To celebrate International Women’s Day, we asked our inspiring female staff and students what it means to them to be a woman and their experiences being in industry.
Mikita Alford
Currently studying Audio BA/BSc Audio Production (Hons)
What would say it means to be woman?
To be a woman for me, is a question I’ve never asked myself. To be a woman in this world is to be strong, wilful, selfless. Loving yourself for who you are, accepting your body as a whole. Being confident in your own skin. It’s building a life for growth and wisdom, to care for and nurture all the things around you. Being a woman in this life is a lifelong blessing, a bond between all of us, that extends beyond age, sexuality, race, physicality, and political beliefs.
It’s a beautiful thing that only we understand.
It’s what I love about being a woman.
What is it like to be a woman in industry?
Being a woman in the industry is showing your passion and talent for the things you love. The things you would let yourself do for the rest of your life. Something that drives you, that pushes you to uphold your best self, to get the success and results you rightfully deserve. It can be hard competition, but if you work hard enough, you will get exactly what you deserve.
That’s what I think it means to be a woman in industry, and I am proud to call myself a woman in the 21st century.
Polly Sanford-Hankinson
Currently studying BA/BSc Game Art Animation (Hons)
What would say it means to be a woman?
That is a difficult question to answer. Each woman goes through her own experiences that’ll give her unique talents, qualities, and stories, all of which should be celebrated!
Being a woman, for me, is having a strong and confident sense of self, to own your womaness. It is to face challenges with grace, courage and determination, whenever and wherever they occur.
Because the world will never work in your favour, it is important that you remind yourself that you are powerful, worthy, and deserving of all that this world has to offer.
What is it like to be a woman in industry?
It’s about not accepting limitations or other people’s assumptions about what women are capable of, and instead living up to my full potential.
I’ve never let being a woman “hold me back,” nor have I let it confine me. My primary focus is what I can bring to the game industry as a creative individual.
Rame Ogbeni
Currently studying BA/BSc Audio Production (Hons):
What would you say it means to be a woman?
Being a woman? It is getting up and making it work even when you’d rather not, it is making decisions even when you do not want to, it is most times trying to make decisions for the greater good but putting a lot more before you, it is being expected to always have situations under control, it is constantly proving yourself, it is being expected to always ‘continue’, it is walking into opportunities with the worry of being taken advantage of. Being a woman, is being under pressure, it is a role that a thousand similes cannot explain. We are born fighters, only means of visual creation of a new life, born multitaskers, the list is endless, but in all this, be aware that we are more than we seem to be.
What is it like being a woman in industry?
Being a woman in a male dominated industry is not one of the easiest positions to occupy. It is more pressure because you are surrounded by people are who normally termed ‘more powerful’ so now, you must prove why you believe you can be just as powerful. You must work twice as hard for the same opportunities as the opposite gender and that is not the best feeling but somehow, we manage to do it. Somehow, we manage to be able to go through such circumstances and still make a name, like I said, fighters. Existence of women like Beyoncé, Sasha P, Cardi B, Tiwa Savage, Queen Latifa, Adele, give younger women like me hope. They give us strength and allow us to understand every day that we can! My mother gives me the strength to know that I am capable.
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!
Rebecca Lynes
Film Lecturer at SAE Institute London:
What would you say it means to be a woman?
Being a woman to me represents my whole community! I consider myself unique and lucky that all of the closest people in my life: my mum, my gran, my sister, my partner and the majority of my friends are women. Although being a woman can no doubt be a difficult position, it also comes with profound insight and depth of experience which is not accessible to men. Women just seem to me more multifaceted and interesting! And I feel it’s important to stress how much we need to support, love and understand each other across all our differences – girl bosses need to be there for underpaid women, white women need to stand with women of colour, and we all need to make it clear that trans women are women!
What is like being a woman in industry?
Film is an interesting one – although lots of writers and storytellers are women, and we have been the oral storytellers for generations, film has a foot in the technical world which is typically dominated by men. I definitely feel like I’ve been patronised by men in this respect. To be a woman in the industry means I can be the inspiration for my underrepresented students and show them that their perspective is needed and valuable in film. My advice is to watch films by women: Nomadland, Lost in Translation, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and think could a man have made this film? Instead of trying to learn from male-dominated films, we should start with our own experience – films are always better when they’re inspired by real experiences rather than other films.
