Whether a business titan, influencer, activist, politician, or straight up badass, here are just a few women who are inspiring us:
#1 Emily Weiss
Founder of the it-girl beauty blog, Into the Gloss, and cult beauty brand Glossier, Emily Weiss has been styled as the “Beauty Guru for Millennials” and has been featured on Forbes 30 under 30 and Fortune 40 under 40. In the four years since Glossier’s inception, Weiss has grown the company to over 300 employees and captured the hearts of millennials by making customers feel like the brand itself is a “close friend”.
#2 Dalia Grybauskaite
Lithuania’s first female president, Dalia Grybauskaite is often referred to as the Baltic “Iron Lady” or “Iron Magnolia”. She is known for her staunch opposition of Vladimir Putin, going so far as to call Russia a “terrorist state”. Despite making herself a target for Russia, she remains a popular figure in her home country and is the only president in Lithuanian history to win a second term. If that is not interesting enough, the 62-year-old also has a black belt in karate.
#3 Rupi Kaur
Dubbed “Instagram’s favourite poet”, Rupi Kaur’s poems and illustrations have become wildly popular across the world. Her writing tackles relatable topics such as love, heartbreak and womanhood, and also darker topics such as race, abuse, and beauty standards. The 26-year-old Indian-born Canadian has published two New York Times best-sellers, Milk and Honey and The Sun and Her Flowers.
#4 Karly Sciortino
Sex blogger and Vogue columnist, Karley Sciortino, has been described as the modern-day Carrie Bradshaw. Her blog Slutever, and book Slutever: Dispatches from a Sexually Autonomous Woman in a Post-Shame World reclaims the word slut and discusses sex, dating, and relationships with the aim of de-stigmatizing sex and educating women about their sexual agency.
#5 Nadia Murad
Nadia Murad is the joint winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize for her advocacy to raise awareness of the use of sexual violence during war. In 2014, at age 21, Murad was captured by ISIS and imprisoned as a sex slave. After escaping her captors and being smuggled out of Iraq, Murad set out to bring visibility to the suffering of her people and to hold ISIS accountable. Her advocacy has led her to testify before the United Nations and to speak to heads of state; using her own story to reinforce that the slavery and genocide used by ISIS cannot be ignored by the international community.
#6 Lilly Singh
YouTube sensation Lilly Singh (aka Superwoman) is the queen of content creation. Known for her funny and inspiring videos, Singh has attracted a following of over 14 million subscribers. Singh is constantly using her platform to achieve other personal goals and help others—she wrote a bestselling book called How To Be Bawse; led a massive online movement for the empowerment of girls; and became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
#7 Christine Lagarde
Without a doubt one of the most powerful women in the world, Christine Lagarde’s position as head of the International Monetary Fund puts her in charge of stabilizing the world’s economy. The French lawyer and politician is the first woman to run the IMF—an institution that has 189 member countries and $1 trillion at its disposal. Lagarde has held this position since 2011 and steered the organization through the aftermath of the global financial crisis
#8 Tavi Gevinson
At age 11, Tavi Gevinson founded the blog Style Rookie, and three-years later turned it into the enormously popular Rookie, an online magazine and book series that publishes writing, photography, and other forms of artwork by and for teenage girls. Now, at 22, Gevinson remains Editor-in-Chief of Rookie, is touted as a style icon, and frequents the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
images sourced from Google Images
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