Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday - 200 Women

First published in the United States in 2017 by Chronicle Books LLC.

Produced and originated by Blackwell and Ruth Limited, Suite 405 IronBank, 150 Karangahape Road, Auckland 1010, New Zealand, blackwellandruth.com

Created by: Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday
Publisher: Geoff Blackwell
Editor in Chief: Ruth Hobday
Photography: Kieran E. Scott
Interviewers: Geoff Blackwell, Ruth Hobday, Kieran E. Scott, Sharon Gelman, Marianne Lassandro and Elisabeth Sandmann
Videography: Josef Scott
Design Director: Cameron Gibb
Editorial Manager: Leanne McGregor
Project editorial: Benjamin Harris, Lisette du Plessis
Project co-ordinator: Elizabeth Blackwell

Copyright 2017 Blackwell and Ruth Limited blackwellandruth.com
Images copyright 2017 Kieran E. Scott kieranscottphotography.com
Image copyright 2017 Geoff Blackwell

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

The publisher is grateful for literary permissions to reproduce the following items subject to copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and the publisher apologises for any unintentional omission. We would be pleased to hear from any not acknowledged here and undertake to make all reasonable efforts to include the appropriate acknowledgement in any subsequent editions. Quote on by Gloria Steinem from The New Yorker interview with Gloria Steinem, Road Warrior by Jane Kramer, The New Yorker, 19 October 2015. Reprinted with permission of Jane Kramer.

The publisher respects the intellectual property rights of any and all trademark holders whose trademarks have been referenced in the book. Their trademarks are referenced in good faith for the purposes of describing and identifying those interviewed. Any reference to a trademark should in no way be interpreted as a sponsorship from, or an association with the relevant trademark holder.

The views expressed in this book are not necessarily those of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

ISBN: 978-1-4521-6658-2 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4521-6668-1 (epub, mobi)

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This book is made with FSC-certified paper products and is printed with soy vegetable inks. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is a global, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of responsible forest management worldwide to meet the social, ecological, and economic rights and needs of the present generation without compromising those of future generations.

What separates an ordinary woman from an extraordinary one? The belief that she is ordinary.

_ Jody Williams, Nobel Laureate

Gloria Steinem once said, You cant empower women without listening to their stories. We agree.

This book was inspired by that belief and our subsequent idea to persuade two hundred women in different parts of the world whether they be rich or poor, black or white, educated or uneducated, famous or unknown to sit or stand in front of a plain sheet of fabric and to be photographed and filmed while answering five fundamental questions.

Our goal was not to make a book about just successful and powerful women; those stories are important, but we wanted diversity, and above all, authenticity. Two hundred real women, with real stories.

We sought to cut away distractions and the visual context of each womans life and to simply focus on her humanity as we asked:

What really matters to you?
What brings you happiness?
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
What would you change if you could?
Which single word do you most identify with?

We travelled as a small tight group. At every stop, we would set up our humble sheet of fabric in the quietest and lightest space we could find, from a dusty rooftop above the streets of Kolkata to a snow-covered art gallery in northern Sweden, to a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut, to a hotel suite we could barely afford in New York, to a township in Cape Town where we were surrounded by beautiful kids who thought a Polaroid picture was a magic trick, to the earthquake-damaged hills of Nepal, to the leafy suburban streets of Sydney and to many other places.

With our backdrop in place, and a call for Quiet on the set, one of us would begin asking each interviewee about her life and when they were ready, we would quietly ask our five questions, and we would listen.

The list of interviewees was a mix of well-known women and others we learned about as we researched and travelled. Many were introduced to us by generous friends, friends of friends, colleagues and kindred spirits in various corners of the globe. Among them artists, activists, entrepreneurs and even an astronaut, alongside business leaders, a goat herder, a nurse, and a brave Nepalese woman who has spent most of her life living on the streets of Kathmandu selling cigarettes one at a time to support her family.

Their responses simultaneously educated, humbled and inspired us. Some came from a place of deep sorrow, but over and over we encountered uplifting examples of kindness, selflessness, strength, wisdom, inspiration and the most compelling of all, truth. Writ large was the value, beauty and privilege of being able to just listen to these women, to truly see their humanity, and to recognise our own in doing so.

In the poorest places, we came face to face with the cruel and very real correlation between poverty and inequality. In those places we shed tears as we listened to the stories of girls trapped into the sex trade, married off to strangers at the age of ten or eleven, denied education and basic freedom, and subjected to all sorts of misery at the hands of men and a patriarchal culture that sadly is still very much in business.

Wherever we encountered these stories of us and them there was almost always pain and division. But we also witnessed that when people truly see each others humanity, beautiful things become possible.

Ultimately the lesson of creating this book has been that there are no ordinary women, and there is no us and them. Theres just us.

People like us.

_ Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday

There is no us and them. Theres just us. People like us.

Aminatta Forna OBE was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and raised in the UK and Sierra Leone. She is the award-winning author of three novels, The Hired Man, The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones, and the memoir The Devil That Danced on the Water. Forna is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has acted as a judge for numerous literary awards, including the Man Booker International Prize. In 2002, Forna established the Rogbonko Project, which works to improve education, sanitation and maternal health in Sierra Leone. She was made OBE in the Queens New Years Honours 2017.