What brings you joy? Challenges you to raise your voice? Acts as a shoulder to cry on when you are down? Perhaps it is a song, photograph, book or film that makes your eyes glisten, or tears your heart to shreds. These melodies, stories and images guide and inspire us to be the individuals we are today. We collect these things throughout our lifetimes to share with future generations as if they are some kind of artifact. Yet, as time goes on, the little details — like lyrics or names — slowly evade our memories while the piece’s overall impact remains eternal. In other words, sometimes the art gets separated from its creator and her intent.

We certainly enjoy the artistic content we consume, but have you ever taken a moment to stop and think about their origins? Who composed that earworm? Wrote that line? Captured that moment? Female artists throughout history have fought to be heard, seen and accepted. They persevered in the face of sexism and prejudice to do the very thing that inspired them: create art. While many of these women did not receive the credit they deserved, their contributions are the reason we have these precious songs and stories, and why female artists continue to fight today.

To honor these female artists, the Arts Desk selected a few individuals from both past and present who continue to create, experiment and innovate inspiring work in their respective fields. 

Amanda Gorman – Sasha Cohen, Arts Editor

If you have not seen the video of Amanda Gorman reciting her poem at the Presidential Inauguration, you need to watch it right now. If you already saw her performance, please watch it again. Gorman challenged the country’s senseless hate, discrimination and violence with a six-minute poem and her presence. With millions of eyes on her, the young poet carried herself with grace and confidence, commanding the audience’s attention with subtle, intentional hand gestures and a determined voice. As a 23-year-old Black woman, Gorman demonstrated that no matter how many people and systems try to keep you from being heard, rules are meant to be broken when fighting for justice. While the poem is quite thoughtful, its overall message boils down to practicing simple skills: acceptance, kindness and empathy. This poem was the very lesson the country needed to revisit after four years of sheer recklessness.

To inspire change, Gorman does not need status or a fancy political campaign. Rather, she uses poetry to captivate and open our hearts, revolutionizing the artistic facet of poetry as a form of activism. She inspires a new generation of poets and teaches Americans the true power words can have when the right person is given a platform.

Janis Joplin – Ana Cubas, Music Editor 

To listen to Janis Joplin is to have a religious journey, to fully experience a palette of emotions within seconds. Joplin doesn’t just sing: she cries, she shouts, she croons both lovingly and sorrowfully. For an aurally enriching experience, listen to the entirety of “Pearl” or “Raise Your Hand” from her set at Woodstock. She leaves no room for mildly felt feelings.

In a Crawdaddy concert review of Big Brother and the Holding Company, a band Joplin used to play with, the reporter recalls someone shouting, “Hey, which one of you is Big Brother?” Joplin playfully responds, “I am, baby!” She was witty, confident and unafraid of rock’s patriarchal hierarchy.

The honesty and moxie Joplin exuded in recordings and on stage engrains itself in the listener for the length of the track. She demands attention and respect. Her voice is representative of the power she held as a groundbreaking woman in rock, both culturally and musically.

Kelly Reichardt – JP Pak, Film and TV Editor

Making a good film is tough. Making a film that speaks to one’s identity is tougher. To present oneself in a work of art without compromising the work itself requires a level of artistic and cultural sensitivity that few contemporary filmmakers possess.

In my eyes, no filmmaker working today walks this line as gracefully as independent writer-director Kelly Reichardt does. Over the course of her nearly 30-year-long career, Reichardt has established herself as a pioneer of the slow cinema genre and, despite rejecting the label of “feminist filmmaker,” as an important voice in the resonant chorus of female filmmakers active today.

Her slow-burning and touching directorial style matches her career trajectory. Spread out over three decades, her seven feature films and various shorts have ushered in a new sensitivity and slow pace to independent film. Evident in her poignant debut “River of Grass,” or her latest, highly praised effort, “First Cow,” she stands as a singular, fully uncompromised voice.

SOPHIE – Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer, Arts Editor

With just one album to her name, Sophie Xeon, commonly known as SOPHIE, managed to reinvent pop, dance and electronica by creating radical soundscapes. This, in turn, inspired a whole generation of artists to continue pushing the limits of music through brash experimentation. From her early singles, whose corny lyrics were accompanied by equally playful beats, it was evident that SOPHIE’s embrace of today’s technological possibilities would open up a new world of experimental expression in music. This manifested itself when she decided to produce Charli XCX’s “Vroom Vroom EP.” A revolution in pop music immediately made itself known, and SOPHIE followed up with a doubly imaginative album two years later.  

In said album, “OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES,” SOPHIE opened up about being a trans woman. “It’s Okay to Cry,” the first single released from the album, was accompanied by a music video that showcased her naked and vulnerable, dancing across the skies while embodying confidence. It was a radical moment, as her confidence heralded a space to question and experiment with sounds in a world that often ostracizes the queer community. As SOPHIE laid the bricks for the reinvention of pop music, hyper pop reached its zenith, generating a space for new voices to create novel ways of approaching the world with hopes of creating a new one where their voices would finally be treasured and danced to. 

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