Vogue has bestowed the title of ‘The New Suffragettes’ on a group of women who individually celebrate and fuel female empowerment. This includes the first openly transgender person to be featured in British Vogue Paris Lees.
The founder of META, an online magazine for transpeople, Lees was also the first transgender person to be on the cover of DIVA, a magazine for queer women.
The selected seven also include feminist powerhouses, such as founder of women of colour platform Gal-dem, Liv Little, blogger Dina Tokio, artist Gillian Wearing, author of ‘Why I’m No Longer Speaking To White People About Race’ Reni Eddo-Lodge, plus politicians Stella Creasy and Sophie Walker.
The diversity of women chosen for the feature is authentic in its variety and British Vogue has started off a great list but over the past twelve months especially, there has been such a surge of women being intersectional and creating spaces for other women, that the ‘New Suffragettes’ are just the tip of an ever-growing iceberg.
Here are six women who also deserve championing for their feminist credentials:
Founder of WAH nails, Reid is also the founder of FutureGirlCorp, an initiative and string of workshops to help women build their businesses and encourage more women to get into business.
The MBE recipient has also just announced her latest business venture. Beauty Stack is “an invitation-only platform to help specialist beauty professionals publish their content and manage their bookings.”
World Muay Thai champion and European IFMA Gold Medalist, Begum is the captain of the British Muay Thai Team and currently the only Muslim woman who is a national champion in her sport.
Begum is a pioneer for sports hijab and designed her own line of breathable modest sports gear (ahem, a year before Nike). The world champion encourages women to stand proud in their strength, both physically and mentally.
The 18-year-old founder of the #freeperiods campaign, to raise awareness of those who cannot afford sanitary towels and were missing school because of it. The activist’s powerful social media campaign led a a peaceful protest on 20 December 2017 calling for Theresa May to provide free menstruation products for all girls already on free school meals.
The Pink Protest resulted in over a thousand women calling out period tax and the general stigma surrounding menstruation. George is a force to be reckoned with.
Trans activist Bergdorf has increasingly also been speaking out on issues of race since she was dropped by L’Oreal after discussing white privilege.
Bergdorf has been on countless morning shows discussing topics such as #blacklivesmatter and she is part of Pxssy Palace, a non-binary safe space for women, drag queens, trans and lesbians, to party and express themselves without judgement or harassment.
Bergdorf’s clarity and honesty is something we wish to see soar in 2018.
Storey is the most successful female British Paralympian of all time (with 14 gold medals under her belt).
She is also the founder of Storey Racing, a squad made up of 12 female riders who personify the team’s ethos of being the #BestVersionOfYou. The team encourages women to compete against themselves and embrace stretching their abilities in sport.
Riders in the team will race Road, Track, Time Trials, Cyclocross and Mountain Bike across the course of the year whilst spreading a message of awareness for women to partake in an exercise they enjoy regardless of their age, race, size and previous performance in sporting activity.
“The HMT screening was a learning curve I am fortunate to have experienced and as a result I’ve been able to resolve an injury niggle in my back.” @MonicaHopeDew on the importance of health screenings for our riders https://t.co/k6qbxXxZs3 pic.twitter.com/3xl3RXj3s0 — Storey Racing (@StoreyRT) December 29, 2017
Britton founded 23 Code Street, a course enticing more women in the coding field to fulfil the gender gap (only 25% of women work in computing jobs) but for every student taught in the UK, digital skills are also taught to a woman in the slums of India.
It’s clearly win-win for women, the tech industry and hey, intersectional feminism.