TRiBE

At TRiBE we hope to increase awareness of Feminist issues, encourage better positive relationships between women and promote a creative and supportive network.

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Estée Lalonde

The world of the youtube creative has certainly exploded in recent years, with one hour of content being uploaded every minute! with the sheer number of youtubers out there it must be difficult to be seen or heard, but one of the ladies catching our attention is Miss Estee Lalonde, not only does she produce health, beauty and lifestyle videos she also has a video series that us at TRiBE love. Femtalk is Estee’s take on everything Lady, from discussing her favorite feminist books and films to giving advice and chat on periods, catcalling and everything in between. She is quite clearly and Girlboss and we felt this a great reason to feature her on the blog and spread the Estee Love. Born in Canada in 1990 she later moved to London where she first started her blog and youtube channel from the comfort of her bedroom. From then she has come a long way creating what can be called a small empire, with her book ‘Bloom’ coming out next month. It is clear to see her creative and personal growth through the years and now she produces highly polished interesting content for the world to enjoy. We can’t wait to see what’s up your sleeve Estee, Keep being a Badass. Here we have linked all the videos in Estee’s Femtalk series, we hope you enjoy watching them as much as we do! 

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Gender Issues in the Creative Industries

I was recently reading an article by Rebecca Wright and Liv Siddall, written for It’s Nice That, confronting some issues of gender equality within the creative arts, and more specifically Graphic Design. In particular the article focuses on the amount of young women attending and graduating university studying graphic design. The article presents a fact that I found very interesting:

 “of the 49,920 students studying creative arts and design in Higher Education in the UK, 30,790 or 61.7%, are women” 

 Although women are clearly in the majority when studying the subject they actually only make up 36% of the creative industries workforce, the animation and visual effects industries are even worse, of the 40% of women in animation jobs, only a quarter of them are actually animators. This discrepancy is something I find very interesting, as I am one of the statistics, a young woman studying and graduating in graphic design, hoping to get a job in the same field. Why are the numbers of women carrying on into a design career so disproportionately low? Rebecca Wright suggests the problems span from the education system, women are stereotypically less forthright and pushy in their approach to getting work. Although the Gender Balance Workforce Survey Project recently did a study of the barriers facing women in the Gaming industry, and unfortunately, harassment and bullying were causes of women not progressing in their industry, perhaps this threat of harassment puts women off even applying for jobs in the first place? 

However there are people fighting to change the gender issue, earlier this month Otegha Uwagba set up the organisation ‘Women Who’ a network aimed at women in the creative industries helping to connect them through events, publications and online content, hoping to inspire and support women in these fields. Their first release is the ‘Little Black Book’ a practical guide giving advice to women on topics such as networking or public speaking. In a recent It’s Nice That Article Otegha said “This is absolutely not about hashtag feminism, Women Who is a combination of all the things I’m most passionate about: creativity, women and work. I want to establish an inclusive network that feels modern and relevant, not corporate or stuffy… because being a working woman is hard enough without going it alone.”

Take a look through our sources for more information, and some extra reading: 

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/rebecca-wright

http://www.itsnicethat.com/news/women-who-otegha-uwagba-060716 

http://creativeskillset.org/news_events/blogs/3344_where_are_the_women_we_need_more_diversity

http://wow.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/female-equality-workplace-2139

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Alicia Keys Is Starting a War on Perfectionism—And It’s About Time

Runways and headlines have a mirroring message this season: Ditch your makeup bag.

TRiBE are loving Alicia’s approach, She “hopes to God it’s a revolution” and we do too! a refreshing and encouraging read. We ❤️ you Alicia

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Inspiring Sportswomen (Skateboarding)

I have always been fascinated with skateboarding, but I feel women in the sport need more exposure so these are some of the female pioneers, that you may have never heard of: 

Patti McGee

McGee was women’s first national skateboard champion 1965. She set world records for the fastest woman on a skateboard, and also was the first female skateboarder to go pro. Unfortunatley Skateboarding in the 60′s seemed to pass like many other childhood crazes, none the less, McGee’s influence has always been remembered and in 2010 she was the first women to be inducted into the skateboarding hall of fame. 

Peggi Oki

Perhaps one of the most famous skateboarding teams is the Zephyr team of the 1970′s with pioneering skaters such as Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta, although many people are unaware that one of the Z-boys was in fact a girl, She talks about her experiences of being a girl in skateboarding saying that sometimes other female competitors would protest to judges as they felt she skated too much like a guy. in 2012 she was inducted into the skateboarding hall of fame, and now spends a lot of her time doing environmental work. 

Cindy Whitehead

Whitehead began skateboarding at age 14, she became obsessed with the sport and even though her parents did not approve she pursued a career in skating, with the help of her influential grandmother. She specialised in half pipe and pool riding and is to this day the only woman to be featured in a 2 page article and centrefold in a skateboarding magazine. 

Lacey Baker

said to be one of the best Female skaters in the world she started at the tender age of 5, and has an impressive competitive track record with her most recent accomplishment being a gold at the 2014 X Games (street).She skates Meow boards, but says it is incredibly difficult to earn money from sponsorship, struggling to justify skateboarding as a full time career. Regardless of money issues she is a highly respected skater and in 2013 Thrasher Magazine named her “first full part in a skate video as the best female street/tech parts ever” 

In this Article for Broadly ( A Great feminist Website/Youtube! )  Lacey talks about sexism in the sport and her views on how the industry treats its female athletes. 

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/pro-skateboarder-lacey-baker-wants-the-skate-industry-to-start-respecting-women 

Here are some more interesting links if you want to learn more about female skaters: 

http://longboardgirlscrew.com/2015/10/skateboard-mom-and-the-sisters-of-shred/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI4fEajqVlQ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9dMqHVMw1E&list=WL&index=74

https://meowskateboards.com/blogs/news

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TRiBE Badge-Making Launch event 

Time Lapse Badgemaking! 

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TRiBE Badge-Making Launch event 

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TRiBE Badge-Making Launch event 

On Friday I held a badgemaking event to publicise TRiBE, where people could choose from various designs to be made into badges, some using slogans like “Girl Gang” Riots Not Diets” and “Fries Before Guys” others had female icons on them, women who I have featured on the blog before. I had information about the women so people can learn about who their badges were, I really enjoyed seeing people learn all about inspirational women, especially those that were less recognisable. 

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Inspiring Sportswomen (Figure Skating)

Figure Skating is an impressive, technical and artful sport, although quite a niche one, with quite a small community of dedicated athletes compared to sports such as Football or Athletics (Great Britain) despite this it is the main event at the winter olympics with huge audiences worldwide. I am a figure skater and so felt I would share the stories of female figure skaters who I find inspiring. I first start with Surya Bonaly, a french figure skater born and adopted in Nice. Known in the skating world for being unconventional and outspoken in her skating style, she also drew attention from the worlds media because of the colour of her skin, she was and is one of very few black figure skaters to ever compete at senior level, much like ballet the numbers of professional black figures skaters is very low, and so with her arrival on the scene the figure skating world took notice. She was generally a crowd favourite, but never by the judges, she had a very successful career becoming french national champion 9 times, and is 5 time european champion, although one title still alludes her: the World championships, unfortunately she received three silver medals and never a gold. Amidst controversy, she was repeatedly rewarded low presentation marks and once even refused a silver medal, taking it off whilst standing on the podium, an action branded as a protest to her persistently low marks. Her marks were not always understandable and although she has never suggested Racism, she was quoted saying “When you’re black you know you have to do better than anyone else who’s white” Unfortunatley this quote is very easy to believe along with the fact she was constantly criticized for not being “elegant” enough, or “too muscular”. Despite any negative connotations from the judges she has gone down in history as an incredible skater with huge amounts of power and techinical ability, and also a rebel not scared to speak her mind, as seen below in the ESPN documentary. She will forever be known for her amazing backflip! something that is still very rarely attempted, and to my knowledge never by women. Perhaps she also paved the way for black figure skaters especially in the french team who provide almost all the black skaters in current competition, with ladies such as Mae Berenice Meitie and Vanessa James. 

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Bentonville Film Festival

Today marks the beginning of the second Bentonville Film Festival, the festival was founded by Oscar Winning actress Geena Davis. The festival focuses on women and Diverse voices in Media. Clearly this is a topic that is overlooked and so needs championing with this event. Bentonville is also different in that it is the only competition in the world which guarantees distribution, This is a huge boost for the films that win as it gives them the exposure needed to create a more diverse media world. 

“The Festival is positioned to deliver commercially viable solutions and initiatives to positively support content creation and distribution in support of our mission”

Bentonville strives to publisize the amazing content created by women and diverse voices all over the world, hoping to inspire younger generations to believe that what they want to achieve is possible. With more exposure hopefully womens and diverse peoples voices will be heard clearer in years to come, creating a more equal media industry.

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These are just some of TRiBE'S favourite women in music, some new faces and old classics, hope you enjoy our selection and contribute with your own favourites! - we'll be constantly updating so send in your suggestions

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As a university student this piece is really interesting, amazing how far women’s education has come in this country, but also highlights some of the issues still facing us. The ‘walk of shame’ is something that still causes concern, I feel the issues now facing female students are of a more sexual nature compared to an educational one. 

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Maria Teresa De Filippis

Was an Italian racing driver and was the first woman to compete in Formula one racing. She had a successful racing career, but unfortunately never placed in a grand prix race, Never the less she is seen as a pioneer in a sport known for being predominantly male. According to a 2006 interview a French Race director told her “ The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdressers” and he then prevented her from taking part. In her earlier career she placed 2nd twice in the Italian Sports car championship and took part in endurance and hillclimbing races. It is her success in the sports car championship which led Maserati to notice her potential and she became a works driver with the team. 

After only a year in the formula one circuit Filipis decided to retire after the loss of several friends in tragic accidents. 1958 was an infamous year for the amount of fatal accidents seen. Although her career was short lived, Maria is still highly respected for her contribution to formula one at the time, despite the high levels of sexism she was forced to face. 

Unfortunately Women’s racing has not seen numbers rise, with only a handful of women ever racing in the formula one circuit. And unfortunately F1 boss Bernie Eccleston doesn’t feel there will be any female drivers in the near future. In a recent Guardian article he states that he thinks “women wouldn’t be taken seriously” 

 “I doubt it. If there was somebody that was capable they wouldn’t be taken seriously anyway, so they would never have a car that is capable of competing. There was a girl that was driving in GP3 for a whole season so it is not something that hasn’t happened.”(I don’t appreciate the use of the word girl) 

But British driver Susie Wolff doesn’t agree and in January she launched the campaign ‘Dare to be Different’ to help get more women into racing. TRIBE cant wait to see how the initiative gets on, and would love to finally see more female drivers in F1!

Heres some further reading on Famous women in Formula one racing, and an interesting article on the future of females in the sport: 

http://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12433/10126371/women-in-f1

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/14/female-f1-driver-bernie-ecclestone 

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The teen girls who are changing the world

Not yet out of their teen years, it seems that these young women are doing more for the world around them than most of our leaders. Meet the faces of our future