The Beat #14: The Great Women Issue, Malala Yousafzai, Frida Kahlo, Greta Thunberg, Gloria Steinem and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Illustrations by Brian Grabell of Scout Collective
GUEST ISSUE!
This issue of the Beat is illustrated and written by our friend Brian Grabell of Scout Collective
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” —Maya Angelou
Spoiler: Women are vital to the world.
Without being too dramatic, it can often feel like we are living in a dumpster fire with no reprieve. Okay… that was a tad dramatic. 2020 has been challenging to say the least and we recently lost a great and influential woman, leader, and activist in Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Fortunately for us, she leaves behind a legacy as a guide for us all to follow towards equality. May her memory be for a blessing… may her memory be a revolution. The Notorious RBG championed independence and fought for her ideals until her last breath.
She was not the first woman to do this and she will not be the last. From Greta Thunberg’s fierce U.N. address to Malala Yousafzai’s defiance in the face of terrorism, we witness these women and their vital roles as leaders.
Equality is achievable. Equality is necessary. Without women, the world stops.
—Brian Grabell
Malala Yousafzai
When Malala was 15, she was brave enough to defy the Pakistani Taliban with her activism for female education. This greatly angered them enough to attempt to assassinate her but inevitably failing. Since then, Malala has become one of the most influential people globally as well as becoming a Nobel Prize laureate at the age of 17. Malala continues to fight for female education with the Malala Fund.
Frida Kahlo
Frida was a Mexican painter and Communist known for her self-portraits that explored questions of identity, post-colonialism, gender, class and race. Though known for her painting in her lifetime it wasn’t until after her death that her work became fully known and celebrated. Posthumously she has become a symbol for the Chicano Movement, feminism, disability activism and the LGBTQ+ movement.
Greta Thunberg
At just 16 years old, Greta flooded our lives with her scathing speech to world leaders for their failures to take action against climate change. Her activism began even earlier at the age of 15 when she began to take local action in Sweden, reducing her and her family’s carbon footprint as well as beginning her public activism by spending her school days outside the Swedish Parliament.
Gloria Steinem
Gloria has been a leader, champion, and spokesperson for the American feminist movement since the late 1960s. Her work is too extensive to fit into a tiny blurb… get hip to it here. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. Gloria continues to be an activist for equality and is a true icon of feminism.
