27 Dec 2017

Best features of 2017: the bold women

6:54 am on 30 December 2017

Words with women doing it their own way.

Three notorious women

For women, ageing comes with many complications. Megan Whelan speaks to three women who have done it – gracefully or otherwise.

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Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King

Manal al-Sharif: daring to drive

Manal al Sharif is an outlaw. Her crime; driving as a woman in Saudi Arabia. In 2011 she organised protests to support women's rights to drive and was arrested for getting behind the wheel.

Manal al-Shraif

Manal al-Shraif Photo: wikipedia

Aging in a youth-obsessed industry

Sheila Nevins doesn't do sugar-coating. After a lifetime of telling other people's stories as the President of HBO Documentary, she's ready to get personal and tell her own.

Sheila Nevins

Sheila Nevins Photo: Wiki commons/Photograph by Brigitte Lacombe

The rise of the unruly woman

Men are bold, women are loud. Men are confident, women are bossy. It's an enduring double standard and it's time to look closer at it, says the author of Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman. 

Left to right: Kim Kardashian, Anne Helen Petersen and Lena Dunham

Left to right: Kim Kardashian, Anne Helen Petersen and Lena Dunham Photo: AFP / Supplied

Age and Agency: a panel discussion

What happened to grey hair? Why are women over 60 only ever seen in erectile dysfunction commercials? Kim Hill talks with four women about 'Ageing and Agency at Wellington's City Gallery. 

Kim Hill, Miranda Harcourt, Dr Ella Henry, Jacqueline Fahey, Dr Claire Robinson, in front of Cindy Sherman's work.

Kim Hill, Miranda Harcourt, Dr Ella Henry, Jacqueline Fahey, Dr Claire Robinson, in front of Cindy Sherman's work. Photo: Supplied

Jessa Crispin: why she's not a feminist

Contemporary feminism has lost its way, says writer Jessa Crispin. She tells Kim Hill the divide between the rhetoric of the movement and the real-life experience of women is only getting bigger.

Jessa Crispin

Jessa Crispin Photo: supplied

Lucy Roche: scandalously funny

Comedian and sex worker Lucy Roche uses comedy to break down stereotypes. Wellington-based Roche was voted best new talent in the Raw Comedy Quest last year.

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Photo: Gareth Bradley

Rebel woman Roxane Gay

When self-described ‘bad feminist’ Roxane Gay joked about the ways she was ‘doing feminism wrong', she ended up striking a chord with women all over the world.

Roxanne Gay

 Roxane Gay Photo: supplied

Lindy West: A Shrill Woman

Writer and feminist Lindy West says there’s power in reclaiming words that are intended to hurt, which is why she prefers being called fat to being called big.

Lindy West.

Lindy West. Photo: AFP

Carol Shand: championing sexual health

Carol Shand has been working for and with victims of sexual assault and child sexual abuse and in the fields of women's health and sexual health medicine for more than 40 years.

Carol Shand

Dr Carol Shand Photo: supplied

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