Latest news with #TheFemaleQuotient
Daily Mail
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Monica Lewinsky, 51, shows off her taut complexion as she slips into a floral sundress for Cannes talk about 'reclaiming her narrative' after Bill Clinton affair scandal
She famously made global headlines after being embroiled in a scandalous affair with then-President Bill Clinton. But Monica Lewinsky has kickstarted her crusade to 'reclaim her narrative', as she made an appearance at a talk on the subject at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Monday. The activist, 51, showed off her taut complexion in a floral sundress as she spoke at the event, titled 'Reclaiming and Reframing: Moving your narrative forward.' Embracing the warm Cannes weather, Monica cut a stylish figure in her colourful printed sundress to take to the stage. During the talk, Monica was also joined by CEO of media company The Female Quotient Shelley Zalis, and Jen Sargent, the CEO of podcast network Wondery. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the Daily Mail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Monica recently shed light on having 'lost her future' after becoming notoriously famous for her affair with Bill Clinton during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast. The chat with host Alex Cooper delved into what Lewinsky experienced in the fallout from the most famous extramarital relationship in American history. Cooper framed the situation: 'You were 22 years old, he was 49, you were an intern. he was the president of the United States.' Monica then said: 'I was very quickly painted as a stalker, mentally unstable, not attractive enough.' She now realizes her mistakes and how it cast a negative view of both herself and other women. 'Because of the power dynamics, and the power differential, I never should've been in that f***ing position,' she told Cooper. 'There was so much collateral damage for women of my generation to watch a young woman to be pilloried on the world stage, to be torn apart for my sexuality, for my mistakes, for my everything.' She then discussed how much she'd lost not just in the immediate aftermath but in years to come. Monica recently shed light on having 'lost her future' after becoming notoriously famous for her affair with Bill Clinton during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast 'I was in my early 30s, I had nothing. That was the point when I realized how much had been taken from me. I lost my future,' she said. Lewinsky also revealed that she believes Bill Clinton should have resigned after the scandal became public. 'I think the right way to handle a situation like that would have been to probably say it was nobody's business and to resign,' she began. 'Or, to find a way of staying in office that was not lying and not throwing a young person that was just starting out in the world under the bus.' Monica has been back in the public eye and giving interviews in recent weeks, having told Rolling Stone about her current dating life. She noted that she has found dating tough at times, but that most of her romantic encounters come through being set up by friends because she's not on the apps. 'I'm not on the apps,' she shared. 'I am like, I can't. I'm going to be catfished. I am so gullible. I think it's a level of trust that is just not quite there yet.' 'I date,' Lewinsky continued to Rolling Stone. 'I have relationships, situationships, all the things. I've had connections with some extraordinary men. 'I've been really lucky. Not lucky enough that it's been with someone where it's worked out at the right time. It just hasn't.' Lewinsky's infamous affair with former president Clinton eventually led to his impeachment. On August 17, 1998, after multiple denials, the former leader appeared on television and finally confessed he was 'solely and completely responsible' for the relationship. Monica has talked about the affair numerous times since it was made public. She initially retreated from the public eye, admitting she was left feeling suicidal after being hounded by reporters and ridiculed on talk shows. 'I just couldn't see a way out, and I thought that maybe was the solution,' she said years later. She admitted it was 'terrifying' to make the decision to step back into the public eye, but it has helped her to 'reclaim' the narrative about her life, following the infamous fallout over her affair with then-president. After spending time away from the public, Lewinsky made a grand return in 2014 with a personal essay for Vanity Fair. She has since dedicated a large portion of her time to advocating against online bullying and working to help create a safer social media environment. In 2019, she then signed on as a producer on Impeachment: American Crime Story, Ryan Murphy's series chronicling her affair with Clinton and his impeachment trial. She went on to launch her own production company, Alt Ending Productions, in 2021 - signing a first-look deal for scripted dramas with 20th Television. In his memoir, which was released in November, Clinton admitted he never apologized directly to Monica over the scandal. In Citizen, he wrote about a 2018 interview on NBC's Today Show when he admitted he was 'caught off guard' by questions on the subject. At the time, host Craig Melvin brought up the #MeToo movement and asked whether the Monica affair would warrant his resignation if it happened today. Clinton said no and insisted that he had to fight an illegitimate impeachment. Melvin followed by quoting a Lewinsky column about how the #MeToo movement had changed her view of sexual harassment and asked whether Clinton also felt differently today. Recalling the exchange, Clinton wrote: 'I said, "No, I felt terrible then."' '"Did you ever apologize to her?" I said that I had apologized to her and everybody else I wronged. I was caught off guard by what came next. '"But you didn't apologize to her, at least according to folks that we've talked to." 'I fought to contain my frustration as I replied that while I'd never talked to her directly, I did say publicly on more than [one] occasion I was sorry.'
Hindustan Times
09-06-2025
- General
- Hindustan Times
Mind the Gap: What's in a name? Plenty if you're a married woman
When I got married, I switched from Khanna, the name I was born with, and took on Bhandare, the name my husband was born with. Pick your battles, I rationalized at the time. In any case, my last name was taken from a man, my father, so dropping it for another man, my husband, didn't seem that terrible. Over three decades later, trying to connect with a college alumni group I had not been in touch with for some years, I couldn't remember my user name. Namita Khanna Bhandare or just Namita Khanna as I was back then? The debate over the last names of women post-marriage remains even though more and more Gen Z and millennial women are asserting their right to retain the names they were born with. If I was to take a decision on my last name now, it would be very different from what I took back then. 'The question of changing my last name after marriage never came up,' says Nisha Prasad, married for 11 years. There was no need for discussion with either her spouse or his parents, she says. 'I am no less than him, so why would there have been a need to change my name?' Moreover, she adds, changing her last name would have entailed a ton of paperwork and hassle of changing all documents from her driving license to her passport. Both women said their children had taken the last names of their father. The push to retain birth names crosses borders. A recent poll published by The Female Quotient finds that among younger unmarried women, 13% are more likely to retain their maiden names than older married women. 'Women are taking charge of their maiden name decisions,' finds the report, The Maiden Name Debate: The power of a name in business and beyond. (Personal peeve: The use of the word 'maiden' in maiden name is way past its use-by date.) In Japan, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party confirmed that an internal working group is mulling over changing the law to allow women to retain their last names after marriage. In the UK, where a majority of women still take their husband's names, 56% of women in the 18-34 age group favoured retaining their names with 46% believing that combining both names was the best option. Even in Iceland, the world's most gender-equal country, eyebrows are being raised over the tradition of surnames that are derived from the name of the father with the suffix 'son' for a male child and 'dottir' for a female. So, Jon Eriksson's son will be young Master Jonsson; his daughter will be Ms Jonsdottir. Why father and not mother? Tradition is the reply you're most likely to get. In March this year, Iceland introduced a bill that will allow individuals to adopt an entirely new surname which could then be passed down through the generations. In August last year, Jaya Bachchan objected to being referred to as Jaya Amitabh Bachchan by the Speaker of the House. The Samajwadi Party member of Parliament had chosen to adopt her husband's last name so the insertion of his first name as a middle name—a practice common in Maharashtra and Gujarat—should not have irked her as much as it did. Still, it led to a debate on what a married woman's last name ought to be and, crucially, her right to be choose how to be addressed. In March last year, the Delhi high court sought the Centre's response to a petition challenging a government notification that requires married women to submit a no-objection certificate from their husbands if they wanted to revert to their last names at birth. The petition was filed by a woman undergoing divorce proceedings who wished to legally revert to her name before marriage but was asked to furnish a no-objection certificate from her estranged husband. The final order in that case is yet to come, says Ruby Singh Ahuja, the lawyer who represented the woman. But as young women surge ahead, making their mark on careers, the feeling that they should honour their parents' names by keeping them has also grown, she says. The practice of adopting the husband's last name is relatively recent and stems from British colonial rule, points out an analytical piece in The Hindu. 'The emergence of the universal 'surname',' writes feminist academic Nivedita Menon, 'amounts to the gradual naturalization of two dominant patriarchies—North India upper-caste and British colonial.' India in fact does not have a law that compels a woman to change her last name—or even her first as practiced by some families—it is based more on customary practices. As women marry later, much of the decision on changing last names, or not, is driven by how that change might impact their brand and identity, states the Female Quotient report. As women content creators flock to social media or get established in careers, publishing research papers, for instance, a name-change would amount to literal erasure. Among women who change their names in their personal lives, 27% said they had retained their birth last names in their professional lives. In India, there is also the intersection of gender with caste. Last names more often than not are caste markers. A Brahmin convert to Christianity might well retain their Hindu (caste) name. Equally, some names are adopted because they are caste agnostic: Kumar, Chandra, Bharti and so on. For those who opt for double barrel names the conundrum remains. A child might be given both parents' names, but what happens when that child has children. How then do you factor in the spouse's name? [Readers: What do you think. To change or not to change, that is the question. Write to me at:
Business Insider
01-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
LinkedIn wants a bigger slice of the creator economy
Have you noticed more professionally produced videos in your LinkedIn feed recently? It's by design, and you can expect to see more. LinkedIn on Thursday said it's launching a new slate of five original shows from business-focused creators, including the entrepreneur and "The Diary of a CEO" podcast host Steven Bartlett, the fashion designer "Real Housewives of New York" star Rebecca Minkoff, and Candace Nelson, who founded Sprinkles Cupcakes and the Pizzana pizzeria chain. LinkedIn's new video push comes as tech companies, from Spotify to YouTube, scramble to lock down top creator talent. Davang Shah, LinkedIn's VP of marketing, told Business Insider that the effort is also part of the platform's increased focus on video. Total video viewership is up 36% this year versus last, and video creation is growing at twice the rate of other post formats, he said. The new LinkedIn shows will focus on topics such as female entrepreneurship, the CEO playbook, and artificial intelligence. The other creators taking part are Shelley Zalis, founder of The Female Quotient; Guy Raz, host of the "How I Built This" podcast; and the author Bernard Marr. LinkedIn said more shows from additional content creators are in the works, though the company plans to keep the selection highly curated for now. The new shows mark an expansion of LinkedIn's Wire Program, which has been renamed BrandLink. The initial 2023 to 2024 launch partners were professional news publishers like The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Business Insider. LinkedIn said it's also bringing on new publishers this year, including The Washington Post, Front Office Sports, and Adweek. The expansion to creators, however, shows how influencers are becoming an increasingly important part of social media, especially when it comes to news topics. While LinkedIn was once seen as a largely self-promotional tool for job seekers, more corners of the business community — from venture capitalists, to CEOs, and marketers — are regularly coming to the platform to riff on the latest news and other trending topics in their industries. The BrandLink program lets the publishers and creators monetize their videos through pre-roll ads on their shows, which appear in the feed as users scroll the app. Like YouTube, users can skip the full ad after watching for a few seconds. Advertisers can choose which shows they want to appear in and use LinkedIn's data to target specific cohorts of users, with pricing determined by an ad auction. LinkedIn has typically kept a 50% cut of the ad revenue through the BrandLink program, a publisher exec told BI. A LinkedIn spokesperson said the company couldn't share specifics about the revenue share model. Creators own the intellectual property of the content they create for LinkedIn, and they are free to distribute the content on other platforms — but they must post it to LinkedIn first, the spokesperson said. LinkedIn's professional, affluent audience is attractive to advertisers LinkedIn has long courted creators. In 2012, it launched its Influencers program, encouraging famed businesspeople like Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and Arianna Huffington to post to the platform. But its efforts have ramped up in recent years, as it's rolled out tools for famous and everyday creators alike, designed to help them showcase their expertise and boost their followings. Creators told BI last year that they had seen early success by posting videos to its TikTok-style vertical video feed. Shah said advertisers are drawn to content on the platform that has credibility and authenticity. "When you produce authentic and trusted content, it leads to connections, it leads to conversations, and ultimately, it leads to closed deals, and that's what marketers care about the most," Shah said. For LinkedIn, any uptick in user numbers and engagement boosts its advertising business. Research firm EMARKETER, a sister company of BI, forecasts that LinkedIn will generate $8.06 billion in ad revenue in 2025, up 12.4% year-on-year. LinkedIn's video ambitions face stiff competition from YouTube and TikTok, which already host oodles of business and finance-focused content. YouTube, in particular, has become a top destination for podcasts, including the aforementioned "Diary of a CEO." Brendan Gahan, the CEO of Creator Authority, an influencer marketing agency focused on LinkedIn, said the platform has its advantages, however. It ticks off attributes that many marketers want: A large audience (more than 1 billion users, per LinkedIn), strong ad tools, and a largely brand-safe environment. Gahan said what sets the platform apart is its professional, affluent niche. "This is where decision-makers and executives actually spend time," Gahan said. "Probably more time than any other platform." As LinkedIn goes all in on video, Nick Cicero, founder of Mondo Metrics, an analytics platform and data consultancy, said the platform should avoid chasing volume over value. "LinkedIn must curate high-signal content that matches the platform's professional intent, not just push engagement bait," Cicero said. "The goal isn't scale, it's signal. You don't need a million views. You need the right 10 decision-makers."
