Student Blog: Women's Month: Fearless Women Breaking the Glass Ceiling

"Women's Month: Fearless Women Breaking the Glass Ceiling"

Happy women's month to all the incredible female identifying persons who have contributed their talents to art, design, theatre, music, fashion, costume design, any form of creative expression. Being a woman in theatre and music is truly such an inspiring experience. Getting to work with incredibly driven females everyday who bring such elegance, dedication and sophistication to anything creative that they do is so motivating to me as not only a college student but a fellow artist. Because theatre is still shut down, artists have started to find different forms of self expression. Lesser recognized designers have also had their work highlighted and appreciated more frequently and openly throughout the pandemic.

In 2017, artist Kristen Visbal designed a statue known as Fearless Girl. The statue was originally scheduled to be standing for a single week, but after the public reacted so lovingly to it and what it stands for, Fearless Girl finds herself still standing strong after four years of appreciation from the public. You can find Fearless Girl standing firmly right outside the New York Stock Exchange, a business primarily inhabited by men. Fearless Girl stands for all the women who have experienced some sort of hardship when it comes to performing their jobs to the highest potential. Whether this hardship be the emotional and physical toll healthcare workers have faced during COVID-19 or females who have experienced sexual assault in the workplace, Fearless Girl stands for all of them. All of us. Putting Fearless Girl right in the middle of Wall Street, one of the most male dominated sections of finance, was such an empowering move for women who find themselves under-appreciated or misunderstood in male-dominated fields of employment. Measuring at a short 50 inches tall, Fearless Girl is meant to send a message about gender diversity in the everyday workplace, especially a workplace dominated by men. Fearless Girl was originally located on Broadway, confronting the famous statue Charging Bull constructed in 1989. After thirteen months of "living" on Broadway, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that Fearless Girl would be moved to her current location in front of the New York Stock Exchange. My personal favorite part of the movement behind Fearless Girl is the plaque that sits below her that states, "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference."

The woman who created this powerful work of art, Kristen Visbal is one spectacular female artist. Visbal, a bronze sculptor raised in the United States after being born in Uruguay, approaches every new project with a sense of dignity and pride in not only being an artist, but a female designer. Kristen attended Johnson Atelier Art Foundry in New Jersey in the late 90s, studying the unknown art form of lost wax casting. Kristen has been managing the success of her clay modeling studio, Visbal Fine Bronze Sculpture, in Delaware since graduating from the Johnson Atelier Art Foundry. One of Kristen's newly developed collections of art is called Left of Center. "This collection of works will distort the human form while continuing to employ the principles of design such as rhythm, repetition, and balance," says Kristen on her website designed specifically to showcase Fearless Girl. Be sure to keep an eye on Kristen, her work is just starting to make waves politically, creatively and emotionally among people in the United States and beyond.

This past Monday, March 8th was International Women's Day! On Monday, State Street Global Ambassadors, the company behind Fearless Girl installed a broken ceiling surrounding Fearless Girl in order to celebrate the women this statue represents. A new plaque was also added to the surrounding area, stating "Today's broken glass ceilings are tomorrow's stepping stones."

"Despite great progress, this past year we have seen how the pandemic disproportionately affected women who had to leave their jobs to care for their families, as well as the negative impact on racially and ethnically diverse communities," said State Street Global Advisors President and Chief Executive Officer Cyrus Taraporevala. State Street Global Ambassadors brought back an appreciation for Fearless Girl as well as all the groundbreaking women we have seen come forward with their stories since Fearless Girl was installed. Fearless Girl started a movement, it started change. The broken glass ceiling surrounding this incredibly monumental statue now represents how much change women bring to the workplace, to everyday homes, to the world. Women are vital to succeed in any career; finance, engineering, or theatre. The more women are recognized in everyday life, the more beautifully creative projects will be started and supported. Little girls around the world seeing gorgeous art like this created to emphasize female power and strength are going to be amazed by what this statue stands for. Let's continue creating statues, paintings, animations like this, ones that support and strengthen the power of women, art pieces that bring awareness to the strength and vulnerability it takes to be a woman in a male dominated field. By creating this type of eye-opening art, our voices will be forced to be heard.