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#ThrowbackThursday: Liu Wen Walks the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, 2009

Liu Wen walks the 2009 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (Zimbio)

I’ll be honest: Sometimes my posts are born from a random thought. This post comes from my Googling to find out who the first Asian supermodel was. This led me to Liu Wen, whom The New York Times called the “first Asian supermodel” in 2012.

Three years before The Grey Lady bestowed that moniker, Liu walked in the annual Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. She was the first Asian model to do so. That’s hardly the only first Liu has racked up throughout her career: She’s also the first East Asian model to be a face for Estee Lauder, cover American Vogue in 2017 and make Forbes‘ annual list of highest-paid models. (Liu ranked #5 on Forbes’ list in 2013 with $4.3M.)

#ThrowbackThursday: Sexual Assault Statistics, 2016

Sexual Assault graphic (The Daily Orange)

Syracuse University’s student newspaper The Daily Orange published this graphic two years ago to mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month. (That’s April, FYI.) The graphic brings awareness to data centered on sexual assaults on public and private college campuses.

A couple of these stats are especially chilling: 90% of victims do not report the sexual assault. And the victim knows the perpetrator in 80% of sexual assault cases.

So. Many. Problems. Here.

Princess Charlotte Makes History

Princess Charlotte (Mirror UK)

Everyone with a WiFi connection knows that the Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a. the former Kate Middleton) had her baby yesterday. The birth of her new son also ensured that her daughter Charlotte has made history.

How? Princess Charlotte is the first princess in the Royal Family’s history not to lose her place in the line of succession to a younger brother.

In 2013, the Succession to the Crown Act was introduced, and allowed girl members of the Royal Family to keep their place in the line of succession even if a younger male member of the family was born. The act was implemented in 2015, and Princess Charlotte is the first royal girl to benefit from it.

Before the Act, female members of the family were frequently bumped down the line of succession in favor of their male brothers, even if the boys were younger. This started with Queen Victoria, whose second child, a boy, replaced her first child, a daughter, in the line of succession. Primogeniture (the official term for it) was very common up until…yesterday.

This is also exciting for another reason. As “The Lily” put it:

The updated law of succession, however, means that a future princess could one day be born to be queen.

!!!

By The Numbers: Women Who’ve Headlined Coachella

INDIO, CA – APRIL 14: Beyonce Knowles performs onstage during 2018 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival Weekend 1 at the Empire Polo Field on April 14, 2018 in Indio, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Coachella)

This post was originally published on January 19, 2017 and is being republished. It has been updated from the original.

The first weekend of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (also known as…Coachella) happened last weekend, and this weekend is part two. As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Beyonce headlines this year’s festival. She put out an epic set last weekend (watch it if you haven’t!!!)

Why is this significant? Beyonce is the first Black woman to headline Coachella!!

Coachella festivals (#): 19

Founded in 1999

Total female headliners (#): 3

Bjork headlined in 2002 and 2007.

Unique female headliners (#): 2

Bjork and Beyonce

Total female headliners (%): 2.17%

Unique female headliners (%): 1.45%

Main stage acts (approximate #): 138

*Source: Coachella Festival line-ups page on Wikipedia

#ThrowbackThursday: “The Year of the Woman,” 1992

Democratic Women elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 (Wikipedia)

2018 is shaping up to be a great year for women in politics in terms of sheer visibility. Already, a record number of women have committed to running for public office in this year’s mid-term elections.

Another year in the not-too-distant past that proved significant for women’s gains in government was 1992. This year saw four women elected to the Senate: Patty Murray, Carol Moseley Braun, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. They joined Barbara Mikulski, who had been elected in 1986.

Four new women elected into the Senate set a record, and led to “Time” calling 1992 “The Years of the Woman.” But Senator Mikulski refuted this title:

“Calling 1992 the Year of the Woman makes it sound like the Year of the Caribou or the Year of the Asparagus. We’re not a fad, a fancy, or a year.”

Hopefully the 2018 mid=terms further prove this point.

Jordan Peele Makes History as the First African-American to Win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar

Jordan Peele wins the Best Original Screenplay Oscar at the 2018 Oscars (Time)

HOLLYWOOD, CA – MARCH 04: Writer/director Jordan Peele accepts Best Original Screenplay for ‘Get Out’ onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Writer/director Jordan Peele made history at the Oscars last night: He became the first African-American to win the Best Original Screenplay Oscar! Peele won for his critically acclaimed and popular debut feature “Get Out.” (If you haven’t seen it yet, SEE IT NOW!!)

Peele was only the fourth African-American person to be nominated for the category. Past nominees were Suzanne de Passe for “Lady Sings the Blues” (which came out in 1972), Spike Lee for “Do the Right Thing” (1989) and John Singleton for “Boyz N the Hood (1991).

Congrats to Peele, and I can’t wait to see what else he does!!

Women in Entertainment: Some Basic Stats

Sofia Coppola (Junkee)

Let’s kick off some basic stats about women in entertainment, shall we? Because knowledge is power, and let’s change this shit! I pulled these from a variety of sources; all figures are from 2017 unless otherwise noted.

Film:

(All figures for the top 100 domestic highest-grossing films of 2017)

Women comprised 10% of directors, 8% of writers, and 2% of cinematographers.
Women comprised 37% of major characters, and comprised 34% of all speaking characters.
In terms of female characters’ race and ethnicity, 68% of female characters were white, 16% were Black, 7% were Latina, 7% were Asian, and 2% were defined as “other” (no delineation given).
Women comprised 5% of total leaders depicted, compared to 8% for men.

TV:

(All data pulled from the 2016-2017 television season)

Women comprised “42% of major characters on broadcast network, cable, and streaming programs.”
For womens’ speaking roles with respect to race and ethnicity, Black women spoke in 19% of all roles, Asian women spoke in 6% of all roles, and Latina women spoke in 5% of all roles. Each group showed gains year-over-year.
Women comprised 28% of creators, directors and writers and other above-the line functions as defined by the survey.
Four women or fewer were employed in certain behind the scenes roles at 50% of programs.

And finally, this gem:

Hollywood’s top paid union executive—a man—earned 60 percent more than the highest-paid female union executive.

Makes you want to burn it all down, doesn’t it? And there are many more of these depressing and disappointing statistics out there.

Hopefully with all the awareness and dialogue surrounding gender disparity in the field right now, we’re on track to make some BIG changes.

Only 17% of Startups Had a Female Founder in 2017

Whitney Wolfe, Founder of Bumble (Travel + Leisure)

Quick, how many female founders of startups can you name (without Googling)? Let’s see, there’s Sophia Amoruso of NastyGal (RIP!), Whitney Wolfe of Bumble, Jenn Hyman of Rent the Runway, and…who else?

Contrast that with how many male startup founders you could name (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc.) and you could go on for days. And that’s without Googling. And without naming their respective companies (Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Tesla, in case you’e wondering.)

Why can’t we name more female founders? Do they exist?

Well, yes and no. Crunchbase, a platform that crunches (heh) data for many companies around the world, has been running a study on female founders of start-ups since 2015. And what they found will SHOCK you.

Actually, no it won’t. Only 17% of startups had a female founder as of Q1 2017 (the last recorded study). 17 PERCENT. THIS IS NOT PARITY.

What makes this number worse is that this percentage has persisted since 2012. So women have only have the best seats at the table less than 1/5th of the time for 5 years.

Ladies, let’s start some companies!! Who’s with me?!

“Wonder Woman 2” Will Be the First Film to Use New Anti-Sexual Harassment Guidelines

Gal Gadot in ‘Wonder Woman’ (Buzzfeed)

We have another reason to love the next “Wonder Woman” movie! It’s been announced that the film will be the first to implement new anti-sexual harassment guidelines.

Drawn up by the Producers Guild of America (PGA) in response to the wave of sexual harassment coming to light, the guidelines will provide anti-sexual harassment training to those working on the movie and support to those who report harassment. These guidelines will apply across the film and TV industries. The guidelines were created by the PGA’s new Anti-Sexual Harassment Task Force.

It’s great to see the entertainment industry taking action to combat sexual harassment, and I hope these guidelines will be widely adopted.

“Wonder Woman 2” will be released in 2019.

By The Numbers: Women Making Bank

Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Cleopatra,’ 1963 (Eclipse Magazine)

Earlier this week, Ellen Pompeo became the highest-paid TV actress currently on TV, making $20M a year. How’d she do it? She asked for it. Also, she knew her worth.

Who else has made bank while breaking the glass ceiling? Let’s take a look!

First Female Millionaire:

Madam C.J. Walker built a beauty empire and had a net worth of $600K at the time of her death. Adjusted for inflation, that’s that’s $8,757,479.29 in November 2017 money.

First Female Billionaire:

Lifestyle entrepreneur Martha Stewart became a billionaire in 2000, the year after her company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia went public.

First Black Female Billionaire:

Be honest: you thought this would be Oprah, didn’t you? So did I…until I actually googled it. No, this honor goes to Sheila Johnson. Johnson co-founded BET with her ex-husband Bob Johnson and went on to work in hospitality and real estate, and own minority stakes in three sports teams. Johnson first made the “Forbes” Billionaire List in 2000.

First Film Actress to be Paid $1M for a Role:

This would be the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor, who played the titular role in “Cleopatra” in 1963.

Highest-Paid Actress of 2017:

Emma Stone made the “Forbes” 2017 list of highest paid actors and actresses at $26M. However, she’s the highest-ranking actress at #15.

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.