Five women who marked the year 2021 – Forbes France

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Julia Ducournau feminist director @Photo Getty

Role models, committed, strong, creative, talented … many women have marked the year 2021. Among them, we have selected five outstanding female figures over the past 12 months.

Joséphine Baker, a modern woman

She is the sixth woman to enter the Pantheon on November 30, 2021. Forty-six years after her death, Josephine Baker continues to exercise its aura that goes beyond the borders of France. Dancer, singer, actress, resistance fighter, anti-racist activist… she has become an icon. She embodies a strong symbol, that of a free woman with very contemporary ideals that the government wished to celebrate: a “war hero.” Fighter. Dancer. A singer. Black defending blacks, but first and foremost a woman defending mankind. “.

Angela Merkel, a loyal politician

Angela Merkle said her farewells and ceded her place on December 9, 2021 to the new leader Olaf Scholz. Known for her sobriety, steadfastness and quiet strength, the one the Germans nicknamed “Mutti” (mom), ruled the German government for 16 years regardless of her style, allure and form of simplicity. often mocked at the start of his seizure of power. Having become an essential reference figure in Europe, we now speak of the “Merkel style”. His departure is already being emulated by young people, the most nostalgic.

Julia Ducournau, an extraordinary director

On July 17, 2021, the Cannes Film Festival crowned Julia Ducournau: the second director in the history of the Festival to receive the Palme d’Or. A sentence from his speech “Please bring in the monsters. ” sums up his work and his commitment well ” to push back the walls of normativity that lock us in and separate us ” she added. A radical and feminist cinema in the same way as its commitment to the collective 50/50 which aims to promote the equality of women and men, sexual, gender, class and racial diversity in cinema and audio-visual.

Marthe Wandou, a fighter for all girls

Cameroonian lawyer and women’s rights activist Marthe Wandou received the Right Livelihood Award on December 1, 2021 in Stockholm, better known as the alternative Nobel Prize. The one who created the Aldepa association in 1998, which works to educate girls while also contributing to the progressive eradication of the practice of early marriages, and which helps women victims of violence, embodies the fight for justice for all, regardless of age, in a society where impunity reigns.

Zarifa Ghafari, the voice of Afghan women

In 2018, she became the youngest female mayor of Afghanistan. On August 15, 2021 Zarifa Ghafari fled his country, which fell into the hands of the Taliban. A refugee in Germany, the defender of women’s rights has become the voice of Afghan women now under the yoke of the Taliban. She calls on the international community to dialogue with the Taliban to put pressure on them and force them to guarantee respect for human rights… and for Afghan women in particular.

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