Ever heard of Mortelle Adele--this bold little girl, who is hilarious and free, created by Antoine Dole and illustrated by Diane Lefeyer since 2014? 

Adèle has an amazing imagination when it comes to oversized goofy ideas, she's not the nicest girl, and she gladly wreaks havoc in her entourage and especially for her parents. So, why do children (and parents!) love her so much?!

Take the test: put a volume of Mortelle Adèle in the hands of a child (girl or boy from 7 years old on as one of their first books to read), and wait 3 minutes. You are guaranteed a quick burst of laughter!

Mortelle Adèle was one of Ella's first books that read (Ella's now 10). Very quickly, we collected Adèle's whole universe. Ella was looking forward to each new volume of the graphic novel series (and we had to rush to the bookshop on release day of course!).

So what does she love about this little super heroine? She's funny and fearless. She makes her own rules and imagines XXL nonsense. She turns clichés and rules in their head ...

During lock down in Australia, we launched the "Mini Talks" live on Instagram (kind, simple discussions to discover the journeys of inspiring women with male-dominated passions or  jobs.)

Ella asked our guests questions, and she asked me if we could also interview the authors behind her heroine, Mortelle Adèle!

Since we were interviewing inspirational women, why not find out more about Adele, who was an inspiration to her and many other children?

So we got in touch with Bayard, publisher of Mortelle Adèle, and on July 6th, we set a date to talk with Antoine Dole, creator and scriptwriter of Mortelle Adèle and Diane Lefeyer, her cartoonist! YES!

They gave us a great gift by sharing this moment with Ella (and me!) and all the future spectators by even reserving her some surprises to discover in our video!

We are very happy to have been able to live this moment and especially to be able to share it here on Pourquoi Princesse.

Antoine Dole, Diane Lefeyer and their extraordinary character, Mortelle Adèle, share loud and clear the values that led us to create Pourquoi Princesse.

Here are two little quotes that we have already shared on social media but that we engrave here because we love them so much!

"But it's completely unfair the princesses have to kill each other to hope to be talked about when the boys become heroes without having to wiggle their fingers!"  In Mortelle Adèle au pays des contes défaits at Bayard. Antoine Dole aka Mr Tan

– Diane LeFeyer 

"I think it's important to show boys that they can have girls as heroines. And also to show girls that they can become anything they want, like Adèle who will one day be President of the Galaxy!".

Antoine Dole aka Mr Tan, in the 2nd issue of Mortelle Adèle Magazine Magazine. 

If you want to know more, go ahead and discover the collection, there's plenty to do! (Only in French for now).

To date, 17 volumes of the graphic novel, 1 book, 4 magazines, extras, specials, games and a whole universe of merchandising products!

Long life to Mortelle Adèle and her whole universe!

Noémie De Lattre is an amazing woman we are so happy to introduce to those who don’t already know her! Brilliant, funny, committed, we love her posts so real ad accurate that lead to awareness. Actress, author and much more, she has imagined a unique and essential show "Féministe pour Homme" (“Feminist for man”) until the end of April at Théâtre La Pépinière in Paris!) with the ambition of "revaluing the image of feminism and showing that it is a commitment of all humans, and not of women against men", we love it! Her journey, her strength and resilience inspire us and we were very thankful to have a few words with this great woman who shows the way to a more equal world!

Actress, actress, comedian, comedian, author, all at once? Is that the right way to describe your profession?

Absolutely! That's very good!

Why did you choose this path?

For the artistic path: It's always been there since I was a child, really.

I've gone through all the stages at every age so that this passion is taken seriously, especially by my parents.

My mother told me if at 7 years old , you still want to do this, I will take you seriously. At 7 years old I still wanted to do that.

Then she told me if at the age of 11, you still want to do that, I will take you seriously. I did! At 11 I still wanted to do that!  So she told me : “Graduate and then you can do whatever you want!”

I did what I wanted and I didn't even wait for graduation. Because I played the first shows I wrote myself when I was 15 years old!

Writing, acting, directing... All that has really always been my ambition, my passion.

Concerning my commitment around equality and feminism: It came very late, I was one of the people I'm talking to today, I even had a bit of a caricatured vision of feminists.

I come from very, very far on this subject.

It was a long-term awareness, it wasn't a "click" at all.

It came when I was working on the radio, I had to write short sketches. I was thinking about what to do, and Frédéric Lopez (host of the show) told me "tell me what makes you angry", it's funny and interesting.

And very quickly I realized that everything that made me angry was related to my gender!

After that it went pretty fast in the progression, and once you put on the glasses on and open your eyes... you see everything and you can't accept without saying anything anymore!

 Did you have role models (female or not!) when you were a child?

 In fact my mother, who didn't claim to be a feminist at all, was an extremely virile person (I say "virile" and not "masculine"!) in terms of her profession, her looks, everything! The cars she drove, the clothes she wore, the job she did, the way she addressed people, what she passed on to me, everything! She was a “real man”, my mother! And a manly man at that!

She was expecting a boy, my name should have been Arthur, she was very disappointed that I was a girl !

So she dressed me up and did my hair like a boy for a very long time.

And I was obsessed with femininity, outrageous femininity because I had no model for it anywhere. And I was fascinated by ultra-feminine icons like Rita Hayworth or Marilyn Monroe. Very early on I wore heels, I wore make-up, very early, very sexy, very feminine. That was my obsession.

But my interests that shaped my thinking had nothing to do with this. I became interested in philosophy very soon, like Nietzsche or Schopenhauer, but I never considered them as models.

I was passionate about them, I read them, but I didn't identify with them at all.

What were your favourite games and activities as a child?

I was very often alone and not allowed to watch TV ... so I kept myself busy and was very creative.

I recreated my favorite cartoons with egg cans, I built things, I customized Barbies...

Back home, we didn't really have the right to be bored... otherwise it was because we lacked resources.

Also, I used to dress up, I used to do shows...

In your journey Have you ever felt that being a girl/woman was a drag or was simply considered as original/atypical? (especially when it comes to humour)?

And if so, what did you think at that moment, what made you move forward?

No, I never felt the feeling of being perceived as atypical or original.

But, I have always been a creator AND a performer, and in all the groups, the companies, of which I was a part, I was always remembered only as an actress only.

And since I was considered rather pretty, it seemed obvious to perceive me as an actress.

I was told so many "Oh, yes, you write too! "It's crazy!

I remember a contest, "Made in Palmade" in which we had to write sketches... and I won almost every other week, I won for sketches I had written and each time the producer would say "Oh yes, it's true that you write yourself! »

That was insane!

I was always brought back to being an actress first. To the point that I kind of think thought myself. So I very quickly assumed my status as an actress, and it took me years, waiting to receive several awards, before I could say to myself "well ok I'm also an author actually!  It took me a very long time to be recognized and to feel legitimate for this part of my work.

Some other times being a woman made a real difference and that have been hard:

- Obviously the harassment side, which is the daily life of actresses in general.

- And then when I had my child, I was discriminated. But what was most violent was that my entire entourage at that time took sides against me. Sometimes they thought they were doing the right thing and protecting me... but everyone advised me to shut up or they told me that I had gone too far...

For me it's really the anger that I'm still having a hard time going through.

What's a typical day in your life like?

Apart from some rare moments of holidays, I never stop, 24/7 except 6 weeks a year at best!

I wake up early enough to take my son to school.

In the morning I'm more creative so it’s time for writing and all the "to do" things. I try to be very efficient in this short period of time.

I am totally focused because time is running out!

In the afternoons I'm more in action, so it’s time for work meetings, rehearsals, video shootings, events, interviews, production meetings...

Then I try to get my son back from school (that's a "break" ...!).

And in the evening I go back to a creative phase or I go out to play or see a play...

My working day stops at 8pm at best and midnight at worst!

What do you like most and least about your job?

The most: choosing how I use my time. The times when I can manage my creative time freely, over a day or half-day, are the ones I prefer.

The least: when I am no longer master of my time! I'm surrounded by a lot of people, but there are still a lot of things like reminders, phone calls that I could do without!

What advice would you give to children who are afraid of failure?

It is rare to be aware that you are afraid of failure.

There's a quote I love, "I decided to be myself because others were already taken”. This quote is very inspiring to me. In fact everyone is himself in his own life and does things only for himself. What happens to you and the way you feel it belongs only to you. Sadness, anger or even love of others is only about them, not about you. Even if you are the subject of these emotions.

Failure is relative. If you understand this uniqueness, you cannot fail!

How do you keep your strength and positivity in the face of all these challenges? Do you have a habit, a ritual?

Every year I do an Ayurvedic retreat in India.

And all year long I try to follow these precepts with yoga, meditation, I also try to train myself in wise thoughts. I put all the chances on my side! I "work hard" to be happy!

What do you think we could do, or create so that girls can be inspired and grow up thinking that they can do anything?

Radically change the paradigm, totally change what we teach them at school and at home. I see it with my son, I spend a lot of time just deconstructing what he receives from the world. We've got a long way to go...

What advice do you have for girls who need to deal with barriers and simply believe that they can't?

It's so understandable that they feel these limitations, and at the same time so not normal... I don't know if one piece of advice can be enough.

It's the parents, or people surrounding them who can make a difference. If it was enough advice, we wouldn't have a real problem.

And it's annoying, that it's still the little girls, to bear the responsibility of "overcoming obstacles", it's the world in which we live in that doesn't turn around in the right way! It's not up to them to bear this responsibility. It is the whole of society that has to do it!

A scientist, mathematician, and entrepreneur, Aurélie Jean set off on a mission to demystify algorithms, coding and science!  

This founder of In Silico Veritas, an analytics and computational consulting agency, is a role model to all girls. Through her hard work and dedication Aurélie exemplies the fact that a person can do anything and choose any career!

Passionate, bold and committed, she has served as the patron of the first class of the Microsoft School of Artificial Intelligence. Nowadays, she navigates between her ventures, teaching, research and writing!  

We sat down with Aurélie to ask her more questions about her life and here work.

What is it like to be a mathematician and a computer scientist? (Actually, what name(s) would you choose to describe what you do?)

I was trained to be a numerician. Practically speaking I develop mathematical models and algorithms that I implement in computer programs to digitally simulate phenomena of reality, in order to make predictions, answer questions and understand mechanisms. To do this, I use applied mathematics, computer science and knowledge related to the disciplines for which I develop these models.

Wow! That's amazing! How did you get involved in this work?

After my internship during my first year of my Master's degree at the University of Colorado, Boulder, USA, I realized that I wanted to do work in the digital mechanics of materials. I choose this specialty in the last year of my Master's at the ENS in Australia and then did my doctorate on this subject at the Mines ParisTech. The main idea is to develop these digital models in the mechanics of materials, to understand how materials deform, break or even regenerate. I love this approach because it allows me to understand through digital simulation what we can't understand in the real world. For example, in my dissertation, I was able to accurately observe the elastic deformation of an elastomer on a nanoscopic scale through numerical simulations, which is still impossible with current microscopes.

Wow, that sounds like you're speaking in Greek to me. Did you have role models (female or not!) when you were a child?

I have had many male role models who have been my best support in my career. I am thinking of Ryan Flannery and Arvind Seth in Bloomberg, John Joannopoulos and Markus Buehler at MIT, or George Engelmayer at Pennsylvania State University. I had some female role models, such as my physics professor Lucille Julien at Sorbonne University who made me want to get a doctorate. I owe her a lot! I also think of Professors Tara Swart and Simona Socrate at MIT who inspired me enormously!

What were your favorite games and activities when you were a child?

As a child, I used to play a lot with dolls, Legos and cars. I dressed up as Zorro as much as I dressed up as a princess, and my grandparents bought me a motorbike and a pedal tractor! I was raised by my grandparents without any gender bias or stereotypes, and I thank them for that! My grandfather kept telling me that I shouldn't think about my gender or social class to choose what I wanted to do... it's because of him that I am where I am today, and I keep moving forward remembering his words.

Did you ever feel that being a girl/woman was a barrier or was simply perceived as atypical? And if so, what kept you going at that time?

When I was younger, not really because I was raised in an extremely open-minded environment. That being said, I saw the differences between women and men became more apparent during my higher education. There, I was in the minority, and I sometimes had the impression that I was not in my place. Above all, I realized that the upbringing I had received was far from being the upbringing my friends had received. I was very lucky, and I realize it every day. From a professional point of view, I have mainly worked in the US, and I admit that I have always felt respected and protected there, perhaps more than in Australia, where sexist remarks are often considered with a form of humor that kind of legitimate them for a lot of people. I'm quite intolerant about this sort of behavior; one can laugh at anything but not in the workplace.

What does a typical day in your life look like?

I don't have a typical day! I organize my day according to the moments in between consulting, teaching, research and my editorial contributions.

What do you like most and least about your work?

What I like most is discovering new things, working with the people I love and improving and understanding the world better! What do I like the least? All of the administrative tasks! I am lucky to have a great help with Jenny Chamberlin who is my right-hand on these tasks I am running from!

What advice would you give to children who are afraid of failure?

In order to overcome your fear of failure, you always need to learn lessons from them.When we understand that failure allows us to learn faster and progress more easily by increasing our level of experience, then we let go of our fear! Every time I've failed at something, I always spent time thinking about what I had learned, which helped me a lot afterwards.

How do you maintain your strength and positivity in the face all these challenges? Do you have a habit, a ritual?

I'm of American culture, and it helps! My grandparents always taught me to see the glass half full. "Tomorrow is another day" my grandfather used to tell me. Also, I learned a lot about relativizing my situation, which helped me to take more risks in my life and career. Like everyone else, I've had difficult times, moments of doubt and hard ends of months, but I've always thought there were worse elsewhere. I'm a big grouchy woman, but I always propose a solution after my little argument (laughs...). In my opinion, we have the right to complain, but in the end we need to come up with a solution, even the simplest or the least realistic, because at least we are making progress on the problem. I am a great optimist and my almost 10 years spent in the USA reinforced this state of mind in me.

In your opinion, what could be done, or created, so that girls can be inspired and grow up thinking they can do anything?

I believe very much in talking to parents. In my case, I realize the strong impact my home life had on my vision of the world and my thoughts on the possibilities of what I could do in the future. My friends, who weren't so lucky, have often seen a limited realm of possible careers and work. We need to talk to parents and show them examples of women scientists, so that they can inspire and encourage their own children!

What advice do you have for girls who have to overcome extreme obstacles and who simply believe they can't?

Surround yourselves with caring people (men or women) who will help you navigate difficult situations, reflect on possible decisions, and move forward more easily. These people will give you courage too! They could be a family member or a teacher. Later on, these people can also be friends. You need this support and guidance to overcome any obstacle.

March 17, 2019

Stéphanie Gicquel inspires us!  An amazing female adventurer and athlete, she has just finished the World Marathon Challenge, corresponding to 7 marathons in 7 days on each of the 7 continents! Incredible, right?!!!

From the Novo base in Antarctica to Miami in the United States, via Madrid in Spain, it has covered 295 km, facing huge temperature variations and extreme conditions.

Graduates from HEC, she was lawyer before devoting herself completely to her life as an adventurer and extraordinary woman athlete. She is among the few who have walked both the South Pole and the North Pole, and shares her experiences all over the world and shows us the way to boldness and surpassing oneself! We love it!

So when she chooses as the title for her book "We are all born adventurers" (published by Ramsay), we want to believe in it!

We have always seen men explore the world a lot, but women are also adventurers! Like Stephanie, a Role Model that we like to see and show to our children! What if your daughter were to become an adventurer and explorer one day?!

We are so happy and lucky to have shared this discussion with her !

How would you describe your activity? Adventurer? Explorer? Extreme athlete? all at once?

All this at once, actually! Athlete, explorer and adventurer, but also author and entrepreneur! I like the term adventurer, with a sense of "passion for change". For me, exploration is really about going into the field. There can be sports, scientific, or photographic exploration, all kinds of explorations in fact, with the idea of always going into the field.

Adventurer, brings together all my current activities well, it is the fact of changing, of passing from one thing to another, of going out of my comfort zone. That's why I like to say that I am an "adventurer of change", an expression that includes all these activities: Athlete, (*Stéphanie is part of the 24-hour French team), and also entrepreneur, lecturer and author. When you are in the world of exploration, you necessarily have several activities at the same time: giving conferences, raising funds, participating in advertisements, writing books, making films. Finally we are multitasking, and that's what's interesting too!

Why did you choose this path? Was there a specific reason?

In fact, there was no "click". It is true that often we have the impression that there is a life accident, or something special that makes us realize that life is short and that we should do what we really want. That's not what I experienced, in fact I've always wanted to travel since I was a little girl and I didn't travel when I was young. Things came together in a fairly natural way. That is, when I was in school I started travelling, then I continued when I was a lawyer and then travelling, and exploring became more important than the activity I was in. But all this was done in a very smooth and natural way. It was also encounters with explorers, reading books. I began to make a first trip, then another one and then set myself higher goals. It is the same today in top-level sport. We reach one objective and we say to ourselves, we will reach another... But all this was done in a natural way, it's not an accident of life, it's really a "path", I like a lot this word. I speak a lot about this idea of “change”, and often it is expected to be a radical change in life. For me it's more of a journey. The woman I am today is a result from who I was in school, in the lawyer’s world and or in entrepreneurship. The athlete I am today is also who she is because there were all these roads. So no "click" but a passion for travel since I was a little girl, and as I didn't get this opportunity to travel then, I gradually went towards this dream. When I am in a competition, for example, I am far from travelling and yet I also enjoy it very much. What’s important to me, is taking the first step, trying something new and realizing if you're good or not and if you like it or not - I could never have imagined that I loved the Ultramarathon and that I loved competition if I hadn't tried. It’s all about finding your own way by taking small steps out of your comfort zone.

Did you have role models (female or not!) when you were a child?

No, actually, I've always been very curious and my models in fact all the people I meet.

I try to be inspired by all kind of ways and especially when I love it when people evolve in an environment that is not mine at all, I ask myself a lot of questions, I am very curious, I like to know how they are doing it, how they could solve this or that problem, I fell I can learn a lot from these experiences. There is no particular person. And when I was a little girl it was the same way. The inspiration was daily, first through my family, then through the teachers, or any inspiring people I met,...

What were your favorite games and activities when you were a child?

 I loved roller-skating a lot!, I did a lot of it !

It was very different from running, it was actually more technical.

I also really liked gym, marbles and played a lot of football too!

I also loved dancing to all kinds of music.

In your journey have you ever felt that being a girl/woman was a drag or was simply considered as original/atypical? And if so, what did you think at that time, what made you move forward?

When exploring, being a man or a woman does not change the fact that we are facing the elements in extreme situations in the same way.  We can find ourselves in the middle of an expedition, like when I was in Antarctica, I had 50° C. for about ten days, absolutely extreme situations of lack of food, we walked 70 hours a week, we were extremely weakened... And whether we were a man or a woman in the end, it's the same thing, the elements are stronger than us anyway.

It is true that there is a very strong representation, which comes from the past I think, that it is a man who explores the world, a man who explores in a "sporting" way, who crosses continents, who crosses on cross-country skis, by pulling sleds etc. It is a very strong representation of man. It is true that when you are a woman, what is a little more complicated is to set up the project, to find teammates or to seek funding or simply to be taken seriously. We can simply tell you "but you won't be able to do it..." We hear "it's impossible" much more than a man. Again, it's a story of models. By showing a tall and strong man on this type of expedition, you can't imagine that a woman can do it too. And so it may seem original, atypical. The brake is therefore put on the project set-up, it takes more time to raise funds and to convince. And at the same time it actually makes us even stronger. When you are not expected, you become strong. We also develop a form of perseverance that is absolutely extraordinary, and I think it also comes from these obstacles. I'm trying to see it as something positive and to draw strength from it.

What is a typical day in your life?

Actually, there is no such thing as a typical day in my life !

Either I am on an expedition, in which case we are in a tent, we get up, we have to walk 8 to 12h a day, we eat freeze-dried food, so a fairly intense effort! 

Either we are preparing an expedition, in which case we spend a lot of time looking for information, maps, means, organization. We'll raise funds to communicate, create a website, a blog. And when you're close to an expedition, everything speeds up.

When you're away from an expedition it's different.

At the moment I am preparing for the World Championships of Athletics which will take place in October: there is a lot of training with various schedules -  some weeks I train from 10hours to 30. The typical week is more like 20 hours training. Depending on the training phase we're in.

Training take place usually in the morning, at noon and at the end of the day.

The rest of the time I participate in conferences, I prepare videos for partners, I answer interviews, I prepare workshops for companies in team building seminars. There is a large part of entrepreneurial activity, consulting.

There is also a large part to read, to do research and in particular research for funding, meetings, networking

What do you like most and least about your activity?

What I prefer : Sport and travel whether in exploration or competition. This is the practice, the fact of travelling in the context of exploration but also of competition. There is f travel in all phases. I love to be hand to hand with nature, for the purpose of competition. In the Ultramarathon we train outside, outside the traditional grounds. At the INSEP (French Sport Institute) they also have equipment to train in a thermal chamber to prepare for extreme and specific conditions. We also took a lot of data. This is also part of my activities for researchers to work on the impact of extreme conditions on the body.

More and more explorers and athletes provide data like this.

I also like to share, inspire and love the energy that is transmitted in front of an audience.

What I don’t like : all administrative aspects that takes a huge amount of time over the essentials.

What advice would you give to kids who are afraid of failure, or sometimes think that their dreams are not accessible?

Take the first step and also realize that failure can have many virtues.

For example: when you do not achieve the goal you set for yourself in a race (time, podium, retirement...) You generally know where failure comes from. We must not be afraid of it, we must understand it. And there is always a reason (hydration, feeding, refuelling, training too late or too intensive...) there is always a reason for failure - and these are all reasons to be certain that one day we will reach the goal. It doesn't matter to be wrong, it allows you to know yourself, you learn in failure. There's a reason for failure, and if we fix it, it works. It also creates a form of perseverance. When you know that there is potential, you come back to it and you have to see failure as a strength.

How do you maintain your strength and positivity with all these challenges? Do you have a habit, a ritual?

We have a very strong desire, but to achieve our goal we need discipline. I have a plan and I have to stick to it, even on days when I don't feel like it. When you have a 10-minute break, it's 10 minutes, not 8, not 12... On expeditions or in training this discipline is essential.

Also, visualization helps me a lot. Visualizing that on the way to the objectives there will be obstacles, that I will be led to run in the rain, during the night, there will be moments when I will have less motivation, moments of trouble. Visualizing it in advance makes it possible to overcome the obstacle, to never endure. This is very important, not to forget we are on paths we wanted.

In your opinion, what is missing for girls to be inspired and grow up thinking they can do everything? what could we change/improve?

In fact, what we can do is basically what you are doing with Pourquoi Princesse : show female Role Models, no longer associate a sport or activity with a gender. Make women in these activities more visible to girls.

In exploration show girls as much as men, especially when they do exactly the same things!

What advice or motto could you give for girls who need to face obstacles and who sometimes think they can't?

"The only limit to our objectives is the one we set for ourselves" (in Stéphanie Gicquel's great book "On naît tous aventuriers" published by Ramsay Edigroup).

If you enjoyed this interview, share it! The more these women of exceptions will be visible, and their stories told to our children, the more we will progress towards equality and contribute to expand their field of possibilities!

Murielle Sitruk is Co-Founder of Pourquoi Princesse. A mother of two determined and bold daughters, she grew up in South Melbourne and lives in Paris with her family.