Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
The word “inspiration” is in trouble. It has been hollowed out, flattened by a culture that prefers its heroes simple and its narratives clean. We are served an endless buffet of flawless icons, women whose stories have been sanded down into smooth, palatable fables of success. But I suspect we are tired of these ghosts. We are hungry for something real. The age of the pedestal is ending. The women who truly galvanise us now are not saints; they are architects, building complex, contradictory, and deeply human lives in the full glare of the public eye.
What we are drawn to is not perfection, but presence. It is the grit, the doubt, the intellectual restlessness, and the defiant resilience. Inspiration, in its most potent form, is no longer a destination. It is the work. It is the process of navigating a fractured world without losing one’s voice. The seven women who follow are not offered as a definitive list, but as evidence of this shift. They are inspiring not because they are flawless, but because they are utterly, unapologetically themselves.
Zadie Smith
In an era that demands intellectual certainty and fixed positions, Zadie Smith remains thrillingly, inspiringly restless. For over two decades, she has resisted the easy comfort of having a single, settled worldview. Her essays and novels are not manifestos; they are explorations, public records of a brilliant mind in constant, curious motion. She is unafraid to circle back on an old idea, to question a previous conviction, to admit that she is still figuring things out.
This is a quiet form of cultural rebellion. We are conditioned to seek out gurus, thinkers who provide us with neat, digestible answers. Smith offers something far more valuable: a model for how to think, not what to think. Her inspiration lies in her intellectual integrity, her refusal to be anything other than a work in progress. She reminds us that the life of the mind is not about arriving at a final destination, but about the beauty and necessity of the journey itself.
Greta Gerwig
Greta Gerwig’s career is a masterclass in how to dismantle a system from within. She began as the beloved face of a certain kind of indie cinema, all quirky charm and relatable awkwardness. But to see her only in that light is to miss the formidable intelligence and ambition that was always present. Her transition to the director’s chair was not a pivot; it was an inevitability.
With films like Lady Bird, Little Women, and the cultural behemoth Barbie, she has smuggled her distinct, deeply personal vision into the heart of the Hollywood machine. She has proven that stories centered on the complex interior lives of women can be not just critically lauded, but globally dominant. Her conquest has been quiet, conducted not with the bombast of a revolutionary, but with the unanswerable force of sheer competence and a singular artistic vision. She is the quiet proof that you do not have to shout to change the world; you just have to be better than everyone else.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge
There is a moment before Fleabag and a moment after. Phoebe Waller-Bridge did not just write a character; she unleashed a cultural force. She took the unspoken, uncomfortable, and often contradictory realities of modern womanhood and placed them centre stage, under the harshest possible light. Her characters are not “likeable” in the traditional sense. They are selfish, grieving, witty, and broken, often all in the same breath.
The inspiration here is one of permission. Waller-Bridge gave a global audience permission to embrace the mess, to find the humour in the heartbreak, and to see the profound humanity in our most flawed impulses. Her work is a testament to the power of the unflinching gaze, the refusal to look away from the parts of ourselves we have been taught to hide. In a world obsessed with presenting a polished, curated self, she celebrated the glorious, chaotic truth.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has become, for many, a global entry point into the conversation around feminism. Yet her true power lies in her consistent refusal to simplify her message. She resists the pull of the slogan, the easy bumper-sticker statement. Her feminism is not a rigid ideology, but a lived, evolving, and deeply personal reality, rooted in her experiences as a Nigerian woman.
She is, above all, a storyteller. She understands that nuance is not the enemy of progress; it is the only path to it. In her lectures and her writing, you can almost hear the gears of her mind turning, weighing every word. In the hushed silence of a lecture hall, she challenges her audience to think more deeply, to resist the lazy comfort of binary thinking. She is the intellectual anchor in a storm of shouting, a reminder that the most radical thing you can be in the 21st century is thoughtful.
Dame Kate Bingham
In an age defined by the theatricality of its leaders, Dame Kate Bingham represents a different, and perhaps more potent, form of influence. As the head of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce during the pandemic, she operated largely outside the noisy arena of daily politics. She was not a household name. She was a venture capitalist with a deep understanding of biotechnology, and she was given a job to do.
Her story is a quiet epic of competence. It is about the unglamorous, methodical work of building a portfolio of potential vaccines, of navigating complex supply chains, and of making high-stakes decisions under unimaginable pressure. In a culture that often confuses celebrity with leadership, Bingham is a powerful reminder of the immense value of deep expertise and quiet, focused execution. She is an inspiration for a different kind of ambition: not the ambition to be known, but the ambition to be effective.
Serena Williams
To watch Serena Williams on a tennis court was to witness a study in defiant presence. For over two decades, she did not just play the game; she inhabited it, reshaping it in her own image. But her inspiration extends far beyond the raw power of her serve. It is in the way she carried the immense weight of her crown.
She thrived under a level of scrutiny that would have crushed most athletes, a constant commentary on her body, her race, her clothing, her emotions. She was never allowed to be just a player; she was always a symbol. And she refused to shrink herself to make that scrutiny more comfortable for others. She was unapologetically ambitious, fiercely competitive, and she dared to show her anger, her joy, and her vulnerability. She taught a generation that you do not have to ask for a seat at the table; you can build your own, and dare anyone to question your right to sit at its head.
Malala Yousafzai
The world knows the story of how Malala Yousafzai was shot. The more complex, and perhaps more inspiring, story is what happened next. She did not just survive; she was transformed, almost overnight, into a global symbol of courage and the fight for female education. It is a burden almost too heavy to comprehend, to have your girlhood interrupted not just by an act of violence, but by the weight of global expectation.
Her true inspiration lies in the grace with which she has carried this burden. She has navigated the treacherous waters of global fame while completing her education, founding a global movement, and somehow, carving out a space to simply be a young woman. She refuses to be a static martyr. She is funny, sharp, and deeply engaged with the world, not just as a symbol, but as an active participant. She is the living embodiment of the truth that our traumas do not have to be the end of our story; they can be the beginning of our purpose.
