FEMINIST FRIDAY: Cara Delevingne Promotes Female Empowerment & Youtube Red’s Girls In STEM Series

Welcome to another edition of Feminist Friday! As the name suggests, it’s our way of ending the week doing something a little bit different, while sharing feminist content we are crushing on. In each column we share a handful of videos that are getting us excited or have a challening/interesting/badass message that needs to be shared.

This week, it’s all about equality for women and increasing representation in a number of different areas. First up, model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne has teamed up with sports brand Puma for a series called #DoYouStories, where she highlights the work of women activists in a range of different areas.

Cara explained the idea stemmed from a trip to Uganda with UNHCR earlier in 2017, and as the brand ambassador for Puma, she approached them with the idea for the female empowerment series.

“This is one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had in my life – it really was completely life changing. What affected me was watching these young women and seeing what their stories were, what they are struggling with. But what shocked me was their strength, and it inspired me to create this docuseries with PUMA, because I wanted to do more to give women a platform where they can share their own stories,” she said.

There are 3 episodes altogether, and we’re sharing the first introductory piece where Cara talks more about her mission behind the series. In episode two, she joins women from Get Lit, a platform that promotes literacy, empowerment and self-expression. In episode three, she takes a self-defense class with the hijab-wearing Dr. Ryhana Dawood, the founder of an initiative called Martial Smarts, and in the fourth episode, she tackles the issue of bullying.

The second video is all about the Equal Rights Amendment…which the US has never ratified. Yep, think about that for a second. You could *technically* say equal rights are “unconstitutional” in the United States. Of course, there have been numerous laws that gave way to equality and equal protection under the law, including the Voting Rights Act, a woman’s right to vote and marriage equality in 2015.

But the ERA, first introduced by female activists in 1923, has yet to be included in the constitution, and there is a major campaign seeking to introduce the idea to the public again. Ever since the election of Donald Trump, it’s clear that any freedoms and rights that have been fought for are not necessarily guaranteed and we need to do everything we can to stop the clock being turned back.

This has to start with awareness, and as the following video, created by Boldly and Buzzfeed shows, there are many who assume Equal Rights is guaranteed, or don’t even know that it has never been passed. We can’t believe that it is 2017 and we are still fighting for some basic human rights, but given our current political climate, perhaps there has never been a better time.

Our final video is a promo of a Youtube Red series called ‘Hyperlinked’, which is aimed at tween girls interested in STEM fields. Launched on May 31st, it stars music up-and-comers L2M and was inspired by the true story of a 16-year-old girl who built her own website, ultimately gaining attention and investment from major names like Procter & Gamble, according to Brit+Co.

The show was made in partnership with Google, as well as major organizations like the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, and Black Girls Code founder Kimberly Bryant. As a mother of a daughter and an engineer herself, Kimberly explained that the time to engage girls in STEM has never been more pertinent, given the increase in jobs in that sector, as well as the lack of women in leadership and engineering positions. And given Youtube Red’s popularity among the younger generation, seeing young female role models on screen can have a major impact.

“We constantly battle male-dominative paradigms that shape the narrative of leaders and innovators as predominantly male and primarily white. This falsely represents the true shift in our society as it relates to the ascension of women and people of color across multiple fields, including the technology space. Media vehicles such as ‘Hyperlinked’ offer definite alternative images, which help influence perceptions for future generations,” said Kimberly.

Below is the promo, and you can watch the 1st episode, ‘Dance It Off’, for free by clicking here.