What we really (really) want on #MalalaDay

Happy Birthday to activist Malala Yousafzai, 19 years old today and celebrating her birthday in Kenya visiting Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp.

Since recovering from her 2012 shooting at the hands of the Taliban,  Malala has gone on to advocate for child education, pass her GCSEs (in her second language), win the Nobel Peace prize (the youngest ever person to do so), appear on TIME magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people three times, suggest to Barack Obama that we need more school books instead of guns, set up her own foundation, teach her Mum (pictured left) to speak English, address the United Nations in New York, appear in an Oscar nominated film with her father and write a couple of autobiographies (read my review of one of them here).

No young woman could be more inspirational or deserving of our best wishes – so please join me in celebrating #MalalaDay and wishing her the happiest of Happy Birthdays.

* * *

Malala hadn’t even been born when the Spice Girls released their iconic song Wannabe, the video for which has now been updated for a new generation. Twenty years after the Spice Girls’ sparked global girl power with their first hit, the chart-topper has been remade to highlight gender inequality issues faced by women across the world. The video features artists from India, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, USA and Canada, a diverse roll-call that includes superstar Bollywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez and London R&B trio M.O.

The remake aims to push a series of UN global goals including education, gender equality, equal pay for equal work, child marriage and an end to violence against women and has been launched by Project Everyone, a campaign which aims to eradicate poverty, injustice and fight climate change.

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want …

 

 

Women (and men) who mattered most in 2015

Happy New Year!

Welcome to my very (very) personal list of the women (and a few men) who made a difference to me,  and maybe to you, in 2015.

Who else would you add?

In the wider world:

• Laura Barnett: for writing my novel of 2015 and depicting fifty slightly alternative years over three slightly different women’s lives, all named Eva, in The Versions of Us.

  

  (c) Amazon

• Tea Leoni: as both Actress and Executive Producer in Madam Secretary, my binge watching choice of the year, with an honorary mention to Tim Daly for playing the trailing spouse and lead parent role with humour and grace;
• Catherine Mayer, Sandi Toksvig and Sophie Walker: for founding the Women’s Equality Party in March 2015, crowdfunding their war chest and showing us that single issue politics can mean more than just bigots in blazers in UKIP. As an aside, I wasn’t able to attend the recent WEP event in central London but barrister Max Hardy went along and wrote a very interesting blog piece of his own about it and how it feels to be one of the few men in the room;
• Viola Davis: for reminding us, as part of the ongoing discussion about diversity in showbiz, at the 2015 Emmys that “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity” and that “Talent and opportunity are two different things”  – not just true in Hollywood,  but in the wider world too – particularly when anyone in the corporate world insists that merit trumps opportunity in the workplace;
• The gender pay gap has been much on my mind of late and clearly on Patricia Arquette’s too: she makes this list for calling it out at the 2015 Oscars;
• Similarly, props to Jennifer Lawrence for her Lenny essay – a timely reminder to us all about asking for what you want, deserve and are worth;
• My film of 2015 was the superb (and mysteriously overlooked in Oscar nomination terms) “Suffragette” – see my review here. In acting terms – Carey Mulligan is just incredible, but the whole production is a very female-centric one, and that’s still so rare as to be comment worthy.  If you need to wonder why I’m gushing like this, then you haven’t seen the film and so need to do so, immediately (the DVD is out in the UK on 29^th February);

• 

  (c) Vanity Fair/Pirelli

  Amy Schumer: for making me laugh, very hard, during “Trainwreck” and for participating in the Pirelli calendar with a fantastic, vanity free shot which shows that modern beauty does indeed come in many forms;

• And finally – Justin Trudeau, new man in Canada: for the best soundbite of the year:

And in my world:

• Foluke Akinlose: for never pausing in her attempts to showcase the achievements of so many brilliant women of colour with the annual Precious Awards;
• My friends: L and A, for always being there for me during what has often been a challenging year. And Kayleigh: my hairdresser, for working with me to sort out someone else’s horrible hair don’t (as executed upon my innocent head on 8^th July 2014);
• All the mostly, but not exclusively women, who follow my cooking, weight loss and eating photos on Instagram  (@lowcarbcleo) and who support me every day in my new low carb, healthier life.

Thank you all.  And here’s to an amazing, uplifting 2016.

This week, I’m watching: “Suffragette”

Today, on its first day of full UK release, I went to an afternoon showing of the film “Suffragette”. I emerged into the Salisbury sunshine two hours later – blinking, stunned, slightly tearful, emotionally overwhelmed and full of gratitude for my life as a 21st century woman.

A life in which I can earn and  use my own money to make payments; a life in which seven year old girls don’t start work in a laundry; a life in which women don’t lose their children or their maternal rights in the event of marital breakdown; a life in which no means no and rape is a crime; above all, a life in which both women and men have the right to vote and make their voices heard.

“Your laws mean nothing to me, I’ve had no say in making the law.”

This is an astonishing piece of film making and one which I think does great credit, not only to the memory of the women who gave up so much so that we have the right to vote but also to the largely female cast and crew:  director Sarah Gavron, scriptwriter Abi Morgan and particularly Carey Mulligan, who gives a brilliant and, I hope, award winning performance as laundry worker Maud and tells us that –

“All my life I’ve been respectful, done what men told me” but who evolves through a series of life changing events and activities to scornfully ask of the policeman who torments and hounds her:

“What are you going to do – lock us all up? We’re in every home, we’re half the human race.”

Watch the trailer, then go and see it for yourself. And then, women everywhere, please use your vote every opportunity that you can.

This week, I’m watching: Mumbai High – the Musical

… and I urge you to do the same, if you’re at all interested in India, or education, or musicals, or how other people live; or even if none of those things float your boat but you’re at a loose end and can get access to the BBC iPlayer for the next month or so.

This one hour film,  recently shown on BBC4 as part of their wonderful India season (click on the “India” tag in the cloud to

(c) BBC

the right of this post on the main blog site for my previous posts about India) tells the story of five children from the Mumbai slum of Dharavi – their backgrounds, homes, families, hopes and dreams (Raj wants to be a doctor, Mary wants to play football with David Beckham). It’s shot using a standard documentary format but is also interspersed with Bollywood/Glee style musical numbers where the children and their teachers sing, in multiple languages, and dance.

I once wrote that India, my favourite country in the world,  finds a new way to uplift you and yet break your heart every day – and this beautiful, moving, funny, emotional film encapsulates that.

Do watch it if you can – and let me know if it speaks to you the way it speaks to me.

Here’s a clip of Iffat, aged 12, telling us how she can speak six languages and gets 100% in all her subjects at school:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p032h0d3