19thJune

  Yves Saint Laurent’s Women’s Tuxedo and Women’s Rights: Is the Way We Dress a Human Rights Issue? By Joana Capaz Coelho In 1966, the French designer Yves Saint Laurent presented the women’s tuxedo for the first time: a set consisting of a sheer blouse and masculine-cut trousers. At the time, the gesture was bold and deeply symbolic! More than an aesthetic proposal, the women’s tuxedo represented a cultural and social shift — a clear sign that women no longer had to follow the codes imposed on them, including those related to the way they dressed. Until then, wearing trousers was, for many women, a reason for censorship, discrimination, and even prohibition from entering certain spaces, such as restaurants and hotels that restricted entry to women dressed “outside the standard”. As Emma Baxter-Wright explains: “Designed to make women feel powerful, Saint Laurent provided a modern alternative to a traditional evening gown when he first presented his black tuxedo jacket know...

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A true leader's story [on Gender Equality and Women's Rights]   By: Joana Capaz Coelho The documentary series "Live to Lead", available on the streaming platform Netflix, and inspired by Nelsen Mandela's motto: "What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived, but the difference we have made in the lives of others", is composed of 7 interviews with major world leaders. In this post, we will concentrate on the first interview of this documentary series that focuses on the Story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (henceforth  Ginsburg)  (1993 - 2020) who was an American jurist, lawyer, and judge whose career became known for her constant fight for Gender Equality and Women's Rights. Ginsburg, as portrayed in that interview, at the beginning of her career had to face several challenges in a 1959 America where women had difficulties accessing multiple professions: Advocacy being one of them. In this sense, Ginsburg, aft...

          “(Girl) Boss” and gender equality: on the relevance of female CEOs                                                              By: Joana Capaz Coelho In 2017, Netflix released a series called “Girl Boss”. Broadly speaking, the series is based on Sophia Amoruso´s autobiography, titled #Girl Boss. Sophia Amoruso is an American businesswoman of Portuguese, Greek, and Italian descent who 2006 founded Nasty Gal  [1] – a company whose initial purpose was to resell second-hand vintage clothes. However, step by step, Amoruso created an empire. According to that Netflix series, the first piece to be sold on Nasty Gal would have been a “biker-style” jacket that Sophia had bought for US$ 9 and resold, on eBay, for around US$ 600. It is not known precisely whether these facts are entirely realit...