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Wednesday's Woman Crush

Published by Wednesday Martin

Today’s MASSIVE crush on two fearless leaders—Okoye and Rachel Simmons. Have you seen Black Panther? It has broken the box office and inspired people across the US. I haven’t seen my friends this excited—about a movie that is more like a cultural event, and what feels like both the proof of and the possibility of even more meaningful social change--in a long time. Maybe ever. Okoye is inspiring girls and boys alike with her strength, smarts, and proud blackness. What does it mean when women lead unambivalently, without fear of stepping on male egos, without fear of reprisal from the greater male coalition? Okoye does just this. Can the rest of us get there? Rachel Simmons wants to know. The author of trailblazing Odd Girl Out has written another sure-to-be-a-classic for feminists, parents, and everybody else—Enough as She Is. Rachel’s message is that we have to let girls learn to fail and learn to forgive themselves for it if we want them to thrive and to lead. Buy it here—and I’ll see you at Black Panther.


Hypocrisy and Hierarchy in #MeToo Movement

Published by Wednesday Martin
From @WednesdayMartin Twitter
From @WednesdayMartin Twitter

Women who have an issue with #metoo — notice that among other things it’s a generational and political (progressive/conservative) divide. And much of it, when you read closely, is a version of “WE put up with it & we are ok so stop being crybabies/victims.“


How Embracing Female Sexuality Can Help Heal Hollywood Post-Weinstein

Published by Wednesday Martin
Illustration by Federica Bordoni for The Hollywood Reporter
Illustration by Federica Bordoni for The Hollywood Reporter

#metoo is paving the way for gender equality in ecologies like Hollywood, finance, science, and politics. I look forward to the day when female sexuality re-enters the equation. And women are not attacked for saying, "It's not just wrong to harass me because I don't want it and because you have power and I don't. Harassment is wrong because you are not recognizing that I am sexual in my own right, rather than just some extension of your desires." We need a world where we acknowledge that women, not just men, have a fundamental right to be sexual. Without being stigmatized or punished for it.


Harry and Meghan: Ring in the New?

Published by Wednesday Martin
Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle announced their royal engagement at Kensington Palace's Sunken Garden.
Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle announced their royal engagement at Kensington Palace's Sunken Garden.

The engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is big news in the UK—and the US.  Americans are often pretty indifferent to royal goings-on. We founded our country on an anti-royalist stance, after all, and the legacy endures in our deep suspicion of titles that are inherited, aristocratic and “elitist” versus earned (Donald Trump happened here not  only because of retrograde nationalist fervor and a backlash against women and people of color but because he was able to pass himself off as a gold-plated, self-made billionaire who supposedly “earned it.” Even though his wealth and privilege were intergenerational, passed down from Dad).


#metoo

Published by Wednesday Martin

It's hard to remember an issue that has galvanized women like our recent national conversation about sexual harassment and sexual assault. Women are angry, fed up, and speaking up. Harvey Weinstein's harassment of women, his bartering for sexual favors with his influence as an image-maker who could make or break actresses' careers, went largely unchecked for years. And unsurprisingly, he had a whole army of enablers--everyone from the agents and managers who knew and kept sending actresses his way to the lawyers who made settlements, effectively silencing women and allowing Weinstein to continue harassing them. I have heard from dozens of women who tell me memories they had long buried are rising to the surface--memories of being propositioned at work, harassed, assaulted in any number of fields.