Wonder(ful) Women - Malala Yousafzai, Jennifer Lawrence & Allyson Nyman

Welcome to the second edition of Wonder(ful) Women! This is my newest, and most fabulously kickass series yet, because I'm featuring real-life female superheroes every week. My hope is to bring awareness to stories in the news, and make the women I know in real life realize how much they inspire me and everyone around them.

Off we go.


Malala Yousafzai
Maybe you've heard about her. I hope that you have. If not, I'll tell you a little bit about this amazing young woman. She is 16 and from Pakistan. She is a vocal advocate for women's rights in one of the most oppressive areas of the world. The Taliban has banned girls from attending school off and on since they came into leadership in the area.

When she was 12, she wrote a blog under a pseudonym for BBC chronicling what she saw and experienced, as an oppressed female in a place where gunfire is accepted as part of life and those who rule do so with fear and intimidation. That blog prompted a documentary about her story the following year.

Last year, she was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by the Taliban, but much to their dismay, she lived. She was sent to a hospital in the United Kingdom for rehabilitation. A petition in her name, titled I am Malala, has been written in the United Nations, calling for all children, male and female, around the world to be given access to proper schooling.


She was featured on the cover of Time's Most 100 Influential People in the World edition, and she certainly is an inspiration to girls everywhere. Thank you, Malala, for being strong and brave.

Jennifer Lawrence
Now, now, now....before anyone starts wondering how or why an actress made this list, hear me out.

I love this woman for a few reasons.

First, she's Katniss. Katniss is kickass. She's one of the strongest female lead characters maybe in the history of time (we'll ignore what happens by the end of the third book for now because it made me throw it across the room). She's also Tiffany from Silver Linings Playbook, who may be one of the characters I've related the most to ever on a screen. So there. (and, for serious, don't watch that movie if you've got rampant mental illness in your family without fair warning).


Second, she fights against every Hollywood stereotype. Though she's thinner than most women in the country as it is, the powers that be in Hollywood have chastised her for being too heavy. She's basically told them all to STFU about her weight, and for that I adore her.

Third, she doesn't take herself seriously at all. She knows that fame is fleeting and that she gets paid millions of dollars to stand in front of a camera and say words. She's humble. Truly humble. Something rare in this world, and refreshing. She laughs are herself. All. The. Time.

Fourth, she's freaking hilarious. She has a wicked sense of humor, she can throw just about anything back at anyone, she photobombs other celebs all the time and she flipped off the paparazzi at the Academy Awards after she tripped going up the stairs to receive her award. What's not to love?


I have hope in my heart that there are more little girls who will grow up to be like Jennifer. She is a role model for girls who want to do what they love, without being required to fit into a certain size or behave a certain way.

That, and she could probably kick your ass. In heels.

Allyson Nyman
I didn't start this series intending to include a blogger each time, but it may end up going that way for the simple fact that there are so many of them with amazing stories to tell.

Allyson told one of those stories yesterday on her blog, the crumb diaries. While she almost always shares the funny and the quirky, the anecdotal and the hilarious, life isn't always funny when you've been chosen to be Logan's mom.


Sometimes it's hard.

Sometimes it's really freaking hard.

She works harder than most people I know, she loves that boy with every ounce of her being. She has chosen to share him with us all, not just because she's open, but because she wants people to understand that there are families out there different than they ever imagined they would be. More determined to do right for their children. More vocal in their advocacy because they have to be. More patient because life demands it of them. 

She is all those mores and more.

She doesn't just do all that, no, no, no.

She works full time. She writes. She sews slombies too, which are pretty much the cutest handmade monsters ever. A project that she started to work with Logan on, it's become something much more than that, with slombies now being sold on etsy (but good luck getting one, they sell out almost immediately). She also donates them quite often to be auctioned for charity, because this is how amazing she is.


She's been working on having Logan's art transferred from paper to tattoos, which is so awesome that I can't even put words together to make sense about it. Just believe me when I tell you that I love, love, love this idea to the moon and back.

She is a supermom if ever there was one, and I'm proud to call her a friend.

In the highly unlikely event that you aren't a fan yet, go check out her Facebook page and her blog. You will be inspired. Every. Single. Day.

Ally, I'm so glad that Logan chose you. He's a lucky kid.