Seven things I learned during #100women 2015
Fiona Crack
is Editor of the 100 Women season, BBC World Service
The third100 Womenseason from BBC World Service concluded on 1 December with a trulyinternational debate, airing women’s views on leadership, image, relationships, expectations and lots more besides. Fiona Crack reflects on some of the lessons, and voices, from the 2015 project.
Reindeer herder Lubov Russkina, part of a nomadic Siberian tribe, featured in the 'good girl' films (see final paragraph, below)
People like opinion; in fact, they really like it
Holly Brockwell wants to be sterilised, but the NHS won’t do it. She told us that and explained why in a personal written piece. The article was viewed more than 3.5 million times on the BBC News website. Holly was trolled so badly she suspended her Twitter account for a few days, before reopening it and doing a Q&A for our Facebook page. We know from research by our audience teams that women and young people are particularly drawn to op-ed journalism, but it’s not a typical BBC format. We wanted to experiment with it this year and I’m glad we did.
The hardest voices to find can make the most impact
Producers working for the Arabic service spent weeks tracking down Nour (not her real name) who had just fled Syria. The team told me she’d agreed to tell her own story and that of her two sisters, which they then animated. It shows the brutal persecution of people living in Raqqa, the ‘capital’ of so-called Islamic State, and the horrific punishments reserved for women. Rather than use an interview format, they told it as a story – more powerful and less like a news format.
Budget for hair and makeup if you want to interview superstars
Of course I knew we’d need a budget for hair and make-up if we put international superstars on our 100 Women list. There was no way we could afford the celebs’ usual entourage but instead we had to track down an artist that was acceptable to the big names while also getting best value for money for the BBC. That’s a lot of ‘make-up artist fixing’ for a producer who should really be fixing guests. Of our five big interviews, here’s my favourite – Alek Wek.
Supermodel and refugee campaigner Alex Wek was one of the season's celebrity interviews
News producers don’t necessarily make good comedy producers
We made a skit about a news comedy warehouse, in association with Funny Women and produced by us. But Break Womb, a comedy trio based in the US, used their usual crew to make a film for us about competitive parenting. I think the one we were less involved with worked best! Lesson learned.
Most people’s most inspirational woman is their mum
While Twitter is male-skewed, Instagram is female-skewed, so we were determined to use Instagram well during 100 Women. We came up with the idea of sending out #100women branded cardboard circles – people loved writing down their favourite inspirational woman or favourite quote about them. Apart from the mums, women getting lots of mentions included Marie Curie, Malala Yousafzai, Aung San Suu Kyi, Maya Angelou and Rosa Parks.
Women around the world added their own inspiration to the #100women Instagram page.
Women still need more convincing than men to join in
The unique thing we tried to do this year was to franchise the debates, getting groups and organisations around the world to host their own 100 Women event, using shared questions and areas of discussion. The appetite was amazing and people really wanted to do it (on the day more than 150 groups in more than 50 countries took part) but we kept having the same conversation: “Who's in charge?” the prospective host asks. “You,” we say. “Who's going to steer it?” they ask. “You,” we say. Nervous cough, worried silence… “OK – I’ll do it,” they say. The debate montage is the fourth post from the end on our live page.
People will do amazing things if you give them free rein
Take the ‘good girl’ films. We asked six young women, several living in extraordinary circumstances and some just ordinary teenagers, to make films about what makes a ‘good girl’. The stories and the reaction to them, makes me extraordinarily proud and humbled by the work of the 100 Women team. The concept and the women themselves continue to surprise us every year.
For more of the season’s content, visit the 100 Women homepage
100 Women who reflect the world and our audiences
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