American Cowgirls, French Fashion, Dale Evans , Patriarchy + Religion's 'Big Gods'

American Cowgirls, French Fashion, Dale Evans , Patriarchy + Religion's 'Big Gods'

Vanessa Moody Is Lensed By Sebastian Kim In 'Motorcycle Diaries' For ELLE US April 2019

Vanessa Moody Is Lensed By Sebastian Kim In 'Motorcycle Diaries' For ELLE US April 2019

Model Vanessa Moody is styled by Katie Mossman in ‘Motorcycle Diaries’, lensed by Sebastian Kim for ELLE US April 2019./ Hair by Diego Da Silva; makeup by John Mckay

Amber Valletta Fronts Zara's 'Chasing the Light' Spring 2019 Nature Woman Campaign

Amber Valletta Fronts Zara's 'Chasing the Light' Spring 2019 Nature Woman Campaign

Supermodel Amber Valletta is one of fashion’s loudest and consistently-articulate voices on sustainable fashion. AOC has taken the time to research any sustainable credentials behind Zara’s newest ‘Chasing the Light’ collection, and don’t that these beautiful all-white summer styles are part of Zara’s sustainable ‘Join Life’ project, currently estimated to be only 1.5-3% of sales. We wish ‘Chasing the Light’ had green credentials but can’t find any.

With Amber Valletta appearing as the nature-woman model, it’s easy to think the collection is sustainable, especially coming on the heels of last week’s release of H&M’s exciting Conscious Exclusive Collection. H&M actually used orange peels from the end of the juice production cycle for their Orange Fiber. If Valletta was also eating pineapple, I’d call foul. Piñatex, a leather alternative made from the cellulose fiber of pineapple leaves (which become waste after the fruit is harvested) is a key new fake leather product used in H&M’s 2019 Conscious Exclusive collection.

Victor Demarchelier Eyes Model Icon Carolyn Murphy For ELLE Spain April

Victor Demarchelier Eyes Model Icon Carolyn Murphy For ELLE Spain April

Supermodel Carolyn Murphy is styled by Barbara Carralda in ‘Eterna Carolyn’, lensed by Victor Demarchelier for ELLE Spain April 2019./ Makeup by Fulvia Farolfi; hair by Ty Shearn

Alasdair McLellan Flashes Liya, Sara Grace, Hoyeon + Hayett For Tory Burch Spring/Summer 2019 Campaign

Alasdair McLellan Flashes Liya, Sara Grace, Hoyeon + Hayett For Tory Burch Spring/Summer 2019 Campaign

Benjamin Bruno styles models Hayett McCarthy, Hoyeon Jung, Liya Kebede and Sara Grace Wallerstedt in Tory Burch’s Spring/Summer 2019 campaign. Alasdair McLellan is behind the lens, capturing Tory’s ‘Spirit of Adventure’ campaign.

Burch is busy connecting with women all over America, currently on tour in her philanthropic/activist #EmbraceAmbition campaign. Forbes caught up with Tory in Philadelphia last week. “Burch has always envisioned social responsibility to be part of her brand and business and started the Tory Burch Foundation to advance women’s empowerment and entrepreneurship. The need for the Foundation is continually reinforced by studies like SCORE’s recent “The Megaphone of Main Street: Women’s Entrepreneurship” that found while women-owned businesses are making gains, they still lag behind men in key areas like funding.

2012 Vogue Paris 'La Sauvage' Aligns With Faye Cuevas + Damien Mander Drive For Women Rangers In Africa

2012 Vogue Paris 'La Sauvage' Aligns With Faye Cuevas + Damien Mander Drive For Women Rangers In Africa

AOC is always interested in how fierce women are portrayed in fashion and pop culture. We dive into the archives for this Vogue Paris June/July 2012 editorial ‘La Sauvage’. Model Karmen Pedaru is styled by Geraldine Saglio in animal prints and other wild woman looks lensed by Hans Feurer.

The editorial brings to mind recent GlamTribal Blog posts about elephant conservation in Africa. We checked back in with Faye Cuevas, a former military intelligence expert now a key, front-line leader in Kenya’s anti-poaching effort.

Faye’s brand new effort is Team Lioness, the first all-female ranger squad in Kenya. Going forward, Cuevas wants one in four new hires among conservation rangers to be women. Right on, Faye. Faye is not alone in promoting women rangers in Africa.

We are admittedly caught off-guard by the loudest voice for hiring women rangers, Aussie sharp-shooter Damien Mander has just created Zimbabwe’s all-female ‘Akashinga’ anti-poaching force in Phundundu Wildlife Park. Mander pulls no punches and sounds like Hillary Clinton when the topic is women in the developing world.

Mander believes that putting the well-being of wildlife in the expertly trained hands of women could usher in a new way of carrying out conservation. In Mander’s vast experience, he believes that women rangers will create conservation practices that are far less violent, while empowers women and improving communities in the process.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Models Marks & Spencer Rosie Swim 2019 Campaign

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley Models Marks & Spencer Rosie Swim 2019 Campaign

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley soaks up the rays, posing in the latest beach-loving swimwear designs from her collab with Marks & Spencer.

Big Gods Came After The Rise of Civilizations, Not Before, Finds Study Using Huge Historical Database

Big Gods Came After The Rise of Civilisations, Not Before, Finds Study Using Huge Historical Database

When you think of religion, you probably think of a god who rewards the good and punishes the wicked. But the idea of morally concerned gods is by no means universal. Social scientists have long known that small-scale traditional societies – the kind missionaries used to dismiss as “pagan” – envisaged a spirit world that cared little about the morality of human behaviour. Their concern was less about whether humans behaved nicely towards one another and more about whether they carried out their obligations to the spirits and displayed suitable deference to them.

Nevertheless, the world religions we know today, and their myriad variants, either demand belief in all-seeing punitive deities or at least postulate some kind of broader mechanism – such as karma – for rewarding the virtuous and punishing the wicked. In recent years, researchers have debated how and why these moralising religions came into being.

Now, thanks to our massive new database of world history, known as Seshat (named after the Egyptian goddess of record keeping), we’re starting to get some answers.

NASA Cancels First All-Female Spacewalk, Not Having Two Equipped Spacesuits In Women's Sizes

NASA Cancels First All-Female Spacewalk, Not Having Two Equipped Spacesuits In Women's Sizes

NASA has cancelled their highly-promoted two-women space walk due to not having two size medium space suits available. Earlier this month, America’s US space agency announced that astronauts Anne McClain and Christina Koch were set to make history this Friday, installing lithium-ion batteries at the International Space Station (ISS).

NASA doesn't have two smaller space suits for the ladies, as only big guys are astronauts. Please forgive us for being sarcastic. In fact, NASA is trying to change this image of promoting only men as astronauts, but outfits to wear floating out there in the universe weren’t on the checklist.

Koch will now exit the ISS with male colleague Nick Hague instead. She will wear the medium-size suit used by McClain on a spacewalk with Hague last week.

Hyungsik Kim Flashes Hyun Ji Shin In 'Couture Fairy Tale' For W Korea March 2019

Hyungsik Kim Flashes Hyun Ji Shin In 'Couture Fairy Tale' For W Korea March 2019

Model Hyun Ji Shin poses in ‘Couture Fairy Tale’, lensed by Hyungsik Kim for W Korea March 2019./ Hair by Mike Desir; makeup by Aya Fujita

Safari Tourism May Make Elephants More Aggressive – But It’s Still the Best Tool for Conservation

Safari Tourism May Make Elephants More Aggressive – But It’s Still the Best Tool for Conservation

By Isabelle Szott, PhD Candidate in Conservation Biology, Liverpool John Moores University and Nicola F. Koyama, Senior Lecturer in Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University. First published on The Conversation.

Going on safari in Africa offers tourists the opportunity to see some of the most spectacular wildlife on Earth – including African elephants (Loxodonta africana). Known for their complex social systems, long memory and high intelligence, this species is also threatened by poaching and shrinking habitats, so further disturbance to their precarious existence could have serious consequences.

Wildlife tourism can help protect these animals and their habitat by generating income for conservation and providing stable work in local economies. Countries such as South Africa and Kenya receive two to five million visitors to protected areas each year, generating receipts of up to USD$90m. But as it becomes more popular worldwide, it’s worth remembering that we often don’t know how tourism affects the animals we observe.

Kim Noorda Wears Bold Extravagance Lensed By Damian Foxe For How To Spend It Magazine April 2019

Kim Noorda Wears Bold Extravagance Lensed By Damian Foxe For How To Spend It Magazine April 2019

Stylist Elad Bitton chooses a mix of bold extravagance from Chanel, Moschino, Fendi and more in model Kim Noorda’s look at the spring 2019 collections. Photographer Damian Foxe is in the studio for How To Spend It Magazine April 2019.

Winnie Harlow Takes A Bow As The Changing Face Of Beauty, By Dennis Leupold For Remix April 2019

Winnie Harlow Takes A Bow As The Changing Face Of Beauty, By Dennis Leupold For Remix April 2019

Top model Winnie Harlow greets us again, styled by Bex Sheers in slinky, sexy outfits that only accentuate Winnie’s 5-alarm sex appeal. Dennis Leupold is behind the lens, capturing Winnie in her New York love affair for Remix Magazine (NZ) April 2019 issue./ Hair by Hos Hounkpatin

Just imagine if Winnie Harlow, not Alexina Graham, had been named the newest Victoria’s Secret Angel! AOC thinks Barbara Palvin is perfect for Victoria’s Secret, whose financial and customer-love bank is really taking a hit these days.

Winnie Harlow as an VS Angel could help lead the world’s largest lingerie brand out of darkness and into the 21st century. The Victoria’s Secret brand needs models like Winnie, and if her price was too high, you should have paid it. As the Remix cover message communicates, the Canadian beauty represents the changing face of beauty, and she does it without compromising the VS ‘our girls are sexy’ mantra one tiny bit. This one was a layup Ed and Monica, and you blew it. ~ Anne

Damien Mander Creates Female 'Akashinga' Anti-Poaching Force In Zimbabwe's Phundundu Wildlife Park

Damien Mander Creates Female 'Akashinga' Anti-Poaching Force In Zimbabwe's Phundundu Wildlife Park

Faye Cuevas is not alone in recruiting women as wildlife rangers, responsible for patrolling and even shooting if necessary, ivory poachers. In September 2018, the BBC featured former Special Forces sniper, Australian Damien Mander, who says he found his ‘higher calling’ protecting wildlife in Africa. Knowing what key global military experts, including America’s own top military brass believes, Mander specifically focused on creating a female anti-poaching force in Zimbabwe’s Phundundu Wildlife Park nature reserve a 115 square mile former trophy hunting area that is part of a larger ecosystem home to some 11,000 elephants.

Though women rarely serve as rangers in Africa — a reality that Faye Cuevas also confronted in Kenya — Mander believes that putting the well-being of wildlife in their expertly trained hands could usher in a new way of carrying out conservation. In Mander’s vast experience, he believes that women rangers will create conservation practices that are far less violent, while empowering women and improving communities in the process.

“There’s a saying in Africa, ‘If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation’,” Mander says. “We’re seeing increasing evidence that empowering women is one of the greatest forces of change in the world today.”

Mander is hitting roadblocks, especially in his vision for 4,500 female rangers protecting wildlife across Africa. You can imagine the havoc he’s creating!

Amber Valletta Does A Slow, Sensual Burn, Lensed By Chris Colls For Lui Magazine Spring 2019 Issue

Amber Valletta Does A Slow, Sensual Burn, Lensed By Chris Colls For Lui Magazine Spring 2019 Issue AOC Style Photos

Supermodel Amber Valletta simmers like a cat on a hot tin roof, styled by Dan Sablon in images by Chris Colls for Lui Magazine’s March-April-May 2019 issue.

Kenya's US Anti-Poaching Expert Faye Cuevas Announces 'Team Lioness', 8 Young Maasai Women Rangers + Plans For Many More

Kenya's US Anti-Poaching Expert Faye Cuevas Announces 'Team Lioness', 8 Young Maasai Women Rangers + Plans For Many More

Team Lioness, a team of eight young Maasai women is one of Kenya’s first all-female ranger units — and the direct result of Faye’s consultations with the Masaii women leaders. Officially announced on March 6, 2019, Team Lioness joins the Olgulului Community Wildlife Rangers (OCWR) who protect wildlife across six bases and one mobile unit in OOGR through IFAW’s tenBoma, an innovative wildlife security initiative. Team Lioness is operating in this precious natural corridor created by Kenya and Tanzania under the majesty of Kilimanjaro.

“In the larger Amboseli region, out of almost 300 wildlife rangers, to my knowledge there was only one woman,” Faye explained, in introducing Team Lioness. “The need was apparent.”

 The women of team Lioness were selected based on their academic achievements and physical strength, as well as their demonstration of trustworthiness, discipline, and integrity. Typically, a Maasai girl leaves school around age 10 and have few opportunities to achieve a higher education.

“It’s very rare that Maasai women achieve a secondary education,” says Cuevas. “But all of team Lioness have the equivalent of a US high school education, and none of them have had a paying job before this. It’s breaking barriers.”

“As the first women joining the OCWR Rangers, each of the team Lioness recruits brings a new perspective and a different experience with wildlife than her male counterparts,” Faye continues. “They are important voices in protecting wildlife and reconnecting communities to the benefits of sharing land with the magnificent big cats and other wildlife that call OOGR home.”