Hello, ~Espiroth and first of all thank you for dedicating your time for this interview.

International Women's Week is coming up (3-9 of March) and so we devised a series of interviews for you, from deviantART's most wonderful women artists. They are as varied as you could imagine - photographers, stock artists, digital painters, web designers and more but they all share one common thing.
They are women.

<sub>"As many of us already have read, or know, women had to fight for their equal footing with the men, and in some parts of the world they are still very underprivileged. We as women still get paid less than men for same positions, a lot of us are undereducated, a number are being treated as commodity even slavery, forced into prostitution... We even have girls at extremely young age being forced into marriage with much older men, and what makes it even worse their bodies are underdeveloped for childbearing and many die during childbirth or suffer later from side-effects of it, such as weak bladder and lowering of the uterus, being outcasted by community and families. We still struggle to break the glass ceilings in the corporate world, and in many parts of the world women do not have right to vote, or even speak up.

So in order to change this, to give all those young women hope, and a drive to succeed we wanted to organise the event that will empower women, that will give women and girls strength to reach for their dreams, that extra push they need."</sub>

Today, we are superwomen. We are doctors, nurses, managers, secretaries and mothers.

Please tell us about yourself.

~Espiroth: Not a lot to tell really I'm a 16 year old currently living in the UK. I'm in full time education, and I'm addicted to coffee, oh, and I'm taking my black belt grading for Tae Kwon Do at the end of this month, so BEWARE

What do you think are the biggest issues for women in the world today?

~Espiroth: I think the major one is equality. A lot of problems that I know about for women stem from the belief that women aren't equal to men, that they are worth less than they are. ...It affects all of us in some way, whether it's wages, comments from our peers, our self-esteem...

Do you think there is an easy fix to this problem?

~Espiroth: Is there ever an easy solution to a problem like this? I don't think so, but maybe that's being a tad pessimistic. I think having the confidence to stand up against it is important. Knowing that you're being treated unfairly and being angry about it will only get you so far, having the self-confidence to do something about it will do the rest, I think.

Who are the women you look up to or inspire you the most? (it can be on dA or in real life)

~Espiroth: Mothers. In my opinion anyone who can stand to have kids, and raise them and provide for them deserves a medal.

What inspires you about them?

~Espiroth: All that pain and effort to bring another human being into the world and raise them? It's something magical and extremely selfless that I don't think I'll ever understand.

We know deviantART is a wonderful place to grow as an artist in. Do you think deviantART has helped you realise things about yourself in the context of being a woman? Has it helped you grow as a woman?

~Espiroth: In some ways it has. I haven't had a hugely singular experience on DA that's helped me grow as a woman, but I've changed a lot in my time here. I love meeting and talking to people, and hearing about everyone's lives makes me think a lot about my own, so I guess that's helped me.

What message would you leave for the future women? (if you had a little sister, what would be the most important thing you would pass on to her?)

~Espiroth: Don't give in to society. You are always beautiful; the rest of the world's too blind to see it. Most importantly; BE YOURSELF

We're women from dawn to dusk. Can you tell us of an event that your being a woman hindered you in?

~Espiroth: I've not done a huge amount that my gender has hindered me in. Like *Shyada, however, I'm also in a minority in my ICT class. Me and 7 guys. There's been some wonderful discussions. One of which was about me apparently sleeping with the IT staff.

How would you suggest to fix that?

~Espiroth: How? Well I hit them.. I don't suggest that as a suitable method! Naa... I don't think you can change people's attitudes. Some people just refuse to admit they're wrong. The best thing to do when something like that happens is to put your headphones in whenever possible and ignore them. Yes, it's annoying to do, but it works sometimes. I don't think it'd work on something more serious though...

What do you think is the most important thing people should realise about women?

~Espiroth: The secretly we lead double lives, by day we are women, by night we run around in lycra fighting crime! Heh.. Honestly though, there's more to us than meets the eye, yes we have breasts, no, that is not all there is to us. We can do everything guys can, and more

Is there anything you would like to add?

~Espiroth: Nopes

Again, thank you ~Espiroth for taking the time to let us get to know a woman's life from up close.

Some gems from ~Espiroth's gallery:



For more information about International Women's Week visit ^sbaraci or *int-womens-week.