#WCW
#WCW or Woman Crush Wednesday, is yet another social media hashtag born on twitter as a way for people to post about a woman they find attractive or admire. More often than not, WCW on Instagram consists of beautiful models with great bums and perky boobs. Although there is NOTHING wrong with shouting out these stunning gals, we thought we’d take the opportunity this week to dedicate our #WCW to some women who inspire us here at Her Campus Leeds.
Emma Watson
has grown to go beyond her career as an accomplished actor and is a prominent women’s rights activist as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and also helped launch the HeForShe Campaign calling for men to support gender equality.
Simone Biles
Not only is Simone Biles is an Olympic Gold Medallist gymnast at only 20 years old, she is also one of the most recent sportswomen to have spoken about her experience of sexual harassment by the national team doctor Larry Nassar. Her statement spoke about the courage it took to talk about her experience and how the strength of her friends encouraged her to do so.
Clara Amfo
Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo not only has the absolute dream job but she uses her platform to be vocal about what she believes in. She called out a certain BraidBar in London for their cultural appropriation and quit her deal with L’Oreal after they dropped transgender model Munroe Bergdorf claiming if he isn’t ‘worth it’ then neither is she.
Meghan Markle
Meghan Markle has dedicated so much of her life to humanitarian work as she spent time campaigning for gender equality and against modern day slavery. Markle also worked with the United Nations and their Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Although it may surprise the Daily Mail, Meghan Markle is so much more than a ‘soon to be royal’ and we’re far more interested in how she will continue with her amazing campaigning than whether or not she will get on well with Kate Middleton.
Manal al-Sharif
Al-Sharif was a pioneer of the campaign for ‘Women2Drive’ in Saudi Arabia back in 2011. She was arrested and detained for posting a video of herself driving through the Kingdom. New York Times credit her video as ‘budding’ the protest movement. Aside from this, she also actively campaigns to release women who are unfairly imprisoned in Saudi Arabia.
Maya Jama
Not only does she have the coolest name ever, Maya Jama has come to light as one of Britain’s most popular presenters. In personable, laid back Instagram she claims although she does post some selfies she’s banishing the whole perfect Instagram ideal and make sure her content is as real as possible. At only 23, we can’t wait to see what else she’s going to do.
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai is an activist for female education in Pakistan where the local Taliban banned girls from attending school. She is the youngest ever Nobel Prize laurate. At 11 years old she wrote under a pseudonym for BBC Urdu about life under Taliban occupation. Yousafzai continues to amaze the world and was named one of the Times most influential people in the world three years running. AND she now studies PPE at Oxford.
By Kelan Mahon