Gucci Brand's Deep Commitment to Women In Need

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Digging deeper into the Gucci website, we discover a wide range of involvement with young people around the world. The luxury brand supports China Children & Teenagers Fund. And now for the AOC jackpot.

PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights

Gucci is part of the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights, replacing the former SolidarCité. The foundation is tied to PPR, the French multinational founded by François Pinault and now run by his son François-Henri Pinault.

PPR sold its French Printemps store in 2006 and is now focused on Gucci, Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen (50%) and Stella McCartney (50%), as well as other brands and mail order companies.

The Foundation for Women’s Dignity & Rights is involved in so many global initiatives for women that we can’t list them. The projects aren’t sexy: genital mutilation, forced child marriage, honour killings, sex trafficking.

In my experience, most American brands shudder at the thoughts of articulating these concerns in the same sentence as their brand names.

Eye | Angelina Jolie | Apostle Paul | Daniel Pearl | Daisy Khan | David Brooks | Hillary Clinton | Chris Matthews

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Living | Angelina Jolie on Family, Film & Philanthropy | Vicki Woods & Mario Testino | Vogue US December 2010

Writer Vicki Woods did a superb job of creating a multi-dimensional Angelina Jolie in the Vogue interview. Did you know that Jolie has a “seriously filty laught”. Her piece is great writing about a woman much admired a AOC.

It was Angelina Jolie’s Esquire interview that launched Anne of Carversville in June 2007. The themes of that essay, including our collective global responsibility not only for dialogue, but understanding of global issues that promote warring points of view, remain richly embedded in our editorial policy.

A humanist, Anne wept over the beheading of Wall Street reporter Daniel Pearl, who was taken hostage in Karachi, Pakistan, following a story.

Jolie became friends with Daniel Pearl’s wife Mariane Van Neyenhoff, who channeled her grief into a positive dialogue with Muslims through the Daniel Pearl Foundation. The two bonded when Angelina played Mariane in “The Mighty Heart”.

Ironically, it seems that Mariane Pearl also read the Esquire 2007 interview, because Pearl contacted the actress about playing her in the movie.

Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl

Angelina Jolie & Mariane Pearl Talk with Charlie Rose about “The Mighty Heart”. This short clip is taken from Angelina’s longer interview with Charlie Rose on June 19, 2007.

Short Clip of Angelina Jolie and Mariane Pearl on Charlie Rose, June 2007

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After 19 Years, Anita Hill Gets Bombshell Backup From Clarence Thomas Ex

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Lillian McEwen didn’t decide to write a book about her relationship with Justice Clarence Thomas because Virginia Thomas left a phone message on Anita Hill’s voice mail, asking her to consider apologizing to Thomas for her sexual harassment allegations against him during his confirmation hearings.

Lillian McEwen, the girlfriend and confidante to Justice Thomas, has been writing her memoirs. It does seem that the Virginia Thomas phone call to Anita Hill struck a sour note, given McEwen’s own experiences with Clarence Thomas, which she has now detailed in the Washington Post.

Her words are a bombshell and basically support Anita Hill’s claims and those of several other women, whose complaints about Thomas were passed off by the Judiciary committee. Lillian McEwen was not asked to testify in the hearings, which were confined to the candidate’s professional, not personal, relationships with women.

Pakistan's NGOs Publicly Silent that US Is Source of Major Aid

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GivingTracker| USA Today delivers an excellent story on US aid to Pakistan. Not only does the US government want more credit and acknowledgement for the aid it’s delivering into Pakistan, but concerned Americans want the recognition of American foreign aid.

Yet, mum’s the word for vast amounts of US aid that is given to international aid groups via NGOs. Frequently on the ground in places like Pakistan, NGOs argue that American money is tainted money, inviting attacks by the Taliban on groups and villages that accept American aid.

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Christy Turlington's Maternal Health 'No Woman No Cry' Full Documentary

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Christy Turlington's Maternal Health 'No Woman No Cry' Full Documentary

Statistically, development experts agree that women are far more likely than men to invest available resources on their children’s education and welfare. When mothers are killed or left debilitated by childbirth, cycles of poverty and misery are particularly harsh for girl babies and young girls in the family. 

I didn’t want it to feel like an advocacy film,” says Christy Turlington about her documentary “No Woman No Cry”, which also made its debut at last week’s conference on reproductive health. “I didn’t want it to feel like an advocacy film,” Turlington says, “I wanted it to be an advocacy tool.” That means “No Woman No Cry” is almost wholly free of development speak and policy recommendations. via The Daily Beast

All who know her understand that Christy Turlington Burns is an activist first and a supermodel second. Turlington may have just signed up for the A/W Louis Vuitton campaign, but her focus is sharing the powerful stories of at-risk pregnant women in four parts of the world, including a remote Maasai tribe in Tanzania, a slum of Bangladesh, a post-abortion care ward in Guatemala, and a prenatal clinic in the United States.

An 'Au Naturel" Jolie and Pitt Laugh at Gossipmongers at LA UNICEF Bash

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Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are the anti-glamour couple at the UNICEF Ball honoring Jerry Weintraub

An ‘Au Naturel’ Jolie and Pitt Laugh at Gossipmongers at LA UNICEF Bash

Presumably the tabloids won’t let up on the fact that Brangelina is coming unglued and there’s no love left in the house, but Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were beyond joined at the hip last night, at UNICEF’s Ball honoring Jerry Weintraub.

The pair looked very Cultural Creative last evening, perhaps the most “au naturel” we’ve seen them when attending a gala. Angelina Jolie is a UNICEF ambassador and chose to not outshine the grime of the many devastating war and poverty zones that she covers on her international beat.

Diamonds at the Beverly Wilshire and starving camps in Somalia don’t make the best press, although no one would throw even a marsh mellow at Jolie and Pitt, a couple who goes beyond “walking their talk” for humanitarian causes.

Shakira Inspires Oxford University Students

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Shakira at OxfordAs further evidence that embracing one’s Smart Sensuality doesn’t render a woman a corrupting force in nature and among men, I’m sharing Shakira’s Monday video from her speech at Oxford University.

The same voice that last week announced that libido is the “engine of the world” makes one of the most articulate, informative short presentations ever on the importance of education for the world’s poor children. Shakira believes — as do I — that embracing our sensuality invigorates us as women to accomplish important works for the planet and its people.

Simply stated, we’re connected to life and want everyone to live it as well as possible.

Ours is a holistic view of womanhood, one that doesn’t cut women up into good girl and bad girl departments. In Shakira’s playbook, women are pure goodness, with the occasional bad apple, I suppose. She inspires us to embrace our very best selves and then use that goodness on behalf of humankind.

Unlike most religious leaders, Shakira doesn’t see libido and sensuality as corrupting of women’s morality. This is her beauty and gift to women and men both.

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"Women of the Wall" Protest Exclusion from Praying at Jerusalem's Western Wall

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Supporters of a group of religious activists called Women of the Wall gathered at the holy site in Jerusalem for prayers on Friday. Conservative Jew Nofrat Frenkel, 28 and a fifth year medical student, was the first woman to be arrested last month on Nov. 18th, during prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Her crime was wrapping herself in a tallit or fringed prayer shawl, a ritual garment traditionally worn only by men.

The Women of the Wall, who meet for prayers at the Kotel at the start of every Hebrew month, are at the vanguard of a feminist struggle in Orthodox Judaism. via NYTimes

The group prayed in large numbers last Friday, the first day of the Hebrew month of Tevet. “We are pushing the envelope. History is made of moments like this,” said Nat Hoffman, chairwoman of Women of the Wall, which was founded in 1988.

UNESCO's Director Irina Bokova Says 'No' to Burqas

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Irina Bokova will be installed as UNESCO’s new director today, as the first woman director.

Bulgaria’s Bokova lost no time outlining her positions on women’s issues, telling Radio Netherlands worldwide that she wants to encourage dialogue among Jews, Muslims and Christians in an effort to increase tolerance and respect.

Next she aligned herself with last week’s announcement by Eyptian Grand Imam Sheikh Mohamed Sayyed Tantawi, saying: “Personally I’m against the burqa. Some women can’t even see properly. It denigrates women, causes problems and gives women the feeling that they are not equal to men.”

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