The Finger Wrap: Genius Grants, Games Wins and Gender Equality

Cartoonist Alison Bechdel (of the Bechdel test fame) is one of the winners of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius’ grant of $625,000. Here’s looking forward to more great stuff!

For the next time anyone says comics belongs to a man’s world, here’s a brief history of the women who conquered the world of comics.

Thirty-one-year-old Padmini Prakash, who works as a TV news anchor at Lotus News in Tamil Nadu, is India’s first transgender to do so.

In a horrifying tragedy the police are yet to solve, two Tripura girls were found hanging from a tree.

At the Asian Games, Indian women win the 25m team pistol bronze. And Dipika Pallikal managed a bronze, India’s first medal in squash women’s singles at the Games.

The mother of a runner dives into the protein-rich, adrenaline-loving world of the very young female Indian athlete and what it’s like to be the parent of one.

At the launch of a new UN campaign, Emma ‘Hermione’ Watson told an audience of UN delegates that feminist ideals must not be confused with ‘man-hating’, and explained why gender equality was a men’s problem too.

Misty Copeland is a celebrated ballet dancer and the first female African American soloist with the American Ballet Theatre in 20 years. Here’s a lovely profile.

TCS, with 1.3 lakh women employees (about one-third of their work force), is now India’s largest employer of women. It took them 10 years to get there from 10,000 women.

(Images Alison Bechdel by Chase Elliott Clark via CC BY 2.0, Dipika Pallikal by julesgriff vi CC BY-SA 2.0, Misty Copeland by Kent G Becker via CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)