To celebrate International Women's Day, AirRobe has reached out to a
selection of inspiring women and change-makers across Fashion,
The theme for International Women's Day this year is 'Accelerate Action'.
Collectively, we can Accelerate Action for gender equality. Step forward in
solidarity for International Women's Day (IWD) 2025 on March 8 to help
#AccelerateAction. At the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158,
which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity,
according to data from the World Economic Forum. Focusing on the need to
Accelerate Action emphasizes the importance of taking swift and decisive
steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and
urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face,
both in personal and professional spheres. So, together, let's Accelerate
Action to speed up the rate of progress worldwide.
Karen Leong is a Sydney based, Hong Kong-born writer, essayist and journalist. Specialising in arts, fashion and culture, she also is a writer of personal non-fiction, poetry and prose. Karens work can be found amongst Russh, ArtsHub, To Be Magazine and A-M Journal to name a few. She was elected as a StoryCaster with Diversity Arts Australia, Multicultural NSW and Sweatshop Literary Movement.
I care about expediting the welfare of women. Particular to our nation, coverage (or absence) of the Australian femicide is one that is endemic to our current social landscape. The situation is that we cannot afford to lose any more women to violence, genocide, inequality. A lot of my research and methodology goes into envisioning ‘a femme-centric future’. It's time to strike iron.
My first two great loves were literature and fashion magazines. They did not seem tangential at first but so far I’ve managed to cobble them together in my life. After an abortive attempt as a legal practitioner, I decided to run for the hills. I knew from a young age I possessed the capacity to be diaristic, rambling even. I also knew that fashion was a portal. I wanted both. Couldn’t I have both? I found my calling in a book titled ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind and the Darren Star production ‘Sex and the City’ I found on hardback DVD from my gay uncle’s stash. At twelve, I had two hands. Now twenty-five, I am still maintaining this balance between hardline journalist and dilettante essayist. I’m certain one will kill the other.
I’ve held positions of Contributing Editor, Features Editor, Arts Writer, Digital Strategist and Fashion Journalist. Since then, I’ve published writing in-publication and under my name in GQ, InStyle, Vice Asia, An0ther Magazine. I would have done none of this if not for the femme-identifying and queer compatriots working tirelessly with me. My career exists because I’ve been managed by women.
This is not to say that all experiences in a woman-led workplace have been without blemish. It is the first step to push for gender balance, but it does not prevent voices from occluding, particularly in industries like media and publication. Systemic pitfalls continue. We’ve done a good job at getting people on the page but as for who makes the decisions, the progress has been scant. In 2022, The Parliament of Australia recorded that 60% of women of colour face ingoing discrimination and harassment in ethnocentric workplaces in Australia. In a 2020-21 Women of Colour Australia Workplace Survey Report, 26% of respondents said that their organisation was led by a person of colour and only 7% said that their organisation was led by a woman of colour. Dr. Kecia Thomas summarises this well with her term ‘Pet to Threat’— ‘Her ascendancy, once celebrated, now marks her as a threat—a challenge to the status quo, a disruptor of the established hierarchy capturing this very tragic and common occurrence for Black women and women of colour.’ In 2025, we need to carve out workplaces with delineated progression for women of colour. Our experiences are always optically welcome — but it’s a place at the table where we’re most underrepresented. I cannot say anything bell hooks has not said better: “If any female feels she needs anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.”
Never give yourself or your stories out for a buck. Your livelihood is one thing, your creation is another. While I understand they coalesce in our current age, setting boundaries as to how you want to frame that relationship is necessary. In our age where everything is mobile and instant, I also encourage my process with personal writing to be slower. I like being a sharpshooter with my feature work but when you have to produce from within, the intention to alchemise your past has to be deliberate. Seek clarity first as to why the piece needs to be formed. If the reason is good, get to work. If it isn’t, I cast it away until it returns without reservation.
Everything I know is lifted from the greats before me. Here is a sage sentence from one indie singer under the pseudonym of Lana Del Rey: My goal is to have met myself. Write because how else will you intuit from what the world tells you that you are? I am convinced that writing is the only way I can carve into my final form. Do it for all the reasons cautioned against: lust, numbers, ranking pages, infamy, native advertising, love. Never turn your nose down. Do it all, and do it well.