Please support Young Vagabond on Pozible. Help us reach the $15k we need to launch this much needed magazine for young women, and in return earn yourself fantastic prizes, such as copies of the first issue of the magazine, tickets to our launch party and contribution and advertising!
Please support Young Vagabond on Pozible. Young Vagabond is a new magazine for teen girls, that I’m starting up with my business partner Ashleigh.
“Through Young Vagabond, we aim to give young women a voice, and a magazine that they want to read. A magazine that doesn’t try and force them to look, feel or act the same as every other girl, doesn’t make them feel like they aren’t good enough, and that doesn’t underestimate what they are capable of!
Young Vagabond will be created with the potential of all women in mind. However we see no better place to direct this message of empowerment than at teenage girls. Teenagers have the freedom to choose who they will become, and Young Vagabond will set out to show these young women that their individuality, their distinct interests and capabilities, are worth developing and having pride in.
Because young women have broad and varied interests, Young Vagabond will cover a broad range of topics. We will feature articles relevant to being a teenager, and while this can include topics such as beauty, fashion, sex and relationships - it also very much encompasses articles that are relevant to the world at large.”
(Source: vimeo.com)
You won’t see Hillary Clinton in the same light ever again. Read Meryl Streep’s introduction of Hillary Clinton during the recent 2012 Women in the World conference:
Two years ago when Tina Brown and Diane von Furstenberg first envisioned this conference, they asked me to do a play, a reading, called – the name of the play was called Seven. It was taken from transcripts, real testimony from real women activists around the world. I was the Irish one, and I had no idea that the real women would be sitting in the audience while we portrayed them. So I was doing a pretty ghastly Belfast accent. I was just – I was imitating my friend Liam Neeson, really, and I sounded like a fellow. (Laughter). It was really bad.
So I was so mortified when Tina, at the end of the play, invited the real women to come up on stage and I found myself standing next to the great Inez McCormack. (Applause.) And I felt slight next to her, because I’m an actress and she is the real deal. She has put her life on the line. Six of those seven women were with us in the theater that night. The seventh, Mukhtaran Bibi, couldn’t come because she couldn’t get out of Pakistan. You probably remember who she is. She’s the young woman who went to court because she was gang-raped by men in her village as punishment for a perceived slight to their honor by her little brother. All but one of the 14 men accused were acquitted, but Mukhtaran won the small settlement. She won $8,200, which she then used to start schools in her village. More money poured in from international donations when the men were set free. And as a result of her trial, the then president of Pakistan, General Musharraf, went on TV and said, “If you want to be a millionaire, just get yourself raped.”
But that night in the theater two years ago, the other six brave women came up on the stage. Anabella De Leon of Guatemala pointed to Hillary Clinton, who was sitting right in the front row, and said, “I met her and my life changed.” And all weekend long, women from all over the world said the same thing:
“I’m alive because she came to my village, put her arm around me, and had a photograph taken together.”
“I’m alive because she went on our local TV and talked about my work, and now they’re afraid to kill me.”
“I’m alive because she came to my country and she talked to our leaders, because I heard her speak, because I read about her.”
“I’m here today because of that, because of those stores.”
I didn’t know about this. I never knew any of it. And I think everybody should know. This hidden history Hillary has, the story of her parallel agenda, the shadow diplomacy unheralded, uncelebrated — careful, constant work on behalf of women and girls that she has always conducted alongside everything else a First Lady, a Senator, and now Secretary of State is obliged to do.
And it deserves to be amplified. This willingness to take it, to lead a revolution – and revelation, beginning in Beijing in 1995, when she first raised her voice to say the words you’ve heard many times throughout this conference: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.”
When Hillary Clinton stood up in Beijing to speak that truth, her hosts were not the only ones who didn’t necessarily want to hear it. Some of her husband’s advisors also were nervous about the speech, fearful of upsetting relations with China. But she faced down the opposition at home and abroad, and her words continue to hearten women around the world and have reverberated down the decades.
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She’s just been busy working, doing it, making those words “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” into something every leader in every country now knows is a linchpin of American policy. It’s just so much more than a rhetorical triumph. We’re talking about what happened in the real world, the institutional change that was a result of that stand she took.
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Now we know that the higher the education and the involvement of women in a culture and economy, the more secure the nation. It’s a metric we use throughout our foreign policy, and in fact, it’s at the core of our development policy. It is a big, important shift in thinking. Horrifying practices like female genital cutting were not at the top of the agenda because they were part of the culture and we didn’t want to be accused of imposing our own cultural values.
But what Hillary Clinton has said over and over again is, “A crime is a crime, and criminal behavior cannot be tolerated.” Everywhere she goes, she meets with the head of state and she meets with the women leaders of grassroots organizations in each country. This goes automatically on her schedule. As you’ve seen, when she went to Burma – our first government trip there in 40 years. She met with its dictator and then she met with Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman he kept under detention for 15 years, the leader of Burma’s pro-democracy movement.
This isn’t just symbolism. It’s how you change the world. These are the words of Dr. Gao Yaojie of China: “I will never forget our first meeting. She said I reminded her of her mother. And she noticed my small bound feet. I didn’t need to explain too much, and she understood completely. I could tell how much she wanted to understand what I, an 80-something year old lady, went through in China – the Cultural Revolution, uncovering the largest tainted blood scandal in China, house arrest, forced family separation. I talked about it like nothing and I joked about it, but she understood me as a person, a mother, a doctor. She knew what I really went through.”
When Vera Stremkovskaya, a lawyer and human rights activist from Belarus met Hillary Clinton a few years ago, they took a photograph together. And she said to one of the Secretary’s colleagues, “I want that picture.” And the colleague said, “I will get you that picture as soon as possible.” And Stremkovskaya said, “I need that picture.” And the colleague said, “I promise you.” And Stremkovskaya said, “You don’t understand. That picture will be my bullet-proof vest.”
Never give up. Never, never, never, never, never give up. That is what Hillary Clinton embodies.
Hillary Clinton also has to put with 1000 times more vitriol, sexual abuse, attempts to diminish and degrade, harassment and complete dehumanisation than ANYONE in the history of politics. And she still gets up every day and proves why she should be there.
HILLARY FOREVER!
As I’ve been trawling through Tumblr posts about body image, healthy bodies etc, I’ve come across an inordinate amount of posts where girls are complaining about their weight, and in specific cases, complaining about the way they hips/stomachs/fat hangs over their jeans/bikini bottoms etc.
Now, I understand many women battle with their weight legitimately. What frustrates me about these posts, is that these issues for complaint are mostly circumstantial. If you bought yourself the correct size clothing for your body, instead of trying to fit your body into a too-small size, then you would not feel crappy when you look in the mirror while wearing those clothes.
Many women forget that the size tag is on the inside of the garment. Not to mention the fact that the clothing industry’s sizing standards are all over the place. If you need to go up the extra size, to get that smooth fit in whatever you’re buying, the only person who will know is the shop assistant.
I am an Australian size 8, so yes, I am slim. At any given time, I have also been as small as a size 6 and can go up to a size 10. I don’t have anything to complain about in terms of how I look, and at my biggest was still completely comfortable with my body. In saying that, due to working in fashion retail, I know how to dress for my body, and not to try and make my body fit around an inappropriately sized or awkwardly fitted garment. I carry my weight in my bum, so I know that, even as a size 8, my jeans and most other pants, will often need to be a size 10.
If I were to stubbornly refuse to purchase any garment beyond a size 8, I would end up looking a lot bigger than I am. This is true of any size or shaped woman.
Work out what sizes fit you, and your body, and your proportions. You may still have times when you don’t like what you see in the mirror, we all do. But if you remember that a size is a number invisible to everyone but you, you will have a lot more freedom to play with your wardrobe and highlight the things you like about your body!
H x
I still can’t rave about this girl enough.
Robyn Lawley, the 22 year old plus sized (read: size 14 - 16, the standard for Australian women) model, based in New York.
I’ve been stalking her career with fervour. She’s just incredible
H x