Some celebrities just tower over the rest. Standing at 5 feet and 11 inches or more, these 15 women command attention whenever they walk into a room.

WENN

Model turned mogul Kimora Lee Simmons put her stature to good use. Standing at an even six feet, Simmons got her start in modeling early on. By the time she was ten years old, Simmons was 5 feet, 10 inches tall. Her mother enrolled her into modeling classes at the age of 11 and soon after Simmons found herself in Paris. Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, Simmons was picked on because of her ethnicity and height. The 37-year-old mother of three credits modeling with giving her the confidence that she has now: “[Modeling] was a real turning point for me because everything that people considered weird about me before, well, suddenly Karl Lagerfeld said it was OK. He’s one of the biggest names in fashion, so all of a sudden it gave me a validity and introduced me to a whole other world.”

While soaking in the summer sun and reading news articles on my phone a couple of weeks ago, something caught my eye. It wasn’t about the record breaking heat wave we were going through across the country, or Mitt Romney getting booed at the NAACP for stating he would repeal Obamacare if elected, it was Katie Holmes. Why you ask? Well if you don’t own a TV or care about celebrities, then you probably don’t know that Katie Holmes divorced actor Tom Cruise after five years of marriage. While people are stating different reasons for the split, many have started focusing on her career and how it may be affected after her divorce is final. Affected in a good way that is.

Reports near and far said she would be able to star in bigger budget films, and that the end of her relationship could be a whole new beginning for the star. She’s already nabbed a few new roles in movies coming out this year and next year, and she just seems more of the “It” girl in mainstream media. Now, I don’t follow Holmes’s career, but I do think that it’s strange for people to only become successful after everything else in their life falls apart. The same situation happened with Cruise’s last wife, Nicole Kidman. Post their divorce in 2001, Kidman blew up huge in her acting career, even going on to win an Academy Award for her role in The Hours just a year later. That’s a huge achievement for a woman who had to just put on a smile and wave while her superstar husband soaked up all the fame and notoriety. Women can be successful in their relationships, but also in their careers just as much as men can be if there is enough focus on it.

The idea of the career-orientated woman is something that was almost extinct just a couple of decades ago. In the past, women were often viewed as more domestic and less worried about their careers than men. Many institutions like the University of Michigan and the Bureau of Labor Statistics have put ladies in that very box with studies showing that women have been somewhat ‘forced’ into the role of a maid, having to do all the cleaning, cooking and more in a home. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2006, 84 percent of women spent time managing the home rather than their careers.

Just six years later things are looking up. More women are making big changes in almost everything including business, government, entertainment and sports.

In a study from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), women of color (African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American) make up 14.5 percent of the American workforce, and African American women are in the lead with 7.6 percent in the workforce.

Your goals and that gutsy mindset shouldn’t be skewed by your relationship, or the fact that you’re in a relationship. Sometimes we as women take on other goals and responsibilities in a relationship and when it’s over, we feel that we gave up or missed out on so much through too many sacrifices. It’s time to focus on ourselves and not bypass the goals we set for someone else so that their light can shine while ours only dims.

We hear the heartbreaking songs from Adele, and Mary J. about how love has scorned them and how they moved on. Their experiences turn into melodies, melodies into songs, and songs into success. But I digress here. Your career isn’t given a death sentence because you’re in a relationship, and at the same time, your work isn’t your life and your life isn’t work. But the more time you put into the things that you want, the more fulfilled you will feel (and the less resentful). Sadly, there aren’t too many people who feel this way.

In the June issue of The Atlantic, the cover read “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The article was written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, current international affairs professor at Princeton, and she believes that women can’t be successful and have a stable marriage and regular life.  She left her job as the policy director for the State Department in Washington D.C. because trying to maintain her job got in the way of raising her 14-year-old son. Some questions that came to mind were, where was the balance in her relationships? Why wasn’t the spouse or father of her son helping? The article doesn’t answer these questions at all, but it does bring up the continued conversation on success in relationships and ultimately “having it all.” Does that mean that you have the perfect marriage, or perfect children? If so, is it really even possible to “have it all”?

Success is something that not just women, but men want to have. Balance, understanding and support in a relationship can mean all the difference in getting to your goal instead of pushing it back. You shouldn’t have to continuously put your hopes and goals on hold so your significant other can solely reach theirs. Why can’t you both be a success together?

What do you think? Do you believe that it’s impossible to be able to focus on a career in a relationship? Or is it better to be single and work towards your goals?

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Source: hawtcelebs.com

We say it all the time, and by we, I mean black people. Ever since Halle and Denzel took home their Oscars in 2002 for “Training Day” and “Monster’s Ball,” black people have felt the only time anyone of us could get an Oscar or even a nomination was to be the bad guy. That’s not quite the same as “trashy” but Michelle Rodriguez’s thinking appears to be along the same lines, hopefully.

In a recent interview with Vulture, Michelle was asked how she felt about Lee Daniel’s latest film The Paperboy which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and was definitely not a crowd pleaser:

“I loved The Paperboy!” she said before speaking on the negative reviews it received. “I say f*** them because they don’t get it. He’s so good at keeping me entertained. When I don’t like the dialogue, I’m amused by the visuals. And when I don’t like the visuals, I’m amused by the dialogue. It’s always switching up senses. I’m intrigued by his ability to capture me in a theater. It’s not easy to capture me in a theater — I’m ADD like that.”

But what about that scene where Nicole Kidman apparently urinates on Zac Efron before she has an orgasm?

“I f***ing loved it. One of my friends said, ‘She’s going to get nominated for an Oscar for that.’ I was like, ‘Nah, man. She’s not black!’ I laugh, but it’s also very sad. It makes me want to cry. But I really believe. You have to be trashy and black to get nominated. You can’t just be trashy.”

Perhaps her phrasing is a tad odd, but I think we get the point. Even when it comes to The Help, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer certainly weren’t trashy, but their characters weren’t symbols of one of the brightest aspects of African American history either, which is why there was so much mixed emotion about their sweeping nominations this past awards season. Michelle shouldn’t forget white actresses who have won for trashy parts though, like Charlize Theron who immediately comes to mind for the 2003 film Monster which won her 17 awards, including an Oscar for Best Actress.

I’m thinking Michelle Rodriguez might need more people for allowing herself to be quoted in a way that’s actually sort of trashy itself but I don’t know if that takes away from the fact that she has a point. What do you think about what she said?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

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