‘Don’t give up the fight’

Women in the World, a media organisation which convenes women leaders, activists and political change-makers from around the world to share stories, and offer solutions to building a better life for women and girls, every year,  had its first event in London earlier this week. It saw a massive opening with stars of the upcoming British historical period drama, Suffragette. The film focuses on the British women's suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. Suffragettes were members of women's organisations which advocated women’s right to vote.

Here is what the women had to say at the event:

Meryl Streep: “Don’t give up the fight. It’s not over…We are coming up from the bottom, but it’s that upper echelon that we haven’t broken through,” she said, urging the audience to remember that “women’s issues are men’s problems”.

Carey Mulligan: “Hopefully this film will inspire everyone in the way they view the world. We are an unbalanced society – women and men – and films like this inspire conversations about how we can correct that imbalance.”

Sarah Gavron (Suffragette director): “We had trouble persuading men to be in it. Agents were calling us saying the male parts just aren’t big enough.”

Ursula von der Leyen (Germany’s first female defence minister): “If you fight for women’s rights, you need modern men as your allies.”

Queen Rania of Jordan: “It is a very dangerous thing to think of Isis as Islamic, because there is nothing Islamic about them … We are singing to their tune,”