SHE JUST IS

I collect and tell stories of women achievers, doers, free spirits and visionaries

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A capitalist society requires a culture based on images. It needs to furnish vast amounts of entertainment in order to stimulate buying and anesthetize the injuries of class, race, and sex. And it needs to gather unlimited amounts of information, the better to exploit natural resources, increase productivity, keep order, make war, give jobs to bureaucrats. The camera’s twin capacities, to subjectivize reality and to objectify it, ideally serve these needs and strengthen them. Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as a spectacle (for the masses), and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images. The freedom to consume a plurality of images and goods is equated with freedom itself. The narrowing of free political choice to free economic consumption requires the unlimited production and consumption of images.

Susan Sontag, On Photography  (via lyrischesjournal)

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Yong Soo Lee is one of 53 surviving “comfort women,” the euphemistic term used to describe tens of thousands of girls and women from Korea, China and other Asian countries who were forced into farm labor and sexual servitude for Japanese combat or occupation troops before and during World War II. 

 When Lee was finally rescued and sent home after the war, she was 17. But in many ways, her life did not begin again until the plight of the comfort women became known. In her late 60s, she threw herself into the campaign to expose the abuses and demand Japanese atonement. She testified before commissions and legislatures. She was taken to the Vatican to meet the pope. In the process, she said she found purpose in the life she thought had been thrown away.“I lost myself for a long time,” Lee said. “I thought I was worthless. I didn’t talk about it, and nobody asked me. Until the women came out, I did not exist.”

Nearly two hours into her story, Lee’s diffident demeanor changed. She stopped rubbing her rosary beads. When she spoke again, it was with deep rage against her abusers, against her lost youth, even against the term that is commonly used to describe her.

“I never wanted to give comfort to those men,” she said with a glare of disgust. “That name was made up by Japan. I was taken from my home as a child. My right to be happy, to marry, to have a family, it was all taken from me.” She wiped her eyes once more, then straightened up on the sofa.

“I am a proper lady and a daughter of Korea,” Lee declared. “I don’t want to hate or hold a grudge, but I can never forgive what happened to me. I must stand up for myself and the others. Mr. Abe should act like a man and face the truth of the crimes that were done to us. I was robbed of my youth, and I want him to apologize before I die.”

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Fran Leibowitz 

Can I please be her, when I grow up? New York Legend and modern day Dorothy Parker

Watch Martin Scorsese’s Documentary about her here! 

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Selin Olmsted

“Whatever I learn, I will share that knowledge with anyone who is interested and help him or her out as much as I can. Information & knowledge should be open source; it’s no one’s trademark or right. In fact, the more my team is equipped with information & knowledge, the more creative and smarter I get with everyone else.”

http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/10/2/selin-olmsted

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Why Everything You Think About Aging May Be Wrong

Researchers are finding that, as people get older, friendships, creativity and satisfaction with life all can flourish

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Shanta Thake

“I realized that work absolutely has to be fun not just in the grand scheme of things but in an everyday sense. You should be around people that make you happy and also spend a good bit of your time trying to make sure that they are happy. ”

http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/10/2/shanta-thake

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Dare Change!

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Katherin Kirschenmann

"We are often so used to being busy and connected that we do not really take the time to ask ourselves, what we really want and what would make us happy. I believe we also sometimes avoid those questions because it can be frustrating not to know the answer - but I do know now, that even if you do not know the answer right away you can get there over time.”

http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/9/30/katherin-kirschenmann

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“Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is.”

Viktor Frankl

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Lori Cheek

“My heart and mind are in this project every waking moment. I feel like I’m living the American Dream—I’ve given birth to an invention. I’ve built a brand and a company and thousands of people are using the service all over the world. It’s the most rewarding feeling.”

http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/10/13/lori-cheek

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THE 365 CHALLENGE

Christina Dean, founder of redress only wears 100% dumped, discarded or donated secondhand clothes to promote the ‘Redress it, don’t bin it’ concept. 

I love this initiative and admire the woman behind it!

Also check out this talk by fashion world changer Orsola de Castro regarding the same subject! <3

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Theresa & Willow

“The big obstacles and wake up calls to overcome have been ideas about what success is, what it means to me, the totally imbalanced system in which we have to try to affect change, what our society values and what it does not, who it values and whom it does not.”

— Willow

http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/10/9/theresa-willow

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You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself in any direction you choose!

Dr. Seuss

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Does your job define you? How about you start defining your job. 

Tiffany Pratt explains how what you do can constantly evolve as you and your life changes … fascinating philosophy!

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No matter what you do, you can always find ways of adding value and evolve the status quo to advance and slowly change the system! 

This is a beautiful example!

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Leslie Williamson

“I feel a profound sense of purpose in photographing and capturing many of these homes and people. My work makes me extremely happy and is deeply satisfying. I know I am doing what I was put on this earth to do.”

  http://www.shejustis.com/stories/2014/10/2/leslie-williamson