Dunn Edwina - The female lead: women who shape the world

Sixty inspirational women, from many walks of life. All have changed the world in a variety of fields. Among them are politicians and artists, journalists and teachers, engineers and campaigners, fire fighters and film stars. Together they form an arresting gallery of portraits, each one illustrated with original photography by Brigitte Lacombe.

Some have led their professions; some have broken new ground for women; some have inspired changes through relentless endeavour. All were chosen for their ambitions and achievements and all tell their stories in their own words.

For girls, it can be hard to identify role models in our society. This book will help and inspire women everywhere to realize their hopes and ambitions.

Data science entrepreneur Edwina Dunn has always been fascinated by peoples stories and motivations. As the co-founder of the first grocery loyalty programme, she knows first-hand what it feels like to work in a male-dominated industry. She co-founded the company dunnhumby twenty-five years ago and created the not-for-profit project The Female Lead in 2015. The project aims to tell a new set of positive stories in order to drive real change and inspire the next generation of women.

www.thefemalelead.com

Brigitte Lacombe is known for her influential and revelatory portraiture. For the past four decades, she has created iconic and intimate photographs of our most celebrated artists, actors, politicians and intellectuals. She has published photo-essays and portraits in such publications as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Vanity Fair, The Financial Times Magazine, and Zeit Magazin. Recently, exhibitions of her work were presented by Phillips Auction house in New York, Paris and London and the Shanghai Center of Photography. Monographs include Lacombe Anima/Persona (Steidl/Dangin) and Lacombe Cinema/Theater (Schirmer/Mosel). She received The Lifetime Achievement Award for Photography in 2010 from The Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and The Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Travel & Portraiture in 2012.

www.brigittelacombe.com

A celebration of womens achievement, endeavour and diversity, The Female Lead shows how women shape the world. Founded by data science entrepreneur Edwina Dunn, this non-profit project aims to make womens stories more visible, and to provide positive role models for future generations, nurturing young womens confidence and ambition in all spheres. The Female Lead works across three platforms the website, thefemalelead.com; an outreach programme that puts on workshops in schools, colleges and youth organisations; and this book of interviews with 60 remarkable women. Each interviewee tells her story in her own words, explaining how she became the person she is today and offering her insights into what she has learned along the way. The book is illustrated with powerful, original portraits by world-renowned photographer Brigitte Lacombe, each accompanied by a short filmed interview made by documentary film maker Marian Lacombe.

We three writers entrusted with interviewing the women whose stories make up this book can count up over a century of years between us of interviewing people from all walks of life. But we found, during the course of writing this book, that there wasnt a single interview that didnt give us something new to think about or amaze us in some way, in which we didnt discover a fresh point of view, or marvel at an impressive story. These accounts speak to all women, and the richness and variety of the different personalities profiled in these pages made our work on this project a pleasure.

Each woman was asked to select an item that had particular personal significance for her, and to explain her choice and its association with her success. A number of the interviewees picked something that had belonged to a female family member whom they admired; others chose objects with symbolic value, such as a wild bird to represent freedom; others settled on something that summed up their professional life or a personal skill or trait or passion. The variety of the objects reflects the eclecticism of the women and that diversity is one of the key elements of the project.

Our female leads range widely in terms of age. The youngest interviewed was 14 when she spoke to us, and all decades from teens to 70s are represented. They are also diverse in terms of nationality the territories they come from include the UK, the US, Europe, Uganda, Afghanistan, Liberia, Iraq, China and North Korea and in terms of what they do. In the following pages you will meet politicians, activists, businesswomen, scientists, sportswomen, writers and film-makers, as well as a soldier, a firefighter and a model.

There are, however, common threads. One is a frequent element of struggle and the overcoming of adversity. Some of these women have lived through war and suffered its consequences; for others, the battle has been fought in the workplace; for others again, the struggle has been a personal one for success or recognition. All our interviewees are winners, whether their names command global recognition or they are relatively unknown outside their fields, where they invariably challenge old ideas and lead discussion and innovation. They break the mould and, with their determination and courage, inspire others to do likewise.

Something else that unites these women is their grace. They were all unfailingly courteous and generous with their time, and committed to this projects core theme, which is supporting and encouraging young women. Many benefited from having female mentors along the way and are keen for younger women to benefit similarly. All are sensitive and sympathetic to the issues faced by young women in the 21st century, and all are optimistic about the future, especially regarding the lives and roles of the young women who will come after them.

Geraldine Bedell

Rosanna Greenstreet

Hester Lacey

EDWINA DUNN
Founder, The Female Lead

One of the most pressing questions for the parent or teacher or mentor of a young girl is, How do I preserve her natural-born curiosity, drive and courage? All too often we see the vibrant engagement of the emerging girl quashed by low expectations or rigid roles, battered by self-doubt in adolescence or subsumed by the demands of motherhood. In spite of the enormous social gains throughout the last century, women in many societies continue to be denied education, sexual integrity and independence. Inequality is so embedded in culture that unconscious bias infects the encouragement offered even to girls and women lucky enough to have families and teachers rooting for them. The Female Lead offers an antidote to such prejudice. By presenting the stories of 60 ambitious and successful women, this volume offers a rich register of diverse personal histories, interests, challenges and goals. The focus is not on leading others, but on taking the lead in shaping a life of ones own. The power of this volume lies in its presentation of female drive and direction as normal.