too often in wars and conflicts, girls must flee their homes and their schools. They have no choice. Most of them never go back to the classroom. Some girls brave

long walks, risking street harassment and sexual violence, just to get to their school.

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I have visited refugee camps, war zones, favelas and slums. The hardest thing is to see a girl nearly my age, with all the dreams and aspirations that I have, stuck in a situation she didn’t create and unable to choose her own future.

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Everywhere you go today, you see feminist T-shirts and hashtags – “The future is female”, “Girl power”, “Who runs the world?” – but if we really believe this, we need to support girls on the front lines of this fight. This summer I travelled to Brazil to meet with indigenous girls who face some of the worst marginalisation and violence in their country because their families are poor, their skin is “too dark” and they’re female. One of the girls I met, Andrea Bak, is 17 years old. She told me how excited she was to study chemistry in school this year. She wants to be a dentist, lift her family out of poverty and provide affordable healthcare to her community.

Like me, Andrea and Zaynab are excited to go back to school. They understand that education can change their life trajectory

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Some girls do not have access to working restrooms, and must choose between their dignity or education. Some girls have no schools at all.

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A few years ago, I met Zaynab Abdi, 21, from Yemen. She told me how she fled wars in three countries before she was 17 years old. Today Zaynab is a refugee, living in America and studying international relations at a women’s college. She works three jobs to pay for her tuition, gets top marks, serves on the student council and captains a soccer team. She wants to become a human-rights lawyer and return home to help her country.

and make it easier for the next generation of girls from their communities to do the same. It should be obvious that 130 million out-of-school girls are not just a problem for these young women individually but for our whole world. When girls have access to 12 years of education, primary and secondary, they reduce the risk of violent conflict, improve public health, slow the effects of climate change and grow economies. In July, the World Bank released research showing that we could add between $15 and $30 trillion to the global economy if every girl went to school. On average, girls who graduate from secondary school make twice as much money as girls who are left out. As technological advances change the nature of work and our global economy, young women without an education will fall even further behind. Digitalisation, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence are transforming the way we live, learn and earn. They face a lifetime of lowpaid low-status work, poverty and insecurity. Their untapped potential is a loss for all of us.

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Whether you’re a feminist or an economist – or just a person who wants to live in a better world – you should want to see all girls in school. Listen to the stories of girls such as Andrea and Zaynab and share them with your friends and family. Speak out against injustice when you see it. Vote for leaders who believe in equality and commit to investing more in education. I am going back to university this month. As I begin my second year, my plan is to find a better balance between college work and social life. I want to prioritise the activities that interest me the most and get a better idea of what I want my life to look like post-graduation. I don’t know yet what career path I will choose – but I know I’ll keep advocating for girls and women. If one girl with an education can change the world, just imagine what 130 million can do. - BY MALALA YOUSAFZAI

Without an adequate start in life, millions of girls won’t have the skills they need to succeed in today’s labour market

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This Beautiful Game WOMEN’S SOCCER is still seen as less than. After the World Cup in Paris, we need to ask ourselves: Why won’t we let the winners take all? I attended my first professional women’s soccer match this past September: the 2018 National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) final between the North Carolina Courage and the Portland Thorns, in Portland, Oregon. I used to hate soccer. Watching a soccer game was, I thought, as stim-ulating as watching dead leaves roll across some blacktop. At age seven, I quit after one season; I didn’t believe a ball rolling through two orange cones was more meaningful than a ball rolling anywhere else. After that last game, I tapped and watched my ball roll down our suburban driveway and slip into a storm drain. Goal. My girlfriend, a to-the-core soccer fan since childhood, was the first to tell me soccer is a mirror for the world. We’d include days for “soccer tour-ism” during our vacations, attending local games abroad. I experienced the games with and through her, and I saw the ways the game was a com-mon language between people across physical and cultural barriers. Still, it was the language of men. But then I’d never seen a packed stadium

cheering for women. I’d never seen a woman slide-tackle another woman, then help her up. I’d never seen ponytails flail and catch the light like the bodies of surfacing fish, stream, s than. ink behind heads clamoring to meet the ball. I never heard the sound of a halfhead collision resonate in a stadium, and the sound of a whistle had never reduced me to a rage melt or globby, happy tears. From the back row at Providence Park, as I watched the Courage take on the Thorns, those t we dead leaves crumbled into confetti and blasted from a cannon in my heart. and I became a women’s soccer superfan. Dumb with love, I still don’t have the words for how utterly beautiful the game is. But now I know why it is internationally called “the beautiful game.” Maybe that’s enough. ptember: In June, we flew to Paris to watch the United States Women’s National weer] the Team (USWNT) compete in the Women’s World Cup. I still don’t know all egon. the technical words for how players handle the ball. I did not know what as stun- the “bend it” in Bend It Like Beckham meant until I saw a ball curve into e seven, the corner pocket. After five World Cup games in France, I didn’t know ) orange what “trapping” was, but I knew enough to yell, “Stop stopping to stop fter that it!,” at a player who hesitated before unleashing a goal attempt. This is the riveway beauty of the game: It is simple enough that even the uninitiated feel the possibility of what it could be. All you have to know is that the ball going first to into the net is a goal. er tour- Is the team a “they” or an “it”? -fenced I think the USWNT

are a “they” when they embrace, when Megan a corn- Rapinoe throws her legs up and sloth-wraps the trunk of a celebrating . Still, teammate. Others funnel into the joy, and “they” hug. The team is an “it” when it scores, because it does so with the power of all the legs that have never spent minutes not scoring. Every second it moves back and forth. it thrusts, r seen it defends. It wins. When on the field at the World Cup, “it” is the United States, but the team is called “the U.S.” If you say “the U.S.- you mean the to team, a team of women. Any other time, “the U.S.” means the government. eY o If soccer is a mirror for the world, then these women are our mirror. If the it women’s game is beautiful, then this is our beautiful world. a At the first World Cup match we attended, I marveled when I saw Rose ti 75 Lavelle with circles of dirt on her socks (which she wears higher than any- p one else wears them, to her kneecaps). She danced with the ball with funny t grace and touches so soft she could have kicked a ball of flowers down 0 the field without releasing a petal.

carried her body into full orbit around her head as she • watched the ball soar into the net and became a global superstar. We won. It’s difficult to be vulnerable to fandom when there’s a risk your team might lose. Of course, loss is not failure, and cheering for worn-t. en’s soccer can help shape a new cultural mental narrative. The major-e ity of male athletes are not champions every year, and yet they are paid and adored. When men fail, it is worth the effort; it is valiant and emo-tional. When women fail, it is shameful. We ignore female athletes. potential losers that they are, and we give sports over to men, missing the poetry of our contest. 1 What made me cry at that first game in September was the silver and gold tinsel that cannoned to rain on the NWSL champions. For the first time, my mind did not skip ahead to, “Someone will have to sweep that up,” but was completely engrossed. This was the moment these women deserved: 100,000 reflections in the air and on the ground and on their bodies, mirrors of this beautiful world. - BY KATHERINE BERNARD

Three weeks later, she would score the second goal for the United States in the final against the Netherlands. 1 • Her strong left foot

Chanel 2015 spring fashion show finale © vogue.com

Hear Us Roar

Finding Feminism in Fashion

At the start of my junior year of college, I was elected co-chair of an organization called WomenSpeak, which hosted a series of events on campus each spring. A week of lectures, film, readings, symposia—the usual consciousness-raising whatnot. And to plan it, we organizers would convene every Thursday over dinner, half a dozen underslept young ladies in flannels and baggy jeans, fired up on Faludi and railing against the patriarchy. Aux barricades! I enjoyed those dinners, but I remember feeling a sheep-in-wolf’sclothing unease about the whole thing. At the time, you see, I was terribly preoccupied with matters I considered un-feminist. There was the matter of my recent breakup with my longtime boyfriend, and the related matters of wanting to “get back in shape” and flirt with other men. I was also looking ahead to postgrad life, and had sussed out that flannels, jeans, and rumpled hair wouldn’t cut it in New York. Amherst College was only a few hours’ drive from the city, and so I’d steal down there every month or so, sometimes with my friend Mary, and sometimes on my own. I noticed on those

trips that you could get away with dishabille as long as there was a specificity, an inflection to it—a cool, in a word. The cool interested me. So did the look of French actresses in the 1960s—Anna Karina,Catherine Deneuve. I read Paper magazine and The Face, and I bought coal black liquid eyeliner and a NARS lipstick—color “Belle de Jour”—that I never, ever wore at school. I still have the case. So there I was, Thursday after Thursday, raising verbal hell about reproductive rights and structural misogyny, and meanwhile, in the book bag strung over my chair, there was probably a copy of Allure, dog-eared to an article about mastering frizz. Oh—and I was coveting a pair of Prada shoes that year, too. “Really selling out the sisterhood,” I commented once, to the memoirist Lucy Grealy, who had taught briefly at Amherst and was something of a mentor to me. Among other things, she was trying to teach me to play pool. “Oh, please,” she said, racking up the balls in a hall on Houston

Chanel 2015 spring fashion show finale © vogue.com

produced today is a moral horror. The ideal of ultra-thinness that the fashion industry promotes is terrible—not because the ideal is unattainable, but because for most women, the attempt to attain it entails degrading amounts of time, money, mental energy, and hangry-making self-deprivation. Camille Paglia made some interesting, indeed important, points about the challenge of female sexual authority—as embodied by “Justify My Love”-era Madonna—but I hate the way her arguments are deployed, in cheap form, to defend modes of dress that rehash the stock characters of male fantasy. Vixen. Nymphet. Backup dancer in a hip-hop video. You’ve got the right to wear whatever you like, ladies, but come on. Let’s create some new identities. I could go on. And the temptation, thinking about fashion through the prism of feminism, is to go on in the direction of appearances—to elaborate on scholar Linda Scott’s point, in her book Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism, that “the ability to Street, “having a sense of style is not selling out the sisterhood.” control what is fashionable is a form of power women wield over each other,” or to get deep in the weeds about whether certain deShe said something like that, anyway. I wasn’t taking notes. But I signers, abetted by editors and buyers, advance atavistic notions of should have—I should have had those words tattooed on my left a woman’s place in society. But that’s too easy. forearm, where I have the last line of Ulysses, instead. That way, every time some guy at a party asks me whether I feel like working in fashion is a betrayal of my gender, I could just point at the tattoo and walk away. I also wouldn’t have to explain why I have the last line of Ulysses on my arm, but that’s another story. As long as I’m digressing, though, I may as well point out that not a single one of these guys—and yeah, they’re invariably men—has been a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières or an activist trying to save the rain forest or anything like that. It’s always some banker or DJ or conceptual artist. So, you know, fuck you. Really, the condescension some people direct at fashion is just unbearable. I’ve got a speech I trot out now, when someone throws shade on what I do, and it goes like this: We all have bodies; we all wear clothes; we all have reflections that vex us; we all exist in dynamic relationship to our communities, and fashion is a medium for testing or strengthening those bonds. It’s a vehicle for self-expression, and—to flex some of the old WomenSpeak patois—anyone who diminishes the significance of that is carrying water for the patriarchy, deferring reflexively to those thousands of years of human history when men got to decide what was frivolous or not. You know what’s frivolous? Fantasy football. Fashion is a multibillion-dollar industry that touches craft, identity, dreams, and art. Thus do I rise to a ringing endorsement of fashion. But I’m always upset by these conversations because I’m not convinced I believe what I say. Or, to put the conflict more exactly, I believe what I say, but there are a lot of things I’m leaving unsaid, too. And these unsaid things trouble me. The way the vast majority of clothes are

Feminism is not a matter of appearances. Feminism is about building a world where women—all of them—have the opportunity to live rich, satisfying lives.

It’s about making women—again, all of them—safe from violence and other forms of coercion, and ensuring they have access to education, family planning including abortion and birth control, and careers wherein they are paid and promoted on par with men. Feminism isn’t about improving women’s self-esteem, it’s about giving proper value to the various kinds of work women do, on the clock or at home. It’s about restructuring our society such that youth, beauty, and sexual availability aren’t a woman’s most vital currency. Can we talk about that stuff, please? Because when I tune into the pop-feminist chatter online, I’m dismayed by the degree to which feminism has been defined down to debates about Miley Cyrus, Photoshop, slut-shaming, and the vaguely oppressive “I woke up like this” meme. Talk about that stuff, by all means. But it

Â© Ilustration by Kesso Leluashvili

You see how easy it is, getting into those weeds? But I don’t want to talk about clothes. I want to talk about labor rights. A hundred years ago, garment workers were at the forefront of the union movement, spurred on by the fire at the Triangle Shirt-

I kid. Sort of. But not about the unity. Last month, 1,600 workers at garment factories in Bangladesh went on an 11-day hunger strike. They were protesting unpaid wages. Police came at them with tear gas and rubber bullets. Now, I realize it’s been a busy news cycle—one fucking horrible thing after another—but this is our business and those women should be on our radar. We should stand with them and be outraged. Closer to home, the women selling clothes (and everything else under the sun) at stores like Walmart don’t suffer the way that seamstresses in places like Cambodia,

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We could do better, though. There should be more women on the executive floors of the big fashion conglomerates, and a more diverse array of women at the entry level, which would mean raising pay. The emphasis on unpaid or barely paid labor in fashion shuts a lot of talented people out— and though that’s not a problem specific to women, as a female-dominated industry, the pay issue affects women disproportionately. Another thing: Why are there so few women heading up major fashion houses? Miuccia, Phoebe, Donna, Stella…Clare Waight Keller at Chloé and Sarah Burton at McQueen. DVF. Rei Kawakubo. Tory Burch has muscled her way into the lineup. Jenna Lyons makes the list, I guess. That’s ten. Am I missing anyone? I suspect that correcting such a crazy imbalance is going to require an industry-wide rethink about what “fashion” is—and that, dear reader, is a topic for another time.

Feminism is not a matter of appearances.

Consider fashion from another angle—not as a dream factory but as an industry proper. Fashion employs legions of women. I’m guessing, but I imagine that alongside the “caring” industries—teaching, nursing— fashion is one of the most female-dominated businesses around. And women are empowered here: We don’t have many big swinging dicks in fashion, but we’ve got a lot of big swinging handbags. I’ve worked in male-dominated fields, and in comparison, fashion is a delight—at least insofar as women in fashion are, as a matter of course, encouraged and expected to succeed. I suspect that the XXs on Wall Street or over in Silicon Valley would tell a far different tale.

waist Factory. Women working in fashion can play a similar role today: We’ve got a critical mass going, and we can push for changes that would make this industry a model for many others. Take childcare, for instance. Having free or low-cost childcare at work would be a godsend for the many mothers who work in fashion, and it would take pressure off of young women who worry that having a baby will come at the cost of their careers. Better yet, the women who work in fashion—and, sure, the men, too—could advocate for universal pre-K, starting at age 3, which would be a boon for all working people. Is the stunning expense of good childcare a fashion-specific problem? No. As a female-dominated industry, does it affect us disproportionately? Yes. Here’s another one. The fashion industry is heavy on freelancers, male and female. Meanwhile, the United States has these asinine self-employment taxes, which effectively penalize people for being entrepreneurial. Let’s get rid of those stupid taxes. Women will benefit. So will men. I haven’t done the math, but I suspect the government could more than make up the revenue by closing the carried interest loophole. [1] Or, to demagogue the issue: Hustling stylists, writers, makeup artists, photographers, journeymen art directors of the world, unite! The private equity fat cats are taking money out of your pockets!

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can’t be the whole conversation.

Be Those women should be on our radar. We should stand with them and be outraged. China, or Bangladesh do. But they deserve to earn a living wage. Let’s fight for that. These issues may seem quite distant from the fairy-tale world of runway shows and fashion spreads. But it’s all on a continuum, and just because we—meaning we Style. com readers—crowd around the top of it doesn’t excuse us from considering the lives of those nearer the bottom. It’s the flip side of that famous speech Meryl Streep gives in The Devil Wears Prada, about haute couture’s trickle-down influence and Anne Hathaway’s ugly blue sweater. We celebrate our influence, on an aesthetic and cultural level, and we rightly query it, too. But the fashion industry, writ large, has failed to take the political responsibilities that come with its influence on board. When we

do, that will be a fashion feminism for all women. I don’t have all the answers. I know I’m not even posing all the right questions. For God’s sake, I’ve gone on at length and not even talked about fashion’s commendable progressivism on gay and transgender rights, or the need for enforceable standards for models’ working conditions. But my essential point is that we—meaning, we feminists—have got to expand our horizons and stop worrying so much about who got airbrushed and how for the cover of Vogue. If we all put our heads together, we can figure out how to make fashion a tool for empowerment. Pace Lucy Grealy, there’s nothing un-feminist about having a sense of style or loving clothes. But as I’ve told

[1] Briefly, the carried interest loophole allows partners in private equity groups to have a significant proportion of their yearly earnings taxed not as income but as investment profit, at a substantially lower

many dickheads at parties over the years, with an epic eye roll, fashion is about more than clothes. Repeat that. Get it into your heads. It’s about more than clothes. We don’t have many big swinging dicks in fashion, but we’ve got a lot of big swinging handbags. I’ve worked in male-dominated fields, and in comparison, fashion is a delight—at least insofar as women in fashion are, as a matter of course, encouraged and expected to succeed. I suspect that the XXs on Wall Street or over in Silicon Valley would tell a far different tale.

That Time Feminists

Descended on the Miss America Pageant

26 ÂŠ www.vogue.com/article/feminists-desecended-on-the-miss-america-pageant

Unless they are on RuPaul’s Drag Race and referring to a fellow contestant as Miss Thing, does anyone even use Miss anymore? The term may have been consigned to the dustbin of history, but this Sunday, 52 women will still take the stage in Atlantic City, as they have since 1921, for the Miss America Pageant, a weird survivor, a relic from the past, that, though it struggles mightily to be more progressive and up-todate—Miss Missouri is an out lesbian! It’s really, truly a scholarship pageant!—remains mired, like a dying mouse on a glue trap, in its sticky past. But the pageant also occupies a special place in feminist history. Forty-eight years ago this week, a few hundred women arrived on the Atlantic City boardwalk and staged the infamous bra-burning protest. (Men were allowed to drive them to the event, but not to participate: “Male chauvinist-reactionaries on this issue had best stay away, nor are male liberals welcome in the demonstrations. But sympathetic men can donate money as well as cars and drivers,” the organizers instructed.)

starving.) But if the struggle to be treated as more than a Mindless-Boob-Girlie is far from over, it didn’t begin in the 1960s. Almost a hundred years earlier, in 1873, feminist author Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward picked up her quill pen and lit the spark: “Burn up the corsets! . . . No, nor do you save the whalebones, you will never need whalebones again,” she wrote. “Make a bonfire of the cruel steels that have lorded it over the contents of the abdomen and thorax so many thoughtless years and heave a sigh of relief, for your emancipation, I assure you, has from this moment begun.” - BY LUCA MENEGHEL

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It should be a groovy day on the boardwalk in the sun with our sisters,” the 1968 manifesAs it turns out, no underwear was actualto stated. This brilliant doculy burned. A giant trash can was erected on the boardwalk into which were tossed ment contains a 10-point litany mops, pots, copies of women’s magazines of grievances, with section and Playboy, false eyelashes, high heels, titles decrying “Miss Amerihair rollers, cosmetics, and, of course, girdles, and bras, and there were erroneous ca as Military Death Mascot,” reports in the press that this ignominious “The Woman as Pop Culture heap, this hot mess, was set ablaze. But Obsolescent Theme,” “The fire or no fire, this group of activists— some with nerves of steel managed to get Irrelevant Crown on the Throne inside the hall and unfurl a bedsheet from of Mediocrity,” and “The Dethe balcony that read Women’s Liberation grading Mindless-Boob-Girlie before getting thrown out—brought the issue of women’s rights to riveting attention Symbol. It is hard to convey how important the pageant was in American culture decades ago, how people relished the campy talent, how unironically we reviewed and rated these young women in their ball gowns, their bathing suits. (Sad, shameless confession—when I can, I still watch this! I remember recently, when the genial plastic host asked contestants about the first thing they planned to do, win or lose, after the show ended, and most of them said: “Have something to eat!” It didn’t occur to me until that moment that these people were

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across the country.

Emma Watson

“I’m Very Happy Being Single

I Call It Being Self-Partnered” 28

As the actor and activist Emma Watson approaches 30, she talks to Paris Lees about her extraordinary life, and

transcending child stardom to become a voice for change in the December issue of British Vogue.

The story of how Emma Watson became one of the most recognisable women on the planet is folklore of sorts. She was nine-yearsold when she was picked out of a line-up of would-be actors in her school gym to be in a film that would change her life forever. Twenty years later, and that child star is now one of the world’s most bankable actors and recognised activists.

look like at this age. “I was like, ‘Why does everyone make such a big fuss about turning 30? This is not a big deal…’” she shares. “Cut to 29, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I feel so stressed and anxious. And I realise it’s because there is suddenly this bloody influx of subliminal messaging around. If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place This Christmas, Watson is back on the big screen as Margaret in your career, or you’re still figuring things out… There’s just this “Meg” March in Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s incredible amount of anxiety.” Little Women. The project couldn’t be a better fit for Emma, combining, as it does, many of her loves: literature, film and exploring the female experience. “With Meg’s character, her way of being a If it’s staggering to think that Watson worries about this stuff, it’s feminist is making the choice – because that’s really, for me any- comforting, too. “I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ way, what feminism is about,” Watson tells Lees. “Her choice is spiel,” she continues. “I was like, ‘This is totally spiel.’ It took that she wants to be a full-time mother and wife. To Jo [Saoirse me a long time, but I’m very happy [being single]. I call it being Ronan], being married is really some sort of prison sentence. But self-partnered.” Meg says, ‘You know, I love him [John Brooke, who is played by One of her greatest pleasures in making Little Women, she says, James Norton] and I’m really happy and this is what I want. And was spending time with fellow actor-activists. “What was really just because my dreams are different from yours, it doesn’t mean nice about working with Laura Dern and Meryl Streep was that they’re unimportant.” the three of us knew each other way before we did Little Women. Which begs the question: what are Emma Watson’s dreams? She We met in activist spaces, so we had this allyship and solidarity as turns 30 in April, and describes 2019 as having been “tough”, be- activists that had been part of a certain movement before we ever cause she “had all these ideas” about what her life was supposed to worked together.”

Emma Watson Addresses Her White Privilege and

’White Feminism’ in Letter to Her Book Club

Emma Watson has championed gender equality throughout her career, most notably in 2015 when she made feminism the focal point of a speech she delivered the U.N. headquarters which went viral. “This isn’t just, ‘girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls,’” she said, as Entertainment Weekly reported at the time. “This is just, ‘everyone deserves a fair chance.’” Feminism also played a role in her depiction of Belle in last year’s Beauty and the Beast, which earned feminist icon Gloria Steinem’s seal of approval, with Watson, for one, urging that her character wear sensible shoes. Watson has also made feminism the underlying current of her book club, Our Shared Shelf. But Watson’s feminism has been a work in progress throughout, as she acknowledged in a recent letter to her book club on Good Reads. In the letter, which introduces the club’s first read of 2018, Reni Eddo-Lodge ‘s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, she addresses her white privilege and “white feminism,” writing, “When I gave my UN speech in 2015, so much of what I said was about the idea that “being a feminist is simple!” Easy! No problem! I have since learned that being a feminist is more than a single choice or decision. It’s an interrogation of self. Every time I think I’ve peeled all the layers, there’s another layer to peel. But, I also understand that the most difficult journeys are often the most worthwhile. And that this process cannot be done at anyone else’s pace or speed. When I heard myself being called a ‘white feminist’ I didn’t understand (I suppose I proved their case in point). What was the need to define me — or anyone else for that matter — as a feminist by race? What did this mean? Was I being called racist? Was the feminist movement more fractured than I had understood? I began...panicking.” Watson used that moment as a learning opportunity, she says. “It would have been more useful to spend the time asking myself questions like: What are the ways I have benefited from being white? In what ways do I support and uphold a system that is structurally racist? How do my race, class and gender affect my perspective? There seemed to be many types of feminists and feminism. But instead of seeing these differences as divisive, I could have asked whether defining them was actually empowering and bringing about better understanding. But I didn’t know to ask these questions.” She is now encouraging her followers to do the same. “Everyone has their own journey, and it may not always be easy,

but what I can promise is that you’ll meet some extremely cool people that you will REALLY love and respect along the way that will walk this path with you,” she writes. “You’re not alone. And even if you are, in a particular moment...remember you come from a long line of feminists who did this work, in the outside world but also inside themselves.”

JESSICA CHASTAIN: Hi, honey. Where are you right now? EMMA WATSON: I’m thrilled that you asked, because I didn’t want things to get weird. I’m in the bath. In Paris. I didn’t want you to hear swishing water and be like, “Uh, what are you doing?” I’m very relaxed. Where are you? CHASTAIN: I am in a hotel room. There are bags of hair extensions and makeup and clothes everywhere. WATSON: As long as there’s a clear line across the floor so that you can actually get into bed at night, you’re good. CHASTAIN: Are you on vacation, or are you working? WATSON: I’m working. I just did the photo shoot for this with Peter Lindbergh, who I know you’ve shot with. I love him so much. He’s the Ferrari of photographers—really thoughtful, engaged, and then boom boom boom. He is so quick. He does not mess around. During the day, I asked him, “What are your plans after this?” And he said, “I’m going to go do another meditation retreat.” I was like, “Of course you meditate! You’re like the Buddha. You’re, like, one of the happiest people I’ve ever met.” CHASTAIN: Talk to me about your relationship to fashion and photo shoots. It must have been such a different experience for you when you started, because you were so young. WATSON: Fashion is something that I love, and I find it to be so expressive and creative, and it’s obviously a way into my characters, so I’m always deeply engaged with it. What I find difficult about photo shoots is the line between playing a character—you’re being asked by the photographer to take on a role like you would in a movie—and being a fancier version of yourself. It’s about finding that line between being spontaneous and open to direction, but also trying to explain to photographers that the “me” is often taken out of context because it has all of this other stuff attached to it. The fact that I was a child star is difficult for most people to understand, and it can be really conflicting for me. Photographers want to reinvent you, to take you somewhere else, to show you in a completely different way. They look at your previous work, and try to figure out what they can do to show a new side of you. CHASTAIN: I wonder if I have freedom in a way that maybe you might not. Because people grew up watching you become a woman, are you held to certain standards of having to be the same as you always were? WATSON: I think I am. It’s one of the things that I struggle with, because the three of us—Dan[iel Radcliffe], Rupert [Grint], and I—were kids when we got cast in this fairy-tale series, and what happened to us was kind of a fantasy story in itself. Outside of the movies. So the story of my life has been of public interest, which is why I’ve been so passionate about having a private identity. When I step into a character, people have to be able to suspend their disbelief; they have to be able to divorce me from that girl. And not having everyone know every single intimate detail of my entire life is part of me trying to protect my ability to do my job well. Generally,

I’ve been fortunate, like when Sofia Coppola offered me a role in The Bling Ring, which was so wonderfully different. Artists have given me a lot of freedom—have been able to imagine me in other ways—but it’s something I am aware of, for sure. CHASTAIN: I’ve learned so much about acting and theater and films—life in general—from making mistakes. Do you feel the freedom to do that? WATSON: I know that I’m under a different microscope, a certain level of scrutiny, which I find really hard at times. And sometimes the fear of doing things is overwhelming. I get incredibly overwhelmed, and sometimes feel hemmed in by that, afraid of that. But I know that if I live in that fear, then my life as an artist, as a human being, really, is over. Ultimately, it will silence me, and it will silence what is in me—which I have yet to explore and uncover. People couldn’t believe it when, after Harry Potter, I was like, “I’m going to school.” Essentially, I took five years out to study, doing only a few smaller projects, and, to a lot of people, it seemed like I was passing up a lot of opportunity. I received a lot of angry phone calls. But I needed the space to go and explore who I was, without being under the microscope. And I did a play at Brown. I did Three Sisters. I loved it. I loved working with other people my age who were figuring it out. As you say, I loved being able to make mistakes. To be able to step away was pretty key. When I was auditioning to play Hermione, I had this fearlessness, because I wasn’t aware of anyone else. I just knew I loved that girl and I loved that role and I loved that world, and I went for it. But now I have this other thing to overcome, like in Beauty and the Beast I sang for the first time, and journalists would ask me, “Do you think you’re going to be able to pull it off?” There’s an incredible awareness that I have to push through. The night before I gave my speech at the U.N., I was an emotional wreck. I thought I was going to hyperventilate. [laughs] CHASTAIN: That speech was such an important moment. I know it must be really stressful when so many people are telling you what is right for you, what you should be doing, but it seems to me that you’ve always listened to yourself and followed what you thought was right. Also, people

will love you for your mistakes. I used to be terrified of making mistakes, and now I realize that if I make one, there’s a lot of respect to be earned for throwing yourself 100 percent into something. WATSON: There’s a Theodore Roosevelt speech about the importance of being in the arena, whether you fail or you succeed, or you make a complete idiot of yourself, as long as you’re doing the best with what you have, using whatever knowledge you have to bring to the table at that moment. And you continue to keep learning. I think my mistakes have made me much stronger. It’s nice to know that things don’t ultimately break you; that you need to go there to know. I was talking to a friend of mine recently, like, “Okay, I’ve had a really hard couple of weeks, and I just want to figure out

what I’ve learned here, what the lesson is.” And he looked at me and said, “You realize that you’re trying to skip the stages, right? You need to feel shitty for a day or two and be angry and upset and hurt and grieve a little bit. And then you may or may not figure out there’s a lesson in it, but you don’t get to skip ahead. You need to cry a bit and get angry. And thenyou can intellectualize and self-analyze.” I was like, “Damn you, friend-who-tells-me-the-truth!” [laughs] CHASTAIN: It’s so important for you to allow that to happen. It’s good to intellectualize something but … WATSON: You need to be in your body, as painful and annoying as that is. No one wants to go through not feeling so great, but I do ultimately think it’s essential.

CHASTAIN: The speech you made at the heart forced my heart to open. U.N. for the HeForShe gender equality campaign, how did that come about? WATSON: Well, there’s no higher honor or compliment you could have given me than WATSON: I’ve been working with an or- using that word. No one likes feeling vulganization called CAMFED, run by this nerable and uncomfortable and weak. But I amazing woman named Ann Cotton, which really have found that it’s in those moments provides scholarships and money for fami- when I go there that there’s a kind of maglies that traditionally would only send their ic. [The scholar and speaker] Brené Brown sons to school. So Ann would find these does an amazing TED talk about vulneragirls, who were being taken out of school bility, how it’s the single most important at 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, and try to help way of connecting to other human beings. support them—not just through their secondary education, but with small business CHASTAIN: A lot of people talk about loans, all sorts of other things. I had been acting as lying—which I don’t believe— approached by a lot of charitable organiza- because you’re pretending to be someone tions, but I wanted to understand something else. from the inside out, not just dive straight in to being the public face of something, WATSON: Ugh, no! and I wanted to work with a small organiActing is telling the truth unzation. So I took a trip to Zambia with a few friends, and we stayed in the school. der imaginary circumstances. I cannot think of a worse way I sat at the back of classes, and I spoke to the mothers of the daughters who were in to describe acting. Also, I’m the program and in the community, and I the worst liar ever. I rememtried to understand the challenges. And then ber trying to get into clubs U.N. Women asked if I would be a Goodwill Ambassador for women and girls. I when I was just about to turn talk about it in the speech, but I remember 18. They’d ask my age—and watching Hillary Clinton’s genius speech my friends were already in on women’s rights, saying they were human rights, and they showed the audience, the door, it was not even a and there were almost exclusively women big deal—and I was like, “I there. Why do we think that this conversation isn’t something that all human beings can’t do it.” It’s terrible. They need to hear? And they said, “We’d like you were like, “You’re an actress, to make a speech.” I thought, “Oh, god.” I what’s wrong with you? Get it must have spent six months writing it, from together, woman! journal entries that I’d been keeping since I was 12 or 13. [laughs] CHASTAIN: I remember how moving it was. I could feel that you were speaking from your heart. I keep coming back to the word authenticity … CHASTAIN: I was the same way. A friend of mine had an ID, and she gave it to me to WATSON: It’s one of my favorite words. use to go into a club. And the second the guy looked at the ID he goes, “Is this you?” CHASTAIN: It’s interesting that you say And I went, “Nope.” [laughs] that, because that’s what I think of when I think of you. WATSON: Oh, I’m the worst. WATSON: Gosh.

CHASTAIN: When choosing your roles, do you look at the part with a team? Or is it CHASTAIN: I think in society there’s a more instinctual? danger where everyone feels like they have to be the cool one. I don’t feel that with you. WATSON: People sometimes talk about You speak from your heart. And your open me as being a brand, having a strategy and

whatever else. I wish. Seriously. I wish I had it together enough to have a strategy. But it’s so instinctual. It usually comes down to two things: the person I’m working with— the director is really important to me—and a line in a script. There’s usually one line that I read and I’m like, “Okay. I have to say this line. I have to tell this story.” It’s an instant click. And if there isn’t that line, even if the story is great, I’m always a bit meh. Whenever I’ve gone against my instincts, it’s been a bit of a disaster. If there’s a script I’m considering, I will get everyone to read it. I will get my mom to read it, I will get my friends to read it, I’ll get the person doing my manicure to read it. [laughs] I’m someone who really needs to talk things through. And then, obviously, I have a wonderful manager and agents, and I listen very carefully to what they have to say as well. But it’s a bit of a free-for-all. I would honestly get my cat’s opinion if I could. Anyway, if it’s something I need to say, I say it. If it’s something I feel genuinely connected to, then I’ll do it. But I generally feel uncomfortable being the topic of conversation and try to steer away from that. CHASTAIN: The difficult thing with that is that when you play a character that really hits a nerve, then you will be talked about. WATSON: Completely. My friends know this about me, and they’re like, “You realize that’s ridiculous. You’re doing totally the wrong thing.” I’m aware that I’m kind of a paradox, and at times a bit ill-suited to my profession. But there’s something that brings me back. There’s something in me that feels like I have to do this, that this is what I’m meant to be doing. If I didn’t feel this way, I wouldn’t do it. But it’s full of contradictions, for sure. CHASTAIN: Is there anyone who gave you a lasting piece of advice, maybe on acting or how to navigate this social media society? WATSON: I remember being like, “Am I crazy? Am I masochistic? Why am I doing this to myself?” But one of my mentors was like, “In life, things happen. And as much as we can try to fight to make our lives a certain way, there are things that will keep coming back to you, and you have to follow your marching orders.” I think our fears find us and force us to confront them over

and over again. In terms of social media, it’s a minefield! Technology is moving so fast right now. Everyone is scrambling around trying to understand what it means to have an avatar, how to live our lives on the internet, what it means for privacy, for citizens of a political universe. I think that we’re trying to find rules now, as we speak, and it’s difficult. But, like everything, the internet is an incredibly powerful force that needs governing—not to restrict our freedom, but to protect people.

phone and really tried to create serious boundaries from it, because it is addictive. We need to make sure that we are using technology, and technology is not using us.

WATSON: Gosh, I can’t even imagine what it’s like for the generation after me, whose parents document their whole lives as they grow up. It’s kind of crazy to think about how quickly things are changing. Doing this movie, The Circle, made me think about all of this in so much more detail. I read the book first, and I could not stop thinking about it. It’s not like a dystopian future—it could be tomorrow. Someone recently said he thought it was The Truman Show meets The Graduatewith a dash of Kardashians. And I said I would describe the movie as The Social Network meets All About Eve meets Panic Room. The Social Network because it deals with how technology intersects with basic human needs: to feel loved, to feel seen, to feel a connection, to feel that you belong. All About Eve because it deals with the complexity of the female relationship in a patriarchal world; usually there’s only one woman or two women in a boardroom. And Panic Room because it’s intense.

WATSON: Very true. Steve Jobs has a great speech where he talks about how the wrong turns in his life truly set him on the path that he needed to be on. Anyway, what do I do? I bake. I’m pretty competitive about my chocolate chip banana bread. I don’t think anyone can believe how good it is. It’s really on another level. And I hang out with my cat. I love to travel. I went on safari before I did my tour, which I loved. I love to dance. I’m the girl who will get up and dance with zero alcohol in her system. You need give me no excuse. A great song comes on and I’m there; it’s happening.

CHASTAIN: Besides deleting your e-mail, what do you do to relax? When no one’s watching, when no one’s thinking about you as a movie star or as a role model, what do you like to do?

WATSON: When people call me a role model it puts the fear of CHASTAIN: Yours is a very positive message on social media. I god into me, because I feel like I’m destined to fail. can’t help but be grateful that young women have someone like you to look up to, someone who prioritizes education and authen- CHASTAIN: But remember, you can teach people that our failures ticity over the empty calories of what social media can be. are our greatest gifts in life.

CHASTAIN: Have you used technology any differently since making the film? WATSON: Oh my god, yes. I set even more boundaries than I had before between my public and my private lives. It made me think a lot about what I would do if I had children. A lot of children of this generation have their entire lives made public before they have a say about what they would want. I think it should always be a choice. I love social media, and I love what it can do and how it brings people together, but used in the wrong way, it’s incredibly dangerous. And, increasingly, our attention is our most important resource. Before the press tour, I deleted my e-mail app from my

CHASTAIN: What’s your jam? WATSON: I like a lot of hip-hop. Everyone’s always like, “Really? You know all the words to this?” I’m like, “Yes, I do.” And Beyoncé, Gaga. CHASTAIN: You’ve got to get out of the bathtub now, because you’re going to turn into a raisin. WATSON: [laughs] Thank you. See you very soon. Lots of love.

All photo credits: © Photography Peter Lindbergh

JESSICA CHASTAIN IS A GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD–WINNING ACTRESS AND PRODUCER. SHE WILL BE SEEN IN THE UPCOMING FILMS MOLLY’S GAME AND WOMAN WALKS AHEAD. - By Jessica Chastain

Emily Ratajkowski Explores What It Means to Be Hyper Feminine being said, I want to take this opportunity to speak up about what my experience as a woman has been. Two summers ago, while vacationing with my friend and her girlfriend, my friend made an offhand remark about me being “hyper femme.” It kind of threw me because in many ways, probably like anyone would, I felt that her comment was an oversimplification of my identity. In my day-today life, I was not aware of being femme or masc or anything but just me. Her observation surprised me and made me feel suddenly self-conscious. “Sometimes I’m not at all feminine. Come on,” I said.

Before I go any further, let’s state the obvious: I’m a cis white woman. I’m well aware of the privilege I receive as someone who is heteronormative, and I don’t pretend to act like my identity hasn’t made some things easier for me. That

I tend to like to shave, but sometimes letting my body hair grow out is what makesme feel sexy.

All photo credits © Michael Adevon

Freshman year of college at UCLA, I took a gender studies class that I became obsessed with. This class was my first introduction to a bunch of ideas I had never been exposed to: queer theory, the concept of sexuality as being on a sliding scale, and the important distinction between gender and sexuality. At the time I considered myself a staunch feminist and had signed up for the class assuming that I’d learn a lot about women’s lib, feminist rhetoric, and so on. I was shocked by how little I understood about gender, and it made me start to examine my own identity as a woman.

IN A CANDID ESSAY, THE MODEL MAKES THE CASE FOR WHY EVERY WOMAN DESERVES TO BE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND RESPECT— REGARDLESS OF HOW THEY CHOOSE TO PRESENT THEMSELVES TO THE WORLD.

All photo credits © Michael Adevon

She rolled her eyes. Later that night I thought about what it means to be “femme” and why I felt sort of offended by my friend’s remark. The truth is, I thought, I love being feminine. It started young—I remember being 13, maybe even 12, and having a distinct desire to try on lacy bras and thick gooey lip gloss. It felt fun and exciting. Sure, I’m positive that most of my early adventures investigating what it meant to be a girl were heavily influenced by misogynistic culture. Hell, I’m also positive that many of the ways I continue to be “sexy” are heavily influenced by misogyny. But it feels good to me, and it’s my damn choice,

right? Isn’t that what feminism is about—choice? Despite the countless experiences I’ve had in which I was made to feel extremely ashamed and, at times, even gross for playing with sexiness, it felt good to play with my feminine side then, and it still does now. I like feeling sexy in the way that makes me, personally, feel sexy. Period. So why did I take offense at my friend’s remark? What was negative about being called “femme”? I realized then that my feeling was in part because of those countless experiences—experiences in which men and women had told me that if I dressed a certain way I wouldn’t be taken seriously and could even be put in danger. A

middle school teacher’s comment, “You can’t expect anyone to respect you,” echoed through my head. Still, despite all the uncomfortable remarks and warnings, being “sexy” and occasionally hyper feminine grew into something that felt like strength to me. And also, it just felt like me, which was ultimately the most satisfying feeling. As a fully grown woman, I continue to be shocked by how, in 2019, we look down so much on women who like to play with what it means to be sexy. When I was arrested in D.C. protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, a man who has shown a gross amount of disrespect toward women in his life,

the headlines were not about what I was protesting but instead about what kind of shirt I was wearing. Even women from the left, who fully supported the purpose of my protest, made comments about my missing bra underneath my white tank and jeans. In their minds, the fact that my body was at all visible had somehow discredited me and my political action. But why? I often think about this. Why, as a culture, do we insist on separating smart and serious from sexy? Women historically and mythologically have always been considered untrustworthy, threatening, even dangerous. Eve was full of temptation, Medusa

could turn men to stone. Camille Paglia writes in her 1990 book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson: “The female body’s unbearable hiddenness applies to all aspects of men’s dealings with women. What does it look like in there? Did she have an orgasm? Is it really my child? Who was my real father? Mystery shrouds women’s sexuality. This mystery is the main reason for the imprisonment man has imposed on women. Only by confining his wife in a locked harem guarded by eunuchs could he be certain that her son was also his.” As a culture we are scared of women generally, but also, more

All photo credits © Michael Adevon

specifically, of the innate power that female sexuality possesses. A woman becomes too powerful and thus threatening when she takes strength from embracing her sex. Therefore we insist on shaming; we insist that a woman loses something when she flaunts or embraces her sexuality. Sometimes I feel particularly strong and free when I don’t wear a bra under a tank top. That’s just me, in that moment.

portunity for women to exercise their ability to choose—a choice based on how they want to feel and their associations with having or not having body hair. On any given day, I tend to like to shave, but sometimes letting my body hair grow out is what makes me feel sexy. And there is no right answer, no choice that makes me more or less of a feminist, or even a “bad feminist,” to borrow from Roxane Gay.

If I had chosen not to wear that tank without a bra, that would have been okay too. If I decide to shave my armpits or grow them out, that’s up to me. For me, body hair is another op-

Young women are ripped apart from every angle as they grow up. In the era of selfies and social media, they are prone to immediate feedback and criticism. More than ever, they are

doubting and questioning everything about their identities. The one thing they can have is their own choice. Ultimately, however one decides to represent themselves, whether it be heteronormative or completely unidentifiable, is that person’s personal choice. Give women the opportunity to be whatever they want and as multifaceted as they can be. Preconceptions be damned, writes in her 1990 book, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence From Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson: “The female body’s unbearable hiddenness applies to all aspects of men’s dealings with women. What does it look like in there? Did she have an orgasm? Is it real-

All photo credits © Michael Adevon

ly my child? Who was my real father? Mystery shrouds women’s sexuality. This mystery is the main reason for the imprisonment man has imposed on women. Only by confining his wife in a locked harem guarded by eunuchs could he be certain that her son was also his.” As a culture we are scared of women generally, but also, more specifically, of the innate power that female sexuality possesses. A woman becomes too powerful and thus threatening when she takes strength from embracing her sex. Therefore we

insist on shaming; we insist that a woman loses something when she flaunts or embraces her sexuality. Sometimes I feel particularly strong and free when I don’t wear a bra under a tank top. That’s just me, in that moment.

“

Give women the opportunity to be whatever they want and as multifaceted as they can be.

choice based on how they want mediate feedback and criticism. to feel and their associations More than ever, they are doubt with having or not having body - BY hair. On any given day, I tend MIGUEL ENAMORADO to like to shave, but sometimes letting my body hair grow out is what makes me feel sexy. And there is no right answer, no choice that makes me more If I had chosen not to wear that or less of a feminist, or even a tank without a bra, that would “bad feminist,” to borrow from have been okay too. If I decide Roxane Gay. to shave my armpits or grow them out, that’s up to me. For Young women are ripped apart me, body hair is another op- from every angle as they grow portunity for women to exer- up. In the era of selfies and socise their ability to choose—a cial media, they are prone to im-

A HURRICANE INSIDE MY VEINS

ALL CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES BALENCIAGA

DRESS DAVID KOMA, NECKLACE HATTON LABS, GLOVES ERMANNO SCERVINO

ALL CLOTHING CALVIN KLEIN 205W39NYC

DIOR, SOCKS YANG LI, SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

ALL CLOTHING GIVENCHY

TOP NEIL BARRETT, JACKET DIOR, GLOVES ERMANNO SCERVINO, TROUSERS DSQUARED2, SHOES CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

JACKET AKRIS, BRA DAVID KOMA

HAT RUSLAN BAGINSKY, SUNGLASSES PRADA, DRESS DSQUARED2, GLOVES YANG LI

PHOTOGRAPHY: PAUL SCALA FASHION: KAMRAN RAJPUT HAIR AND MAKEUP: - SKY CRIPPS-JACKSON AT BRYANT ARTISTS USING MR SMITH HAIRCARE AND ILIA MAKEUP MODEL: LORENA MARASCHI AT NEXT MODELS 47

Ableism &

Body Shaming

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Feminism does not tolerate ableism; it prioritizes body positivity. Feminism does not critique leaders for their appearance, but rather critiques their bad politics and disregard for human rights

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It’s been a while since I participated in the Women’s March on Washington, and I still can’t get some of the chants out of my head. Some of them were old favorites, like the call and response, “Show me what Democracy looks like?” to which the crowd calls back, “This is what Democracy looks like!” and, “My body, my choice!” But others weren’t quite as grounded in feminist values. These are the chants I really can’t get out of my head, the ones that both aggressively caught on and completely missed the point. One in particular that I’m referring to here is, “Tiny hands, tiny feet, all he does is tweet, tweet, tweet!” (“He”, of course, refers to Donald Trump.) At first this may sound like a funny (and appropriate) chant; the president has often been criticized for his tiny hands and his constant tweeting. Additionally, as I was recently mansplained by someone who thought my criticism stemmed from me not “getting” the chant, the president’s history of sexual assault combined with his comments about being “well endowed” make the notion of his having “tiny feet” certainly comical for many chanters. But, when we think critically about chants like this—does this rhetoric actually further the feminist agenda? Those intent on defending the chant to me have claimed that the purpose of ridiculing Trump’s tiny hands and “tiny feet” was to call him out for his history of sexually assault-ing women, but in less explicit terms. Yet, it is illogical to make fun of someone for having tiny hands in order to make it seem ridiculous that someone with Trump’s body type

could have committed the egregious acts of harassment the President has been accused of upon numerous occasions. Firstly, that’s invalidating to everyone who has come for-ward and reported their assaults (which can have a very real and traumatic impact). Secondly, there is no specific powerful stature that makes someone a more legitimate rapist than someone else; all kinds of people—whether tiny-handed or not, well endowed or not, or literally tiny-footed or not—are capable of committing sexual assault. And it’s never a trivial matter. There are a number of ways to perhaps make the president seem less scary or to address his horrible treatment of women. However, it is certainly not constructive to do so in a superficial way that engages the Trumpian rhetoric that people with some body types are more valuable or powerful than others. Indeed, to do so is to create nothing more than cheap humor. Some might consider chants like these a way of beating Trump at his own game—of making him lose even the ridiculous competitions of manliness and power that he creates, of showing him no one’s buying his bullshit. Further, chants that take cheap shots at Trump’s “tiny hands” and “tiny feet” encourage people like the white man be-hind me at the March to begin yelling things like, “Trump is a tiny handed freak!” and “Trump has a tiny Pence!” Although, thankfully, those chants did not catch on, it’s easy to see why making fun of Trump’s hands and “feet” pave the way for

such thoughtless-ness in what was meant to be a feminist space. Something we don’t often think about is how what just seems like words can be ableist and But the point of our feminism is that we are not playing his game. The size of someone’s genitals is absolutely unrelated to their character, their ability to commit sexual assault, or their influence. To even engage with that idea goes against the values the feminist movement has been attempt-ing to cultivate for so long. harmful to individuals with what media outlets paint as unconventional body types. We, as feminists, as people marching for human rights, should aim to set the standard for political discourse—a standard that certainly should not encourage idealized norms of how bodies should look or make anyone feel uncomfortable in their own skin. It’s important to remember that, during such a volatile and honestly toxic time, we need to prioritize the values of our movement. Feminism does not tolerate ableism; it prioritizes body positivity. Feminism does not critique leaders for their appearance, but rather critiques their bad politics and disregard for human rights. As feminists, we need to ac-knowledge that our words have consequences—and it is important not to trivialize harmful discourse for some cheap laughs at the president. As Michelle Obama says, “When they go low, we go high.” It’s time to make a commitment to that, to remain critical of our movement, and to continue making progress together. - Emily Hagstrom

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PRINCESS is

here

Photography Adam Whitehead Fashion Toni-Blaze Hair

Opulence is all you need at this time of year. Thighhigh boots with a gown.? Suiting with a soft feather trim? Anything goes in this fashion editorial as long as itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s outlandish.

Yuuki Yanese Makeup Sharon Drugan Lighting assistant Keir Laird Digital technician Henry Huntingford Fashion assistants Rosie Sykes and Georgia Lewandowski Model Manuela Sanchez @ Vila

Top MIU MIU, Blouse BROGNANO, Dress FAUSTO PUGLISI, Shoes SOPHIA WEBSTER

Earrings VICKI SARGE, Top CLIO PEPPIATT, Blazer and trousers 16 ARLINGTON, Shoes ERDEM

Hat, bodysuit, coat and shoes MOSCHINO, Tights CHANEL

Hat CHANEL, Shirt VERSACE, Vest SANNE LONDON

Dress NO.2, Top JIL SANDER, Belt GUCCI, Earrings VICKI SARGE, Bracelet SWAROVSKI, Boots MANOLO BLAHNIK

Hat CHANEL, Shirt VERSACE, Vest SANNE LONDON, Trousers GIORGIO ARMANI, Boots FENDI

Hat and bodysuit MOSCHINO

Dress GUCCI, Earrings VICKI SARGE

P OW E R F U L FEMINITY ILLUSTRATIONS BY SARA ANDREASSON Sara Andreasson’s girl is cool, honest and doesn’t give a fuck. She defies traditional connotations of femininity with an effortless nonchalance, as comfortable in her jogging pants as in her own skin. And of course, she does not fear pink. Block shapes and mismatched colours with a playfully sexual underlayer. We talk art and feminism with the digital artist behind these unique illustrations. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background? How did you come to be an illustrator? I grew up in a sleepy town in Sweden, and I guess you could say that I spent my childhood pretty much like I spend my days now, dividing my time between drawing pictures of pretty things and devoting myself to assorted more or less serious projects. But to be honest, I never really planned for a career like this. I didn’t think illustration was something you could actually be working on full-time (at least not someone like me), but it turns out that I was completely wrong. What happened was that my illustrations started going viral on social media, and before I knew it somebody had offered me money to do what I was doing anyway. So me being able to work with something I love is just a question of sheer luck. You studied Product Design and Engineering, and then decided to pursue illustration. What changed your mind? Yeah, I did. I applied for that program when I was 18 years old and without really knowing what engineering was. But it didn’t take long before I came to the conclusion that I would rather die than spend the rest of my life in an office space, working nine to five. Ugh, the mere thought makes me cringe. I’m a restless person, and working with short projects like I do now suits me perfectly. Also, I really enjoy being my own boss.

You also create furniture. Tell us more about this. What do you feel are the biggest creative differences between the two distinct mediums? The best thing about creating furniture is seeing a pile of wood boards transform into something completely different. But frankly, the process takes way too much time for my taste. Designing furniture with Johanna Berg has been amazing though, since we balance each other out so well. She is a total perfectionist while I want everything to happen as fast as possible. Now that I am going solo, speed counts and I guess that’s one of the main reasons why I’m focusing on images instead of object these days. I would really love to combine the two sometime soon though. Do you have any other hidden creative talents? I’m trying to learn how to tie a knot with a cherry stem, only using tongue and teeth. That’s a creative talent, right? (Laughs). But seriously, the design school I studied at is sort of post-disciplinary, which means that I have been able to move across disciplines and switch from furniture to graphic design and back again in the blink of an eye. This has suited me very well, since I’ve never been able to make up my mind and stick to one thing. Obviously. So, yeah, I guess I have a bag full of hidden talents. More about your illustrations – the use of clear shapes and bold, block colours is very characteristic of your work. What drew you to this style? For some reason, I find this type of question really hard to answer, since I don’t give style too much thought. But I suppose the fact that I work digitally has affected me a great deal. As a child I could work on the same image in MS Paint for days, and discovering Photoshop as a teenager was such a revelation. I have always enjoyed the dynamics of it. Moving pieces around and changing colours is a big part of my process, which would be really time consuming if I worked on paper, for example. Many of your illustrations portray girls, always in hoodies and sports clothes, looking very chilled and relaxed. Do you feel your own personality and personal style is reflected in these characters?

I’m a restless person, and working with short projects like I do now suits me perfectly.

Yes, I guess that my personal taste is a big part of it, but most of all it’s a question of representation and presenting an alternative to

what we see on a day to day basis. I am so fed up with the prevailing ideals of beauty. Actually, someone recently remarked that the women in my illustrations weren’t feminine enough (according to his idea of femininity). Such a weird comment. What inspires you? All the female/queer separatist movements that are emerging right now. I do believe that it is important for us to create an independent, solid community and a safe environment for women in the arts. The word ‘feminist’ is used a lot in today’s culture, always with different connotations and inferences. What does feminism mean to you? First of all, I’m happy to see that the word feminism is being used in a multitude of ways and contexts these days. Inequality is a complex problem, and therefore I think it is a good thing that people are dealing with it in many different ways. For me, feminism is about overthrowing the power structures that reduce people’s freedom to live up to their full potential. It’s about raising awareness of privilege, and to actually do something about it. To me, everything is politics. You’ve just exhibited at the London Print Studio and have a few more shows in the works. Will it be just your illustrations on show or also your other projects? No, it’s just my illustrations, but I hope that there will be more opportunities to show BBY magazine in the future. What do you like about having your work printed and on show as a tangible piece rather than being displayed on the internet? I’m going to be really honest here and say: not much. To me, the internet is as real as anything and the accessibility and democracy of it is more important to me than seeing a piece of art AFK. For instance, when I am selling prints, I have to charge a whole lot more than I would like to due to printing costs and shipping and so on, which means that a lot of people can’t afford to buy a copy. Also, I work as an illustrator, and my personal projects are just an extension of this profession. It’s important to me that those images are considered illustrations and not art, since that of course affects the interpretation. This is something that I find difficult to communicate once the images are exhibited in a gallery. What does the future hold for you (outside of your exhibitions)? Are you working on any new projects? What would you like to achieve in the world of illustration? I have been working day and night for almost a year, and all I wish for right now is a vacation, but before I can relax there are a couple of projects that have to be completed. For example, we will launch the second issue of BBY magazine, and I think it I’m trying to learn how to tie a knot with a cherry stem, only using tongue and teeth. That’s a creative talent, right? (Laughs). But seriously, the design school I studied at is sort of post-disciplinary, which means that I have been able to move across disciplines and switch from fur-

niture to graphic design and back again in the blink of an eye. This has suited me very well, since I’ve never been able to make up my mind and stick to one thing. Obviously. So, yeah, I guess I have a bag full of hidden talents. I have to charge a whole lot more than I would like to due to printing costs and shipping and so on, which means that a lot of people can’t afford to buy a copy. Also, I work as an illustrator, and my personal projects are just an extension of this

profession. It’s important to me that those images are considered illustrations and not art, since that of course affects the interpretation. This is something that I find difficult to communicate once the images are exhibited in a gallery. Other than that, I’m working on a couple of commercial projects that include animation but I’m afraid I can’t tell you any details on that just yet… - BY Amrita Pal

All things

BRIGHT We’re flagging bright, bold and brilliant as your default mood right now, thanks to this fashion editorial and there’s no holding back when it comes to after-dark ensembles.

BIMPE WEARS DRESS 16 ARLINGTON, T-SHIRT RICHARD MALONE, SKIRT PETER PETROV, HEADBANDS MIU MIU, SHOES STELLA MCCARTNEY TOSIN WEARS BLOUSE AND TROUSERS MULBERRY, DRESS KATE SPADE, EARRINGS VINTAGE DIOR FROM SUSAN CAPLAN, HEADSCARF GUCCI, SHOES HOUSE OF HOLLAND

Over-the-knee boots come in utilitarian shapes but in the softest, butter-pink leathers. Elsewhere, zebra-print sequins, clashing shades, and tacky kitsch accessories take over.

SHIRT MIU MIU, SHORTS FENG CHEN WANG, HEADSCARF VALENTINO, EARRINGS SIMONE ROCHA, BODY CHAIN PEBBLE LONDON, NECKLACE VINTAGE NINA RICCI FROM SUSAN CAPLAN, SUNGLASSES MARC JACOBS AT SAFILO, SOCKS PRADA, SHOES MULBERRY

BIKINI EMMA PAKE, BOOTS NATASHA ZINKO, EARRINGS THE PINK PIGLET COLLECTION

TROUSERS STELLA MCCARTNEY AT BROWNS, BODYSUIT COCO DE MER, HAT GUCCI, RINGS PEBBLE LONDON, SHOES VIVIENNE WESTWOOD FOR MELISSA

BOOTS NATASHA ZINKO

SHIRT MIU MIU, SHORTS FENG CHEN WANG, HEADSCARF VALENTINO, EARRINGS SIMONE ROCHA, BODY CHAIN PEBBLE LONDON, NECKLACE VINTAGE NINA RICCI FROM SUSAN CAPLAN,

SUNGLASSES MARC JACOBS AT SAFILO

BIMPE WEARS RAINCOAT MARNI, SKIRT ALEXANDER MCQUEEN AT BROWNS, BLOUSE KATE SPADE, EARRINGS THE PINK PIGLET

COLLECTION + TOSIN WEARS BLAZER AND SHORTS HOUSE OF HOLLAND, BLOUSE KATE SPADE, EARRINGS THE PINK PIGLET COLLECTION

SKIRT DOLCE & GABBANA AT BROWNS, BLOUSE RICHARD QUINN, CHAIN BELT AND EARRINGS VINTAGE GIVENCHY FROM SUSAN CAPLAN

BIMPE WEARS DRESS 16 ARLINGTON, TEE RICHARD MALONE, SKIRT PETER PETROV, HEAD BANDS MIU MIU, SHOES STELLA MCCARTNEY + TOSIN WEARS BLOUSE AND TROUSERS MULBERRY, DRESS KATE SPADE, HEADSCARF GUCCI

PHOTOGRAPHY PIXIE LEVINSON STYLING CELIA ARIAS PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT LAIMONUS STASIULIS STYLING ASSISTANT GALATEA FERNANDEZ ART DIRECTION + CASTING RACHEL CAPLAN @ CAPLAN & SMITH MAKEUP EMILY MERGAERT USING MAC COSMETICS AND EVOLVE SKINCARE HAIR ALEX SZABO USING MARIA NILA HAIRCARE MODELS TOSIN @ SELECT, BIMPE @ PREMIER 71

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short feminist stories project

SOURCE:HEBREW STORY 1

THE SAD AND AMBITIOUS GIRLS OF THE PROVINCE INTRODUCTION BY YAARA SHEHORI “We were once children/ but that is of course a lie” Nurit Zarchi wrote in a poem titled “The Tattooed Ship” and there is reason to wonder what we are lying about. In Zarchi’s stories, when the truth is diverted from the inner world to the world of actualities, it is pushed aside under various pretexts; it is too much and too little, it doesn’t correspond to some sort of popular opinion or good taste. And about the poem, is the lie that we ever did, somewhere, have a childhood? Or is the lie in the presumption that childhood had ever ended? That there is this “once”? Does childhood continue in the bodies that have grown, some acquiring beauty while others ungainliness. Bella, the protagonist of “The Sad and Ambitious Province Girls”, the story with the Chekhovian title, is not a child. Not even a young girl perhaps. She is a woman and a mother. But the world still seems to see her as a child. Those who come across her doubt the fact that she herself could have children, which insinuates – the ability to reproduce and become part of the existing order. But Bella herself discovered the secret of reducing the world in childhood (which is of course the opposite of multiplying). Then “she discovered that if you put pressure on the bottom of your eyelid, everything becomes smaller, grows distant – the classroom, the children, the teacher – until it spreads across the eye.” It seems as if this relation remains for her the primary relation. But not everything scatters. Not immediately. Because Bella, a province girl who has been placed in the city, finds herself facing the fluttering heart of things. The days are days of war, probably the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, and Bella works in the archives of a daily newspaper. She cuts out photographs and articles from the newspaper with her scissors. Bereaved parents come to the archive, like pilgrims, trying to use photographs that appeared only yesterday in the newspaper to identify their son’s blurred portrait. Repudiate the facts. Question the actuality of their soldier son being missing or dead.

Bella believes that the main thing is to live. But that truth is pushed aside in the name of values that are considered nobler, more cultured. “Nonsense,” she is told, “The main thing is how you live.” It is this claim, which is made on the grounds of culture and values and tastefulness, on the grounds of the fine and the worthy, which Zarchi questions. Because Nurit Zarchi, like her protagonists, who will speak the English of the kibbutz even if they do fraternize with fairies, knows where the difference lies. She is enchanted by the beauty, but not by the fine and the good. To her, life will always be better than death and the need to breathe stronger than the “how” to breathe, than the “should be” and “what everyone does” that peeps from underneath what seemingly stands to reason. And there is a reason for this being one of her most political stories. In Zarchi’s work, the world sometimes has to reduce itself and become blurred only so that we can find a way to live in it. Even if we do confront various Frankenstein-like creatures, made of memory, old newspapers and popular opinions, eventually, the world does exist. But that, of course, may also be just a lie. Bella loved it, to drive through the sleepy burnt out city, nothing but a few lit windows; and outside the darkness, thin and tangible. This time she was completely guilt free, despite leaving her two babies behind. She knew she would never have made it to the newsroom without the warm transport vehicle consigned to her because of the war. Thanks to the transport vehicle, her life had recently deviated from the private circle. What could a young woman who had completed half a BA in Philosophy work as? In one of those conversations between friends, which usually never come to much but comfort, Tami unintentionally recruited her to the war machine. The lights illuminated in the newsroom with a practical air, as if they would never turn off.

No, no. She had no interest in her puddle or in Dickens. And Lev, she wasn’t thinking about him either, thank God, she had a husband and two girls, and now she had a war. She wasn’t listening to music from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the film she had seen years ago with Lev. Who would listen to those umbrellas at this hour, and after ten years had passed? * Inquiry Committee:

“

You claim you loved him. What did you mean when you said that?

“

“Hey Bell,” Tami called out loudly, to overcome the noise of the teleprinters. She was anxious. “They’re already crossing. They’re crossing right now. It’s started.” Bella stood still. Her codes were not yet calibrated. A moment later, the head of the newsroom appeared and snatched the teleprinter paper from her hand. Everyone followed him from the newsroom to the corridor, explaining-excusing-describing the outbreak of war: “Finally.” “It’s a disaster.” “It will only take a few days, just wait and see, wait and see.” Bella stepped into the archives’ room. In the few weeks she had worked there, she became familiar with the photographs crammed into the metal lockers, enticing frames of classified photographs. She, who spent her whole life dismissing names such as Tito, Foster Dallas and Macmillan, as bothersome details she had no interest in; or Isfahan, Uzbekistan, Rajasthan, Rotterdam and Mont Blanc as obscure somewheres on the world map, while she was the axis point, now had to admit that the proof of their existence was undeniable. “Bella,” someone shouted out of the newsroom, “Quick, come here, hurry, we need photos for the special edition.” Real life grew thicker, abandoning the Bella axis, spreading above her like the wave that follows the wave that you barely managed to raise your head above. And Bella, relieved, gave her disturbing marriage and demanding guilt-laden motherhood up to the flames of war. “We didn’t know if we would make it this time,” Bella recited with a certain solace that came from using the plural form. Her husband was not drafted but she, Bella Hashimshoni, had finally joined the public domain or, even more – the nation. * Once, Bella went into a cinema in summer, wearing summery uniform, and came out in winter. Through the sliding door of the changing seasons, Jeanne Moreau, Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo invaded. Outside there was the smell of rain and the world started over in the rolling wind – the cars moved across the flooded roads like colorful toys, and in the jungle, she was certain, multicolored parrots washed their dusty love coats, and all because she went to a film with Lev. When they went in he was a soldier in a unit from the next-door office and when they came out he was her love. Lev, the young man who was removed from the calendar: a foreign accent that attested to a place of birth that wasn’t here; narrow yellow eyes, perhaps of Kirghizian origin; a tall frame that went out of his control and could be dragged over the railing. You could use Bella as an ad for railings. You’d like to know if she was justified in that? She was. Now, in comparison to the war, everything was diminished like an eye of a needle. Bella wasn’t used to that. Her life was usually expanded with the help of experts, like expanding a puddle to find the pearl that plunged into it. In her heart, Bella wasn’t sure she ever did possess that pearl of pearls, but the experts said it was because she refused to look inside. Bella once told one of them about it, and he laughed and said she would put Dickens to shame. We wouldn’t want to shame Dickens. Neither did Bella, especially now, just as she was about to be called into the newsroom.

The word lingered around me before I knew Lev. I think it fitted the feeling. Describe in what way. It was summer and we went in… We’ve already heard that. It’s not an answer. Try again. The skies grew wide and open. The flowers had drawn their hearts. Colors were born and became clearer. The wind was sweeter. The skin no longer hurt. Water rippled from the stone in your chest. The body was filled with movement. Time passed painlessly, as if it were alive. What does that have to do with Lev? How silly. Lev caused it. How? A wonder. And that’s why you thought he was the right man for you? What does that have to do with it? Lev was strange. He increased my sense of strangeness, my insecurity. See the abovementioned matter of the railing. Perhaps sharing the insecurity is what gave you the wonderful feeling you were talking about. Are you trying to tell me there’s no love in the world? It’s your story, Baby. Riddle Committee Why didn’t you want to wait for Lev and then, for years later, cried every time you remembered him? I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t know then how to recognize what love was. Maybe I didn’t really love him. Maybe I was afraid because of it. And maybe it was a fantasy that was created retrospectively. Why do you need this fantasy? Perhaps it isn’t a fantasy? How can you tell? How can you tell? But everything is a fantasy. The pain was real. You could swear on it. One day they’ll proba-

bly measure it too. When did the pain start? That’s between God and me. Please, you have no right to interfere. Joke Committee First Abimelech and then Saul and then David and then Joseph, and when you thought they’d leave you, and you always did, you wanted to die. That’s right. When I thought that they loved me it was like a survival drug. How could that be true? Your heart, the heart in your body, is a joke. So why aren’t I laughing? Summary Committee Honestly, what do you need all these committees for? It’s the origin of the species, my Darwinism. The Columbusism, the Archimedianism, the Copernicism, the Sahara, the Antarctic. Some say that Newton was more in the right than Einstein. I’m the laboratory of that which is. This is my inquiry in the world. And I research. * There were three clerks in the archives: Yulia didn’t come to work on the second day of the war, when her cousin died. He had lost his mother and Yulia was, to a great extent, like a mother to him. This was how Yulia excused her absence, with puffy eyes, as if only a cousin wasn’t a good enough reason. Shoshi resigned because of weak nerves. It was on the third day of the war, maybe the fourth – Bella couldn’t keep track anymore, working at night and unable to sleep during the day – after the first parents arrived. “We saw him in the newspaper,” they said. “Please show us the Thursday paper; it was his face, behind one of the soldiers, see? Here, this is his cheek, no doubt about it. They told us he had gone missing, but that’s clearly a mistake. The Thursday paper. The Thursday paper. Send it to UNICEF. Urgently! Now! You hear? It’s a terrible mistake. You can’t find the photograph? That’s impossible. We saw him. You don’t have time now? That’s impossible! It’s my son, you hear? Look for it quickly. Right now. Are you listening?”

“

Bella started crying

“

The photographs opposite her on the table, newspapers that hadn’t yet been cut, the list of photographers on the wall. “Shma’aya, you’re certain that’s the photographer? This airplane is in one piece; you can clearly make out the letters

on the wing. It’s from Monday. You said so yourself, look: it says the tenth. That’s Monday. Any idiot can see. So how could they say he disappeared on Sunday if they took a photograph of him in the air on Monday?” “Here, look through the magnifying glass yourself.” “Sir, I was here before you.” “My son, they say he was taken captive. Yes, on Sunday, but of course it’s obviously a mistake.” The newsroom went silent. The woman who had walked in hesitantly took one step forward and shouted, “Captivity, Sir, and you’re arguing? Captivity is alive, alive, don’t you get it? My son,” and she fainted. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, a week, a fortnight. Bella stopped counting. She was in limbo, unable to distinguish between day and night. “Give me the newspaper. You see the hand with the watch? It’s his watch, we bought it for his Bar Mitzvah. You know, he was a different child, but no one ever shouted at him because he had this charming smile. He has a baby. Do you understand? A baby. Do you know what it’s like to grow up without a father, young lady? Do you know anything at all about this life?” * Regarding her daughters, Bella had decided, and informed her husband, that they would have a happy life. We’ll start from the basics: First, they won’t move apartments each year, like some of us do. Second, their parents will make an effort not to die before the girls reach an appropriate age. Did they have to leave the kibbutz? Did they have to go away to Stockholm for work? Come back and buy an apartment in Rishon, because it was cheaper there? Go back to Stockholm when they were invited? The little one still talks two languages, in her husband’s opinion, or no clear language, as Bella defines it – that, in her opinion, is the more responsible way of putting it. But he

believes it just venerates her half-glass method. And the older one? Bella used to think that her daughter had identified her parents’ weak spot and used it to control them efficiently. Lately, she began realizing that the child was petrified. In her book of guilt, the approval signatures of both girls already appeared, even though Bella never neglected them, not even for a minute, and took them wherever she went; that was also registered against her, sealed by the stamp attached by the two girls. The drawing of the hot-air balloon above their bed, the birthdays on the beach or watching the world wake up at dawn apparently did nothing to lighten the verdict. The thought clung like a sick monkey and wouldn’t let go of her brain’s diverticula. * When Bella was in elementary school she discovered that if you put pressure on the bottom of your eyelid everything becomes smaller, grows distant – the classroom, the children, the teacher – until it spreads across the eye. That’s what Bella felt like now. Everything was small besides the room with the dusty windows that were not to be opened to the street, which grew and grew. The papers kept coming in, Bella kept cutting the photos. The photographers sent the photos from the local and international agencies. With her every breathe a soldier was killed in the north or the south and, in Bella’s office, parents, sisters and other relatives appeared. Bella wanted to stop breathing. She completely gave up on cutting the photographs out or sorting them. The office was filled with newspapers and photographs: on the desk, the metal shelves, the stands laden with drawers; in the outgoing mail basket and the incoming mail basket. And the people who came in descended on them like wounded vultures. Management, Bella assumed, preferred not to say anything and was simply happy that there was someone sitting in the office when the searchers arrived. “It’s his eye, I’m sure, by the eyebrow. Here is his elbow, can’t you see? He had a small scar, here, use the magnifying glass. Don’t you remember he fell off the bicycle on his birthday, then, when…?” Bella closed her ears.

you think you are or once were. She didn’t like that feeling, as though she’d seen a ghost. Was it because she remembered and the appearance seemed false? Or was it actually because she had no image of her own inside her, or had forgotten, making every semblance seem implausible? There she is on the beach, very thin. It was her honeymoon. She had seldom been more miserable. Perhaps because she knew she was supposed to be happy. There is her husband. She remembered she couldn’t look him in the face then, but here he looks very cute and young – she examined his face carefully – even happy. And here were the girls. Beautiful babies. Or perhaps only in her eyes? But these babies, where were they? deep inside her grownup girls? Bella felt great loneliness whenever she looked at this pile of pictures – she never arranged them in an album – as if they held false hope that there would be a second chance, as though they offered promise that there used to be a past. And as for the testimony, what value did it have when the witness was long since not who he used to be. * “Mr. Hermon,” said Bella, “I want it to stop immediately. Right now. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the important thing is that they stop dying. Right now.” Mr. Hermon was one of the newspaper’s owners and both his sons were at the front. There was no sign of life from either. In the first days, when they just waited for the war, Mr. Hermon would come in every day, after writing the editorial column, sit down on a chair next to Yulia’s desk and teach her the ways of life: where to buy tiles; which institution to send your child to; which medication to use for the common cold and which to use for an allergy; and what would be the fate of the government if the municipal master plan was accepted. Sometimes, Mr. Hermon would invite Yulia and her husband, along with the child, to his house for Friday night dinner with Mrs. Hermon and himself.

“What does she look like?” Bella had asked at the time. “Ah,” said Yulia waving her hand. “Ah.” * Yulia hadn’t been at the archives in a long time. Bella would wan“Mommy, mommy, get up! It’s lunchtime. Come, see. Daddy’s takder down the corridor office entrances and call out, “Where are ing pictures of us in costumes.” “What? No way. That’s out of the question. Stop it right now. Right my scissors? Has anyone seen my scissors?” The scissors would disappear every morning. Mr. Hermon, like the scissors, was an now, you hear?” inheritance passed down by Yulia. He would come every morning “Mom, but you said…” “It doesn’t matter what I said. That was before. You hear? No photo- and sit on the chair opposite the desk that was now hers. Bella didn’t know what to say to him. Sometimes he’d ask after Yulia graphs. Nothing of the sort.” and then return to his office on the upper floor. “But Mom…” From the corner of her eye, Bella saw her husband staring at her. Then she apologized, and apologized again. And her husband gave her that familiar look of his, the look you give a lost cause. * Did the soul remain in the photos? Bella didn’t like photography, but she never gave it much thought before arriving at the photograph archives. You look at what

Now Mr. Hermon looked at her from the pinnacle of his silence. “Out of the question,” he said. “It’s because of people like you that we find ourselves in the same place time and again.” “But…” Bella didn’t want to complete the sentence.

cinema would seek her guidance. Bella realized that Tami had added her own pile of worry to the general distress with a sense of relief. Like those who, in the biblical desert, had given up their jewelry. In the depths of her heart, she recognized the system. “Bella,” Tami called out of the teleprinter room, “Are we going for a coffee during the break?” “No,” said Bella, “Of course not.” She already imagined what the day held in store for her. “Don’t you know there’s a war?” “You don’t say, Bellinka. If you have a coffee, the battle is lost. Who do you think you are? Be happy that you still have enough life in you in the meantime to Mr. Hermon answered the part she had left drink coffee.” out: “It’s not a private matter. It goes far Bella stopped. She saw the pile of new beyond that. It’s the fate of the country, newspapers already left by the delivery don’t you realize?” boy at the door. “What you don’t realize is that the people “You know what?” she said to Tami , more who have died won’t come back to life like out of shame than enthusiasm, “Okay, let’s film stars at the end of a movie.” go.” “You’re spoiled and don’t know what it * means to be without a country. This gener- Bella hadn’t been outdoors during these ation, you all lack self-respect.” hours in a while. A bright noon sun shed Bella wasn’t sure if it would be right to its golden light on the ficus trees and the say “The dead praise not the Lord” at that colorful clothes of the café customers sitpoint. First, because Mr. Hermon would ting on the pavement. Bella had forgotten doubt the strength of her suddenly acthat the world had that colorful capability quired faith. Second, because she thought to surprise. it was unfair to use God to explain someShe sat at a small table. thing so obvious. And so she said, “The “They have the best espresso in Tel Aviv important thing is to live.” and marvelous cakes that you can’t find “Nonsense,” said Mr. Hermon – everyone anywhere else in town,” said Tami. in the office was always careful to add the Bella didn’t usually go into cafés. In the Mr. – “The important thing is how you town where she lived there were a few live.” And he left, wrapping the cloak of kiosks and a simple restaurant. Here it his silence after him. was the big city, Tel aviv. No wonder that * during her life before the war she felt such In the middle of the night, when Bella tedium and emptiness. But how could it arrived at the office, Tami would poke her be that in the war, when those parents are head out of the teleprinter room. “Good soon going to appear in her office, golden morning, Bell.” Her voice would stretch channels of gaiety were still flowing? She gaily down the bleak corridor. Bella was didn’t know if she should look on the café surprised each time. She had her own theo- customers as traitors or if it was a kind of ry about Tami and her bright mood. big city dwellers’ irony. Everyone in the newsroom whispered “Espresso,” said Tami. “Two. And Cake. behind her back that her husband was Bell, which cake are you taking? It’s my a spy in a country whose name everytreat.” one, including Tami, was forbidden from Bella looked over the desserts on the menu knowing. They said that he couldn’t make and, wanting to fully identify with the contact for extended periods, leaving Tami urban vibe and Tami’s genuine or false to keep herself happy. Parties, jazz, sport frivolousness, she pointed to the cake with clubs, films she would watch diligently. the strangest name. Tami had seen all the films showing in “Are you sure?” asked Tami. town and whoever wanted to go to the Bella nodded. Only later, in the newsroom,

did she realize what Tami’s expression had meant – it was the most expensive cake on the menu. Bella put her foot in the rules of the world. She couldn’t apologize immediately, because she might be mistaken. She couldn’t go on thinking about it all day long, because when she got back two mothers were fighting over a photograph in the office. They both recognized their missing sons in the same soldier. And there were other cases like that. At the end of the day, when she remembered the café, a shudder of shame ran through her body. * Bella arrived at night with the van and went back in the day. She could no longer tell whether today was today, yesterday or tomorrow. The war wasn’t over. The number of missing soldiers grew each day, and so did the number of the missing soldiers’ family members. From UNESCO, UNRWA, the Government Press Office and the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit they phoned and sent messengers and photographs. The newspapers kept stacking up on the metal cabinet and the photographs on her desk. They slid to the floor. They filled the office. Every time she tried putting things in order, the photo seekers would come and scatter everything. Bella sat in her office as if she didn’t exist. The visitors circled around her, and she observed their sorrow. * It was either morning or evening. Someone was at the door. Bella raised her eyes from the desk. Before registering the narrow yellow eyes she felt the blow inside her. The war brought him to her. The ones who didn’t die lived. Bella stood up and didn’t move. Lev walked up to her and placed the back of his hand on her cheek, as she remembered; it was a lighter color than his complexion and its touch was fresh and life-enshrouding, like a large leaf. “How did you find me? How did you know I was here? How did you know to find me here?” Lev stretched his hand out to her. Bella began crying quietly, as though a stone was beginning to dissolve inside her. The softer her face became under the flow of tears, hidden in his embrace, the more she felt the strength of her sorrow that came to life. Lev moved her away for a moment, wiped

her cheeks with his palms. “Hey, Shimshon,” he said and drew her back to him. “You finally came,” Bella muttered into his coat. “Really. You’re telling me. I’ve been hitchhiking for the past two nights.”

“All that, was it awful?” asked Bella. Lev placed his finger on her mouth. “Shhh…” he said. “You’re here and I’m here.” * The sand was damp but they paid it no heed. On the beach, there was no one besides them and the sprays of water created a sort of mist. Every one of his touches untangled a string of tears in her. “Oh-ho,” said Lev, “And you’re still crying?” that was the same sentence he said in astonishment then, when they had left the cinema. “Yes,” said Bella, “Yes, you know I can’t bare sad endings.” “As if that was the only awful thing in the world,” he said and added, “I’m tired. My eyes are closing. I want to fall asleep here next to you and never wake up. Only first…” And Bella moved her hands over his eyelids. After crying, Bella laughed, and then a great silence rose within her. She had never before felt how her body can take her to that place. “And the same skin,” said Lev, “I remember. It’s stayed so smooth.” “I love you,” said Bella. And Lev shut her mouth, this time with his lips. When she opened her eyes she was astounded to see that on the beach right next to them a huge submarine had risen from the sea, all its lights aglow. With great relief she realized that there could actually be something so powerful that wasn’t her responsibility. Rain began to trickle, very light and short, a sort of insinuation. Bella said, “Like then, when we left the cinema.” She didn’t know if Lev remembered or if he had even noticed. And Lev said, “No. Never like then. Because you’re married and I’m…” Bella said, “But now you’re back.” And Lev said, “I’ve only come to visit.” And Bella said, “How? How? Can’t you see that we’re just…? You can’t give up on life.” And Lev said, “I already gave up once. No. It was you who gave up.” “Me?” “There’s no point in arguing,” said Lev. And Bella said, “But Lev, this is our life. We made a mistake. So what, can’t we fix it?” “It’s late,” said Lev. “Late for what? Late for living?” “Baby. I love you,” said Lev, “Always remember that,” and he shoved her cold hands into his pockets. “I don’t care,” said Bella, putting together the conclusions of the joke, riddle and inquiry committees. “I want to be with you in the

morning when I wake up and in the evening before I go to sleep.” And Lev said, “That’s what the Riddle Committee will never forget, because I love you, I must leave you.” Maybe it was a sentence out of a Charlie Chaplin film or another film he used to quote to her in his youth. Bella said, “Becose you love me, you have to live wiz me.” “You and your broken English,” said Lev. “It’s the English of the kibbutz,” said Bella, as if that was what mattered now. Bella gazed at the sea. If there ever was a submarine there, it had disappeared behind the curtain of mist. * The phone rang. Bella raised her head. It took her a few minutes to realize where she was: in the office, in the dark, sleeping on her desk. “Mom, I dialed your number all by myself. Dad asks when you’re coming home.” “Soon, Sweetie. Tell him I’m just finishing up here and leaving.” “Okay, Mom.” Mom? It was astonishing that she still belonged to anyone in the world. Bella felt she was powerless to get up and leave. Cars passed by on the road below and cast diagonal ladders of light on the wall. She sat and followed the alternating lights and thought she would sit like that forever. And then a strong light pierced through the window. A heavy car probably stopped down below without turning its lights off. Bella noticed that the photos on the desk of the light-flooded office began to move toward each other and come together: face to shoulder, shoulder to arm, to neck, to tummy, to leg, to foot, to biceps. A huge figure stood tall in the room. All the fragments of photos of the missing and the dead from the first day of the war, the second, the tenth, the thirtieth, the one that belonged to this mother or the next; a human figure – all or no one – began to take large steps toward the door. He passed above her with his giant steps. “Stop,” Bella shouted at him, “Stop.” He didn’t turn his head, as if he didn’t hear or didn’t understand human language. “Stop,” Bella shouted again. She heard him walk down the corridor with no one stopping him, heard his pounding steps heading to the street. She didn’t know what he was going to do. Bella ran to the entrance. She wanted to shout. What should she shout, help? or careful? or listen? or come here look, look what, who died, who returned? Bella stood still in her office, which was dark once more. Who should she call? She didn’t know what he wanted – revenge, pity, love… And from whom? She was silent for a moment. Then she said, “And this is for you, God.” - BY NURIT ZARCHI Translated by : Leanne Raday

Story 2

A WOMAN IN A SPACE

A WOMAN IS WORKSPACE WHEN WILL SOMEONE LOVE YOU? Have you ever stayed seated in your chair until lunchtime, you drink lots of water- your body took the shape of a chair. A woman in workspace, the space changes, the work changes, companies rise and fall. You can close the door behind you but you will still hear the three-dimensional printer working, it assists in the manufacturing of single models, it saves time, and the cost is low. I remember, I once had a job interview, they designed and built three dimensional-printers like this one there, I didn’t remember they made so much noise. The interviewer looked at my resume and, after asking me a few professional questions, said to me, so, have you ever shot a gun? I told him that I had but only at cardboard targets. A woman in workspace, have you ever loved?

You no longer hear the sound of the three-dimensional printer, it’s the kind of sound you get used to after a few months, the walls are all made of plaster. You can hear everything. You can hear the others sigh. You hear the gate beeping, the entrance gate for suppliers, customers, clients, workers. Some lose their patience and honk their horns, complementing the rhythmic beeping of the gate, at some point one of us opens it. A woman in workspace, sometimes I think I should begin the story here: a woman in workspace with the shape of a chair. A woman in workspace, have you ever loved? The space changes, the people change, the workload is heavier or ends. Sometimes they refurbish the office. They bring potted plants. Launch new software to control the inventory, the processes, to control the files, to control everything really – A woman in workspace, can you hear me?

COMPANY 1 The CEO jumped on the table and hollered at us. He said: You are not working hard enough. The CEO jumped on the receptionist’s desk and stabilized his. Long white (the desk). He said: We are losing time and you are not meeting the group’s goals. Said: You must retain your focus. He emphasized: Our success is dependent on you and on you solely. Also: You must increase your speed. Then he said: The time is crucial, and I won’t let us enter stoppage time. We stood and looked at him silently. Then he added, over my dead body. Some of us exchanged looks with some of the others. He stood very stable on the desk, with his legs straddled. He talked for half an hour, maybe more. The majority of the things he said was addressed to us, the tech-

nology department team. He repeatedly warned us of last minute smugness. His eyes were shining. Then he said, we are one step away from realizing the dream, there is no time to rest. You’ll sleep when you’re dead. He repeated the same sentences over and over again. And all the time he stood on the receptionist’s desk, his legs firm, his hands moving at the speed of his speech, which grew faster and faster. We scattered as soon as he was done. I went back to my cubicle. I passed my manager’s cubicle on the way. He was busy on a conference call. He spoke loudly into a microphone and his ears were covered by large headphones. I continued to walk toward my cubicle. The open space was very noisy, keyboards and conversations. The coffee corner was empty. When I got to my place and sat in front of the computer, my inbox filled with a lot of new emails. I remembered that I should never start with the emails. I once read a newspaper article about it. Ten

We must push up the delivery time, he yelled, his face glued to his computer screen. We must push up the delivery time. Rules to Increase Productivity at Work. Rule number one, never start your day with answering emails. I opened the notebook and flipped through the pages until I got to the last page I wrote in, the one with the to do list. I started to prepare for the meeting. I opened the relevant computer files. One of the neighbors in a nearby cubicle relentlessly pressed his keyboard keys. He was hitting it hard. I was still able to focus. I hit the keys quickly myself. Mine too. The fingers were hitting hard. At the background his fingers were hitting his harder and harder, almost breathlessly. Mine too. A woman in a workspace Are you breathing? All those lists are going to eventually nail you to the office floor (blue linoleum flooring from the eighties, like the one you had at elementary school, in the gym, I remember how much I liked to high jump, breaking a new record every week.) At least this office has outside windows, the air comes out of the AC but the light is natural. A woman in workspace who since winter began can’t get up in the mornings. A woman in workspace. Do you bleed? I think you’re bleeding and that it’s out of your ordinary dates. Everything always comes on time with you, even though with the years things turn stickier, filled with more life, you don’t excrete it out of your womb, for a while now it’s been coming out of your irises, and every time you look at something it drips off you, you’re shedding salty tears of blood in front of the double screens of the work station. A woman in workspace do you remember how once, not so long ago, you liked meetings and long processes, and to see how they are validat-

ed, the things, and your projects, become alive – A woman in a workspace I tried to take the woman out of the workspace and talk to her when I am in a space that isn’t work. She didn’t answer. I think I should begin the story here: a woman in workspace with the shape of a chair. A woman in workspace, have you ever loved? The space changes, the people change, the workload is heavier or ends. Sometimes they refurbish the office. They bring potted plants. Launch new software to control the inventory, the processes, to control the files, to control everything really – A woman in workspace, can you hear me?

COMPANY 2 Around midnight my head hit the pillow and I remembered the fish. I couldn’t remember whether I fed it or not. I got out of bed and took it out of the aquarium. I immediately put it inside a deep plastic box. I went to wash the aquarium, which was very dirty. The fish might have been sick. When I washed the aquarium the bowl slipped through my fingers and broke inside the sink.

“

I left it like that in the sink. I added some food to the plastic box, the fish’s new abode, and it swam.

“

It seemed content, that was always the kind of impression it made. The problem is, sometimes it gets difficult to remember when is Monday and when is Thursday. When is the time of the fish. I always confuse dates and schedules. Like with my period. It has always been very regular and I knew how to identify it when it came. Atomic nervous breakdowns, no pain. At some point I downloaded some sort of an application which tells me when it’s due. I write in it what kind of symptoms appear before, during, and after my period. And when I have sex, if I had it, and with whom. The company gave me my cellphone. It also covers my monthly phone bills. Sometimes they switch my phone for me. Not only me, for everyone. The reason is almost always an upgrade. Some other times, when the phone is stolen or broken, they also agree to get another. With some employer’s participation, of course, which is deducted from my wage. A lot of numbers were lost or deleted because of the upgradings. Or the opposite, were doubled or tripled. Mostly I don’t notice it in real time. The main problem remains the dates. The period application synchronizes the last update but sometimes it’s not close enough. In these cases I lose track of it completely. A woman in a workspace do you get bored? What are you thinking now. He puts his hand on your table, reclines, now he’s getting close to your computer screen, he looks at the screen, you talk about a file, now he asks something from you, he asks about something which is under your sole responsibility, he’s asking a very simple question, your lips should have already delivered the answer, it’s time to speak now because he has stopped talking, a woman in workspace, now he’s been quiet for at least five seconds, I know, because it’s approximately the time it takes to say: A woman in workspace – BY TEHILA HAKIMI Translated by : Maayan Eitan

*An excerpt from Company by Tehila Hakimi, Resling publishing house, Israel, 2018

2020 Feminist events calendar The Feminist Tour of London (throughout the year) If you’re interested in learning the hidden herstory of London, then the Feminist Tour of London is for you. Hosted by the hugely passionate Ellie, this twohour-long tour of the capital city’s tourist hotspots will lift the lid on all the influential women that have shaped London, from the Houses of Parliament to Piccadilly. Fully accessible and going ahead come rain or shine, the tour has excellent reviews and promises to offer even the most knowledgeable history buff some new insights. And better still, 100% of the proceeds go to Child.org, a charity dedicated to securing equal opportunities for children in Kenya. Get tickets for £15

She Grrrowls: Feminist Arts Night (8 January-5 March) She Grrrowls is venturing out of its home at London’s Poetry Café and bringing its Feminist Arts Night to cities across the UK. The She Grrrowls tour is currently set for an eight-date run with more due to be added. The aim is to “give voice to the experience of different women across England” and will feature the collective’s resident poets and some local talent.

Anti Diet Riot Club Festival (19 January) This January, cult body-acceptance movement Anti Diet Riot Club is throwing its first festival, with an inspiring programme of talks, workshops and activities exploring body, food and sex liberation. Hear from women like body confidence campaigners Stephanie Yeboah and Honey Ross, take part in yoga and try your hand at life drawing. Tickets start at £27.54

Social Revolution: Women’s Liberation and Gay Liberation in the 1970s and 80s (20 January-3 April) This year it’s the 50th anniversary of both the first women’s liberation conference and the first meeting of the Gay Liberation Front. To mark this momentous occasion, the London School of Economics will be displaying women’s liberation posters, press statements and significant documents from the first women’s liberation conference, as well as materials from the first Gay Liberation Front meeting, including the GLF manifesto and its list of demands. This exhibition and its related events are sure to be moving and insightful, and will help us understand how they mobilised and inspired thousands of oppressed peo-

ple and ultimately paved the way for the rights we have today.

Asking For It (29 January-15 February) Adapted from Louise O’Neill’s devastating and critically acclaimed novel of the same name, Asking For It is an extraordinary onstage examination of consent and sexual assault in a hyper-sexualised world. After a sold-out season at Ireland’s National Theatre, the play is set to debut at the Birmingham REP. It promises to be a powerful and sobering production, with a post-show discussion scheduled for 12 February. Get tickets for Asking For It at the Birmingham REP

London Women Stand (1 February) If you’re at all interested in politics, then the one-day London Women Stand event will be right up your street. Twitter, Glitch, The Parliament Project and Change.Org have come together to create a programme of nine workshops for women whatever their level of political involvement, regardless of age, background or political affiliation. Sessions range from advice on digital self-defence, to tips on how to stand for election and campaign effectively.

Femspectives: Glasgow Feminist Film Festival (20-23 February) Following on from a successful first year, Femspectives is holding its annual Feminist Film Festival at Civic House in Glasgow. The group is committed to equality and diversity, and aims to use the festival as a way of platforming the voices of women of colour, LGBTQ+ women, people with different gender identities, and other marginalised voices. Tickets and the full program of events will be made available in the coming days.

Women Beware Women (21 February-18 April) Jacobean tragedy Women Beware Women is coming to Shakespeare’s Globe. The play explores the covert power of the patriarchy and uncovers the commodification and coercion of women. Directed by seasoned theatre director Amy Hodge and performed in the candlelit Sam Wannamaker Playhouse, the production promises to be an atmospheric and emotional tour de force.

decade ago, the festival has expanded into a global movement, aimed at “celebrating women and girls, taking a frank look at the obstacles they face”. It now hosts events as far afield as Hong Kong, Australia and Ethiopia. Taking place at Southbank Centre where it first launched, this year’s London festival will run for three days and end on International Women’s Day. Events will include a talk that celebrates badass women from history, a panel on what it means to be a queer woman in 2020, and performances by Shazia Mirza and Bobby Baker.

SheFest 2020 (5-15 March) SheFest’s annual fringe festival is a 10-day event in Sheffield that “provides a female fronted addition to the region’s cultural calendar”. Aligning with International Women’s Day, the festival will include interactive activities, feminist film screenings, art, music, theatre, and feature panels and guest speakers. It promises to be the biggest SheFest fringe in the festival’s history as the organisers collaborate with organisations across South Yorkshire, aiming to become the northern capital for International Women’s Day.

The Enchanted Interior (13 March-14 June) From March, Guildhall Art Gallery will be home to touring art exhibition The Enchanted Interior. The exhibition challenges the enduring motif of women in art as subjects entrapped in ornate interiors. With paintings ranging from those by the nineteenth century pre-Raphaelites to contemporary artists such as Mona Hatoum and Fiona Tan, this exhibition will interrogate the historic depiction of women in art as passive subjects.

Artemisia (4 April-26 July) Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most accomplished Italian Baroque painters, and her work will be featured in a solo exhibition at the National Gallery from April this year. The paintings on display will offer an overview of her 40-year career, and include some of her most famous works as well as some that have only been recently discovered. Whether you’re a Gentileschi fan or a complete art novice, this exhibition promises to offer a stunning insight into the life and works of one of the most extraordinary painters of her time.

Women of the World Festival (6-8 March) The Guilty Feminist: Live with Deborah Frances-White (1 May-7 June) 2020 marks the 10th anniversary of the Women of the World Festival. Since its inception a

Award-winning comedy podcast The Guilty Feminist is coming to a city near you. Deborah Frances-White is doing a special touring version of the show for the first time, exploring the hypocrisies and humour inherent in modern feminism in her classic hilarious fashion, while still managing to cover a broad range of important topics. The podcast itself is recorded in front of a live audience, but this live tour is for ticketholders only and will include standup comedy, music and talent local to each venue. Starting in London’s Eventim Apollo, the tour runs for 25 dates in different British cities.

Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights (24 April-23 August) A new exhibition exploring the inspiring activists who paved the way for modern-day feminism is opening at The British Library. Tracing the history of women’s rights from the Suffragettes to the fight against period poverty, Unfinished Business will celebrate progress while also drawing attention to the way things like sexuality, race, ethnicity and disability contribute to inequality. The exhibition will feature artists Khadija Saye and Jo Spence, as well as the work of organisations like Sisters Uncut, Southall Black Sisters and the Women’s Liberation Movement.

New Suns: A Feminist Literary Festival (31 October) The New Suns feminist book fair is back for its third year with a day of books, talks, workshops and films. This year the theme of the event will be on “feminist conveyance of interior worlds, touching on mysticism, altered states and contemporary gothic”, and will (very fittingly) be held on Halloween.

In its home at the Barbican Centre, it will bring together acclaimed writers with new talent for an exciting host of conversations and activities.

Women in Fashion talk, London (15 November) Join Stephanie Wood and Jenny Lister – the creative brains behind the Mary Quant Exhibition currently showing at the Victoria and Albert Museum – for a discussion about the work of women shaping current fashion. The event will include talks with several industry insiders including Henrietta Rix and Orlagh McCloskey – the founders of fashion brand Rixo – Fashion photographer Daisy Walker and The Independent’s Lifestyle Editor, Harriet Hall.