Google Doodle celebrates International Women's Day 2019
Google has turned to leading female artists to illustrate the inspiring words of women who have changed the game for all of us.
- Webby Award Winner (Best Video Host, 2021), Webby Nominee (Podcasts, 2021), Gold Telly (Documentary Series, 2021), Silver Telly (Video Writing, 2021), W3 Award (Best Host, 2020), Australian IT Journalism Awards (Best Journalist, Best News Journalist 2017)
Google is celebrating leaders, artists and inspirational trailblazers from the past 200 years, and Friday, they all happen to be women.
To mark International Women's Day, the Google Doodle for March 8 has illustrated famous quotes from 13 inspirational women. There are those who have gone before us, such as pioneering Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and British suffragette Millicent Fawcett, who campaigned for higher education for girls and the right to vote.
The list also includes modern champions who are breaking new ground today. From Indian Olympic boxer Mary Kom, who is the only female boxer to have won a medal in seven world championships, to Chimamanda Adichie, the Nigerian writer whose writing on feminism has been translated into more than 30 languages worldwide.
Argentinian artist Yai Salinas drew inspiration from Frida Kahlo's work to illustrate this quote from her.
To bring the words of all these notable women to life, Google commissioned 10 female artists and design studios from around the world to illustrate their quotes.
US-based Polish designer Zuzanna Rogatty, who illustrated a quote from Adichie, described her process.
"Through expressive and rhythmic lettering, I tried to illustrate the energy and power coming from the quote," she wrote on the Google blog. "I especially highlighted the word 'equally' and the last 'I matter", which I felt should sound the loudest."
You can read all about the artists and their inspiration on the Google blog, or head to Google Arts and Culture to read about the women who have shaped our world -- from the heroes of STEM to the women who turned a hat into a symbol of female power.
Google's focus for this year's International Women's Day was "women empowering women" -- hence the choice of all female artists for its doodle.
While the company has struggled with the issue of gender diversity in the past, along with the rest of Silicon Valley, Google is making inroads, including giving out $9.7 million in 2018 to help address wage inequality.
Still, women make up just 30 percent of the workforce in Silicon Valley, according to the Kapor Center, and girls also face several obstacles in pursuing STEM education. On International Women's Day, some organizations and companies are launching initiatives to change that.
If you want to read about more inspiring women in tech, science and entertainment, check out our gallery below.
Originally published March 7.
Update, March 8: Adds stat about female workforce in Silicon Valley.