The 5 TED Talks by women most recognized around the world

Each one of these influential female leaders are on top of their fields, from literature and social science to environment, technology. Being the best example of empowerment and success, these activists teach us essential lessons related to the way our words and actions can make a significant change in our lives.

The Danger of a Single Story

Chimamanda Ngozi is an African novelist that became one of the most popular talks of all time, according to TED Talks' official website. Ngozi comes from a conventional middle-class Nigerian family. During her lecture, the author explains how a story by itself creates stereotypes, and the problem with them is that they are incomplete because they make one story become the only story. About this, the leader claims, "start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story." Stories are dependent on power, a balance of them is required.

School Strike for Climate – Save the World by Changing the Rules

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teenager activist well known worldwide thanks to her touching speech at the 2019 UN climate action summit in New York. Since then, Greta has started a climate revolution and travel around the world, talking about the importance of taking action lowering the temperature of a feverish planet.. At this TED event, the young activist lists the steps that governments can choose to save the earth: "rich countries like Sweden need to start reducing emissions by at least 15 % every year, and that is so that we can stay below a two-degree warming target".

Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

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Sheryl Sandberg is the first woman to become a social media billionaire. Sandberg is an American technology executive, activist, and author, winning a spot as the chief operating officer of Facebook. According to the expert, women are not making it to the top of any profession anywhere in the world. As proof of it, Sandberg claims, "of all the people in parliament in the world, 13 percent are women". The leader reflects on how women systematically underestimate their abilities. To change this, Sandberg gives three pieces of advice for women to reach the best of their potential.

What do poor people have in mind?

"¿Qué Tienen los Pobres en la Cabeza?" is the title of the talk by Mayra Arena. This argentine describes herself as the living proof of the stigmas of poverty: daughter of a teenage mom, abandoned by her father, sister of many siblings, dropped out of school at 13 and became a mom when she was 14. Arena makes a profound reflection on the thinking of a person that has been abandoned by society and judged unfairly. "We, the poor people, have children because it is the only thing they can have" confesses Mayra. During the talk, she shares heartbreaking stories about her childhood and how poverty left a mark on her.

Why would anyone be watching me? I'm nobody

Marta Peirano is a journalist and chief editor of culture at Eldiario.es newspaper in Spain. Peirano invites us to stay anonymous since our information and data is being stolen for capitalism and control issues. She also clarifies how our observers don't care if we are nobody or if we are unimportant because they're algorithms, not people. Our profile is automatic, exist even if nobody looks at it. Everything that we do in our cellphones and laptops becomes our record. The journalist reflects genuinely on how the very existence of our information makes us vulnerable in ways that we can't anticipate right now.

A 2012 study in the Harvard Business Review found women are rated better in 12 of the 16 leadership skills. This proofs that women are just as competitive as men. However, most recent research done in January of 2020 by Catalyst, -a global organization that ensures workplaces that work for women with some of the world's most powerful CEOs since 1962-, shows that only 4.9% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 2% of S&P 500 CEOs are women. Aware of this reality, these speakers encourage more women to become visible and excellent.