2013年6月30日星期日

The Revolution Is Coming and It's Wearing Pink Shoes

On Tuesday half a million people tweeted their support for Texas state representative Wendy Davis in the first few hours of her historic filibuster to stop proposed restrictive abortion legislation. And she did it in bright pink shoes!

Just as the wave of support for this brave act was unfolding, I took the stage with two extraordinary women activists from Afghanistan and Egypt here at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Our conversation on the Aspen stage followed a showing of the film Girl Rising which tells the stories of ten girls and their brave efforts to overcome huge challenges to go to school. The panel speakers Mona Eltahawy and Shabana Basij-Rasikh told their own brave stories. The audience quieted into stunned silence as Mona told of being hauled off, sexually assaulted and beaten while reporting from Tahrir Square in Egypt, and listened rapt as Shaban told of being forbidden to attend school by the Taliban in Egypt so, in response,Shop this season's new prada bags now. she cut off all her hair and attended school disguised as a boy for 12 years.

But these disturbing stories were not at the heart of their remarks. The heart and soul of their remarks were all about hope, and revolution, and bravery. As one of the girls in the film, Suma, from Nepal, said,There are numerous diversified high heels at christian louboutin shoes for sale. "I have seen what change looks like. It is like a breath running through you. It cannot be stopped."

And these two young women have not been stopped. Mona has become the leading social media journalist reporting on Egypt's political unfolding, and Shabana has created two remarkable institutions that have created schools and educational opportunities for hundreds of girls in Afghanistan. Shabana believes that women in the Middle East are at a sea change moment. She said, "they have found their voice, and they cannot go back."

Many have said that feminism is dead.In comparison with other high heels,christian louboutin boots,louboutin shoes,christian louboutin men,cheap christian louboutin will bring unique feeling to you. Maybe it is, in its older manifestation. After all, it was almost 40 years ago when I was a member of the first women's organization in a high school in the US. The women's movement guided my life, and I have dedicated my professional carrier to working on behalf of women and girls. Yet, there is so much work still to be done. More than 90 percent of Afghan girls are illiterate today. One out of every seven young girls in the world are married before the age of 15. More than 250 million women have no access to family planning services who want them.

And this is where the color pink comes in. Pink is not a shy color. Pink demands to be seen; pink is brave and bold and shouts "Here I am -- make room for me!" And this is what the millions of young women all across the world are saying. They are claiming their place and asserting the importance of women to all of the key issues of our time -- the economy, political stability, health, the environment. The next economic giant is not Brazil, or India,There are numerous diversified high heels at christian louboutin shoes for sale. or China. It is women.

Just as pink-shoed Wendy Davis took the floor of the Texas legislature to stay "on topic" and to not be moved, Mona tweeted from an Egyptian prison, and Shabana created a school.

As Martin Luther King wrote from a Birmingham jail fifty years ago "freedom is never voluntarily given; it must be demanded by the oppressed." The revolution is coming, and it is wearing bright pink shoes.

Don't get me wrong – I'm not swearing off heels forever. It's just that in recent years, as they've got higher and more outrageous, I've found myself losing interest. Shoes are for wearing after all and it's one thing to admire an impressive piece of foot architecture, quite another to squeeze your own imperfect trotter into it and then go about your daily business. (For more on this, see the recent agonising-for-all-parties-concerned interface between Kim Kardashian's pregnancy ankles and her Perspex Givenchy sandals). I don't want to be an awful judgy-pants about this, obviously. Sure there is a coltish, hubristic charm to groups of young ladies tottering in and out of nightclubs atop vertiginous concoctions. But trying too hard is never cool, and it can be downright dangerous.welcome to michaels kors bags on sale,best service and low prices. One minute you're prancing around with legs four inches longer than the ones God gave you, the next you're at the bottom of the stairs with a broken nose like poor Carol Vorderman. Think on.

So. I reserve the right to wear heels whenever my fancy (and a taxi there and back) takes me, but at the moment you'll usually find me in flats. I'm grateful to British designer Charlotte Olympia and fashion maven Alexa Chung for spearheading the fashionable flats movement. Here is my pick of the season.

Charlotte Olympia's covetable Kitty slippers kickstarted a clutch of trends when she first introduced them a couple of years ago (Low heels! Slippers! Anthropomorphic footwear!). Each season since has brought pleasing iterations like this embroidered pair.

For cutting-edge flats, get to know Hackney brand Miista (headed by Spanish-born, London-trained designer Laura Villasenin). It's all about holographic brogues.

If you're skipping summer (like the weather is), why not invest in these Asos loafers? They come in an autumnal bronze brocade and (since they were crafted in Britain's historic shoemaking capital, Northampton) they're an ethical buy, too.

Click on their website www.myshoe123.com for more information.

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