You—Yes, You—Are Glamour’s Women of the Year

There were two photos making the rounds on Twitter in early September—both of the same woman during an interview for CNN television, each captured from a different angle.

The first finds her staring straight into the camera, looking the expert. Professional, polished, dressed in a bright, made-for-TV jacket. The second is the same but snapped from the side. It is—as she put it in her own tweet—a little more honest.

The woman is Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy and a mother of two children. She taped the interview from a sun-filled den that turned out to be overflowing with games, plastic cars, and a rolling mini basketball hoop. Goldman’s computer is balanced on a chair, which is itself balanced on top of a coffee table. The laptop camera captures her from head to shoulders, but the full view reveals that she is also wearing bike shorts and hiking shoes. The wreckage is just outside of the frame, invisible to an audience—except for the fact that Goldman shared it.

For mothers and women without children, for single women and partnered women, for women working at home and those braving a commute, Goldman’s living room is what most of 2020 has felt like. The chaos is all around us; we are doing our best to climb over the obstacles, keep ourselves sane, and show up on time.

How different this all feels from January of this year, traditionally a time of new beginnings and so much promise, when plans are made and goals are set out to achieve. I’d spent Christmas in Ireland with family and New Year’s in the United Kingdom with friends—a whirlwind of impromptu gatherings and countless hugs—and returned to my home in New York with excitement at what lay ahead. Fast-forward to today, nearly 11 months on, and I look out at the women I know personally and the workers who keep our country going and recognize that, now, just making it to the end of a day without falling apart can feel like a tremendous victory.

To live through these times is to demonstrate Herculean resolve, resilience, and power. And so as I scrolled through the reactions to Goldman’s tweet, it occurred to me: There should be an award for women who braved the coronavirus pandemic, marched in the streets to protest racial injustice, dealt with school closures and job losses, risked their life to help others, consistently checked in on their friends and relatives, and faced sourdough bread that just would not rise. And as the editor in chief of Glamour, I realized: We can give them one.

For three decades Glamour has recognized the most influential and accomplished women on the planet. Our annual Women of the Year Awards celebrate trailblazers and power players and actual Nobel Peace Prize winners. Our almunae have included Supreme Court justices, presidents, philanthropists, Hollywood A-listers, aid workers, and everyday heroes. This latest class of honorees in 2020 is no exception. We’re championing the women of Elmhurst Hospital, who went to work for months in one of the hardest-hit coronavirus facilities nationwide; NAACP Legal Defense Fund president Sherrilyn Ifill, who is protecting all of our rights; Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, resolute in the face of two crises to hit her city; icon and rabble rouser Dolores Huerta, who has spent a lifetime agitating for the powerless; and Regina King, a megawatt star who is meeting her moment.

But even in that incredible group, we knew we needed to make room for one more standout. Because in this period of tremendous upheaval, we know who the most influential women on the planet are: It’s you. In your families, in your communities, in your power to choose new leadership at the ballot box—you are making a difference.

And so you—yes, you—have earned an award. Not for thriving. Not for “making the most” of quarantine or lockdown. Not even for handling this impossible era with grace. You’ve earned an award just for getting through it, tears, tantrums, and all.

This year for me has meant entire seasons far away from my loved ones. When my aunt died early on in lockdown, I wasn’t able to go to her funeral. I could not be there to give comfort to one of my closest friends when her own mother died. So many of us have had to deal with loss without the strength and nourishment that can come from being able to grieve together. For each and every one of us, the world has changed. And yet, as we collectively struggled to get through each day and find some semblance of “normal” in our new world, I started seeing the fight, resilience, and inspiration that defines our Women of the Year in every woman I encountered. In cashiers ringing up our groceries, postal workers making sure our mail got delivered. In working mothers balancing their jobs and the needs of their children. In doctors rushing to the front lines of the crisis, teachers tirelessly leading in virtual classrooms. In my friends, who persevered through loss, fertility treatments, and isolation. These were the women holding our cities and towns, families and communities, together—all doing it with the same determination and spirit I’d seen on both the physical and virtual pages of Glamour.

So many of you also found joy and a different way to celebrate, because while the pandemic split us apart, love and community remained our constant connector. We dated differently—though awkward first dates were still awkward first dates, they were now on Zoom (or in some cases within a literal bubble). Weddings and birthdays became video affairs or street parties. We became plant parents, baked banana bread en masse, and found new and amazing ways to expand our worlds from the confines of our homes. I have taken so much inspiration from every single one of you.

Yet at the same time, we cannot ignore the very real challenges of the once-in-a-lifetime crisis of the pandemic, which has exacerbated issues that are centuries old. In a turn that will surprise no one, women have borne the brunt of COVID-19. In April 2020 the United Nations published a paper that finds “across every sphere, from health to the economy, security to social protection, the impacts of COVID-19 are exacerbated for women and girls simply by virtue of their sex.” Domestic violence is on the rise. Hundreds of thousands of women have dropped out of the workforce; of the 1.1 million people over age 20 who don’t have a job and have stopped looking for one between August and September 2020, almost 900,000 were women (this according to a study by the National Women’s Law Center). These losses and casualties are threatening to wipe out more than half a decade of gender progress.

So where do we go from here? Recognizing the problem is just a first step, but it’s a vital one. We need our leaders to appreciate that women have more than pulled their weight. Glamour may be giving you this award, but our elected officials need to chip in—with paid leave, access to health care, and equal pay for equal work.

To the women who are dealing with a deck stacked against them and are somehow still balancing a computer on top of a chair on top of a coffee table, we see you. And we celebrate you.

This year belongs to each and every one of you—our Women of the Year.