Waitresses pose inside the Playboy Club at the Sands Casino in Macau, December 18, 2010

Time to hang up that Bunny suit … and bring out your Superwoman costume. About eight years ago in South Africa, I started my own magazine. It was born out of the idea that mainstream publications did not represent the real beauty of the people who surrounded me. I had subscribed to Cosmopolitan magazine since I was 16 and had read the issues cover to cover. I scanned the percentage of advertising in each issue and deconstructed the content, themes and styles until I got bored by the predictability.

Iran, Tehran, 2013 Last check up before she is leaving home. Kimia is ready to go out. © Samaneh Koshravi

Iranians rank among the best customers of the cosmetic industry – despite the strict dress code, the obligation to wear a hijab and the lack of women’s rights. There are many stereotypes about the lives of Iranian women, complains Iranian photographer Samaneh Khosravi. One of them is the woman in a black chador. In her Among Women  and  Teenagers photo series, Khosravi shows how multifarious life in Iran is and how women have adapted their sense of fashion to the rules of the Islamic Republic.

Iran, Tehran, 2013 Another woman takes a souvenir photo before she leaves to a private party and has to cover herself again until she arrives there. © Samaneh Khosravi

Iranians rank among the best customers of the cosmetic industry – despite the strict dress code, the obligation to wear a hijab and the lack of women’s rights. There are many stereotypes about the lives of Iranian women, complains Iranian photographer Samaneh Khosravi. One of them is the woman in a black chador. In her Among Women and Teenagers photo series, Khosravi shows how multifarious life in Iran is and how women have adapted their sense of fashion to the rules of the Islamic Republic.

Until quite recently, tropical storms were almost exclusively female. But a number of feminists and meteorologists questioned the practice of giving storms female names and there are now “male” storms too. Here is an insight into the history of storm naming, and the justifications once given for feminizing them.

Audrey Hepburn was one of the world’s most photographed women and is now the focus of a London exhibition. During the 1950s and 60s she was a screen goddess. These are the films that made her a Hollywood icon. – By Silke Wünsch (ad)

Anshita Koul said that. She is also known as ‘Anshita Crazy Koul’, a rising YouTube star who divides her time between India and Germany is breaking stereotypes and fighting patriarchy by making people laugh. She is tickling India’s funny bone and putting the State of Jammu and Kashmir, a place always associated with conflict, on the world map in a new light. She recently starred in the first ever comedy show exclusively for women in India – The Queens Of Comedy and recently organized Jammu’s first open mic. Koul spoke to WTO Reporter Roma Rajpal Weiß on the comedy scene in India.

Audrey Hepburn was one of the world’s most photographed women and is now the focus of a London exhibition. During the 1950s and 60s she was a screen goddess. These are the films that made her a Hollywood icon. – By Silke Wünsch (ad)