Women empowering women is a strong and beautiful act. How does this happen? Women lift others with their voices through song, art, dance, speech, poems, stories, and mentorship and so many other ways including small acts of kindness.
Art
Feminist art emerged in the 1960s. From sculpture to paintings to drawings and performances, these artists highlight societal and political differences associated with gender identity. Here’s a list of 15 artists to get you started.
POETRY
Poetry, or words that make music in your heart, has many forms. And there are thousands of strong women poets. Below are two examples.
“Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
“You are more than beautiful” by Rupi Kaur
SPEECH
2014 Emma Watson gave this fabulous speech at the UN launcing the HeForShe campaign.
There are many, many TED talks about women’s rights and empowerment. Here’s a list of 3,000 titles.
BOOKS
There are many nonfiction books and many fiction books that tell the story of women empowering other women or themselves.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Margarot Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, and Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things To Me, are a very small sample.
MUSIC
Songs of celebration to songs of protest, music has always been a means of communicating messages and feelings. Below is a sampling across the decades.
1958 Here’s a sample “Songs of the Suffragettes” sung by Elizabeth Knight, released in 1958 by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Listen Here!
1963 Lesley Gore, “You Don’t Own Me”
1967 Aretha Franklin, “Respect ”
1978 “I Will Survive” Gloria Gaynor
1983 “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” Cyndi Lauper
1993 “I’m Every Woman” Whitney Houston
2003 “Miss Independent” by Kelly Clarkson
2011 “Who Says” by Selena Gomez
2015 Girl in a Country Song Maddie & Tae
Women Empowering Women
We’ve touched on just a few examples of women empowering women. Women mentor, they inspire through random acts of kindness, they start charities, and still that’s only a small taste of all the ways we empower each other. What examples of women empowering women inspire you? How do you empower other women?