celebrity

Adele trying to give Beyonce her Grammy was the ultimate display of the new sisterhood.

Social media exploded yesterday when Adele appeared to pull a total Cady-Heron-in-Mean-Girls and try to break her Album of the Year Grammy in half to give to Beyonce.

“I can’t possibly accept this award. And I’m very humble and I’m very grateful and gracious and stuff, but my life is Beyoncé, and this album to me, the Lemonade album, Beyoncé – so monumental, and so well thought-out, and so beautiful and soul-bearing and we all got to see another side to you that we don’t always see,” the singer said as she was handed the award.

“And all us artists here adore you. You are our light. And the way you make me and my friends feel, the way you make my black friends feel is empowering, you make them stand up for themselves.”

Adele-beyonce-trophy
Adele at the Grammy's. Image: Getty.
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It was an act I felt confused about.

My first reaction was to let out an ugly "Naww" at her pure humility. I then stopped to think about it - would a man ever receive an award by announcing someone else should have got it? Unlikely.

It was this view that dominated my conversations about the event with friends. If Adele, a highly talented and accomplished musician and owner of 11 Grammy's and an Academy Award, feels she wasn't deserving enough, what chance do the rest of us have? (Post continues after gallery.)

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Then a piece by Daisy Buchanan on The Pool came up on my feed with an angle that threw something entirely new into the picture - that Adele's move was the ultimate feminist act.

"Feminism should be about hearing and promoting other women’s voices. And at last night’s Grammys, Adele did just that," she argued.

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She's right.

Adele's move was one we should be applauding.

It wasn't about saying she hadn't earned it - it was about acknowledging the incredible work and achievements of another woman deserving of the spotlight, rather than taking it just for herself.

She wasn't putting herself down, she was lifting other women up with her.

At a time when the full-time average weekly ordinary earnings for Australian women are still 16.2 per cent less than for men, and we still only represent 15.4 per cent of CEOs, we all need to be following her lead.

It's a strategy female staffers in Obama's office dubbed "amplification" and employed in their meetings, according to the Washington Post.

Fed up of seeing women's voices and ideas go unnoticed in the male-dominated office, they "amplified" each other's contributions so it it couldn't help but be noticed.

When a woman made an important point, others would repeat it while giving credit to the original suggester.

"We just started doing it, and made a purpose of doing it. It was an everyday thing,” a former Obama aide told the newspaper.

As a direct result, she noticed Obama calling on women and junior aides more often.

It's a simple yet powerful move we can take into our own lives and workplace, no matter what we do.

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Too often we get caught in the cycle thinking that there's only space for one of us, or a select few. It becomes a competition, fuelled by jealousy, rather than support.

After all, women supporting each other can only benefit all women. And there's room for all of us.

Listen: Are we all bad feminists?