11 pop culture queens who have graced Attitude’s cover, to mark International Women’s Day
Friday 8 March 2024 is International Women’s Day: a yearly day for celebrating women’s rights and equality, and highlighting the distance left to travel.
The official mission statement for 2024, as per the official IWD website, is to ‘imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
‘Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively we can all #InspireInclusion. Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity. IWD belongs to everyone, everywhere. Inclusion means all IWD action is valid.’
To mark the day, Attitude is taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting some of our favourite female-led covers…
Munroe Bergdorf
Model and trans rights campaigner Munroe Bergdorf covered the September 2021 issue of Attitude, and was interviewed by Clara Amfo. Discussing the subject of misogyny with the radio presenter, Munroe said: “It’s important for cis women to be trans allies, especially from the perspective of us both being women, because as women, we all experience misogyny. I think when cis women aren’t trans allies, we don’t eradicate misogyny. We just redirect it.”
Munroe has also been a digital cover star for Attitude’s stablemate publication, Rolling Stone UK.
Madonna
‘Material Girl’ singer Madonna has appeared on our cover twice: first in August 1995, the year of singles ‘Bedtime Story’, ‘Human Nature’ and ‘You’ll See’, and in November 2005, during her Confessions on a Dancefloor era.
In her interview, the star – currently travelling the world for The Celebration Tour – discussed life on the road, telling us: “It’s just brutally, physically exhausting to do five shows a week; to be on planes all the time, you’re always worried about your voice and now I have family, you know. I never had any free time. It’s a challenge. It’s great fun at the same time and I knew I didn’t want to be angry while I was making this record and hopefully that comes across.”
To read our 2025 cover feature with Madonna in full, click here.
The Spice Girls
For this classic cover from 1998, we joined Mel B, Victoria Beckham, Melanie C and Emma Bunton backstage during the American leg of their world tour. “Look, we’re eating chips – that’s funny!” Scary Spice Mel told us last month when we reminded her of it.
Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell, who left the band in May 1998, was of course missing. However, the newly-minted solo star would go on to land three covers of her own with Attitude: one in 1999, one in 2001 and one in 2004.
Dylan Mulvaney
Last year we named influencer and Broadway star Dylan Mulvaney Woman of the Year at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar.
She told us in an interview: “I especially love that [the award is] being given to me by a queer media outlet because the community is my highest priority when moving through these new doors that have opened for me in the past year. And when transphobia is so rampant all over the world, and allies and news organisations aren’t sure how to support us, knowing that my community sees me this way and acknowledges my womanhood is all I need to keep going.”
Yasmin Finney
Yas appeared on her cover alongside her Heartstopper casemates Kit Connor, Joe Locke and William Gao in 2022. Later that year, the star – now part of the Doctor Who universe – won an Attitude Pride Award.
Asked for advice to young LGBTQs struggling with their identities, Yasmin told us: “Being authentically yourself, unapologetically yourself is the best way to live. Just live for yourself and I know that’s so hard in high school, breaking through that barrier of what other people think. But you have to do it and that’s just the way to grow.
“Trust me, it’ll pay off in the future. Who wants to live life by what other people think about them? No! Be yourself, and be free and be liberated. That’s the best way to be.”
Dua Lipa
In her 2020 Attitude cover interview, ‘Training Season’ singer Dua discussed mental health. “I experienced a s*** tonne at the end of my first record,” she told us. “And it was definitely something that gave me anxiety and made me upset and made me feel like I wasn’t good enough and made me feel like, maybe I’m not meant to be here and on the stage.”
“There were so many things,” the star continued, “especially when you start out, like a video of me dancing and they’re like, ‘Ah well, she has no stage presence’ – but they’d never been to one of my shows, they’d never seen me perform.
“They would take one small snippet and run with it and it would become a whole thing. For a short period of time, it messed with my mental health. You know, I’d go on stage and if somebody was filming me, in my head, I wasn’t, like, ‘Oh, they’re filming me because they want to keep it.’ I was like, ‘They’re going to film it so they can laugh at me or something.’”
Alex Scott
Footballer turned TV presenter Alex Scott was another of our Attitude Award winners last year. In the interview, the star discussed her decision not to label her sexuality while writing her autobiography. “I was being asked questions, ‘You need to label what you are; you need to come out,'” she remembered. “But I was like, ‘No, actually, I don’t need to — I’m writing a story about love.’
“I hope that we get to a stage where everyone can just choose to love who they want to love and not feel that they have to then explain that to anyone.”
Kylie Minogue
‘Padam Padam’ singer Kylie – who yesterday performed on stage with Madonna for the first time – has appeared on our cover a record seven times.
The Australian superstar first got top billing in September 1997. The second time was September 2000, the third in December 2002, then November 2007, then July 2010, then May 2014, and the her most recent appearance was in May 2018, during her Golden era.
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