AnOther's Women of the Past, Present and Future

This Sunday is International Women’s Day, a moment of heightened awareness surrounding the global struggle for female equality. Here, in support of the cause, we celebrate three of our favourite pioneering women from the past, present and future – tying in with the theme of the new issue of AnOther Magazine, and spanning the seas, the earth and the (blue) skies.

AnOther’s Woman of the Past
Who: Dr Sylvia Earle, undersea pioneer and oceanographer, who has devoted her life to exploring the world that lurks beneath our waves. 

What: Over a career spanning nearly six decades, Earle has spent countless hours below the waterline, pioneering early diving suits, as well as robotic submarines, living beneath the waves and fighting to protect the vast blue world out there – all the while looking very glamorous indeed. In all, she has led more than 60 underwater missions and logged nearly 7,000 hours under water. Today she is a passionate campaigner for the protection of our oceans and since 1998 has enjoyed a role as National Geographic explorer-in-residence. 

Why: Earle’s contribution to oceanography is utterly remarkable in itself, but in terms of being a female in a male dominated industry, it is unprecedented. She holds the record for the deepest-ever dive made by a woman and was the first female chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 1970, she led the first all female team on a two-week mission to an underwater habitat called Tektite II, located off the Virgin Islands, to demonstrate the use of cutting-edge technology. And to top it all off she was named Time Magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet” in 1998 (not to mention being officially classed as a “Living Legend” by America’s Library of Congress). 

Quote of Note: “Less than 5% of the ocean has been explored, let alone mapped. We have creatures that are so exotic you look at them and think ‘eat your heart out, Luke Skywalker!’”

AnOther’s Woman of the Present
Who: French actress Léa Seydoux, Bond-girl-in-waiting and AnOther Magazine’s radiant S/S15 cover star.

What: Seydoux’s small but perfectly formed vignettes in films for directors including Wes Anderson, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino, as well as her campaigns for Prada’s latest fragrance Candy, have made her one of France’s most in-demand exports. Her nuanced Palme d’Or-winning performance in lesbian love story Blue is the Warmest Colour brought her worldwide acclaim. 

Why: Seydoux is set to be the woman of 2015, taking centre stage in both a Hollywood blockbuster and an art house extravaganza – as well as Spectre, Sam Mendes’s follow-up to Skyfall opposite Daniel Craig, she will appear in cult Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster, an “unconventional love story” set in a distopian future where singletons who don’t find a mate within 45 days are trasformed into wild beasts. 

Quote of Note: “I try to be in the past, the present and the future. Otherwise I would feel already dead. When you act you really feel in the present. It saves me, in a way. It’s hard for me to think about the future. It creates a lot of anxiety.”

AnOther’s Woman of the Future
Who: Miranda July, boldly original thinker and the definition of a modern polymath.

What: July is a poster child for hip American intelligentsia in the 21st century, one of the boldest female voices in underground film, literature and multi-media art since 2004, when Filmmaker Magazine pronounced her number one among the 25 New Faces of Indie Film. In 2005 her first feature film Me, You and Everyone We Know won accolades at Cannes and Sundance, and her short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in 2007. Her 2011 film The Future, which premiered at Sundance, was followed by myriad creative collaborations, including an email-based art project with Sheila Heti and Lena Dunham, ad her own mobile app, Somebody, created with support from Miu Miu, which invites strangers to deliver messages to one another. While the latest string to her bow was her first novel, The First Bad Man, released in January.

Why: July, the queen of blue sky thinking, is the definition of a modern cultural icon; an artist who adapts her ideas to incorporate new trends and technologies while maintaining a respect for the past, she embodies the concept that, when it comes to creativity, anything is possible.

Quote of Note: “Youth has always been power. But now it literally means running the companies that are creating our reality. I picture youth in the past as kids at a sock hop [a dance from the 50s] . But it seems like technology is the huge divider between youth and middle-age now... It’s interesting to be my age, because it’s really straddling two eras.”

Read Nancy Waters’ full interview with Léa Seydoux and Caroline Ryder’s full discussion with Miranda July in the current issue of AnOther Magazine. Chris Hatherill and Regina Peldszus spoke to Dr Sylvia Earle for AnOther Magazine A/W11.