The 2010s have seen numerous watershed moments for female empowerment, equal pay and gender equality, while global movements like #MeToo and TimesUp have prompted major societal shifts in just the last two years.
Elsewhere, female leaders have pioneered discussions on key issues such as climate change, education and gun violence.
There are many speeches made by women in the last 10 years worth revisiting, but a few soundbites will stand the test of time in decades to come.
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Who could forget the moment Patricia Arquette nobly used her best actress speech at the Oscars in 2015 to demand equal pay?
Or when Oprah Winfrey took to the stage at the Golden Globes in 2018, becoming the first black woman to accept the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement? Winfrey’s speech began as a personal reflection on her achievements and concluded with a rousing call to arms against sexual harassment, prompting questions of a potential presidential run.
And award ceremonies aren’t the only places to have been galvanised by powerful female voices. Look at this year’s United Nations Climate Summit, where teenage environmentalist Greta Thunberg eviscerated world leaders for “betraying” young people through lack of action on climate change.
Thunberg’s UN moment came just a few years after Emma Watson made a similarly viral speech in 2014, who up until then was best known as the actor who played Hermione Granger in Harry Potter. Watson has since become an ardent women’s rights advocate, a shift that was undoubtedly led by her spirited words on gender equality at the United Nations that year.
“I have realised that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating,” said Watson, who had just been appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador. “If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”
Poignant words from women have also brought light to darker times this past decade, like when high school student Emma Gonzalez urged US lawmakers to act in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, where 17 of her classmates were killed.
“We are grieving, we are furious, and we are using our words fiercely and desperately because that’s the only thing standing between us and this happening again,” the then-19-year-old memorably said at the March For Our Lives rally in 2018.
Elsewhere, we’ve heard inspirational speeches from former first ladies, activists and politicians made in every kind of circumstance, from TED talks to university addresses.
Click through the gallery above for our pick of the 10 best quotes from women in the last decade.
