In honour of the International Women’s Day 2022 on March 8, TIME ahead of the celebration, on March 3 unveiled its first ever TIME “Women of the year” list.
Making the coveted TIME Women of the Year issue are actress Kerry Washington, Olympic champ, All-time most decorated woman in track, Allyson Felix, poet Amanda Gorman, Human Rights Lawyer Amal Clooney, Grammy-winning artist Kacey Musgraves, Zahra Joya, Afghan Journalist Zahra Joya, Software engineer and diversity advocate Tracey Chou, actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez among others.
The mag is celebrating 12 WOMEN OF THE YEAR who are Creating a better future for women means building bridges—across generations, communities, and borders. These extraordinary leaders are working toward a more equal world.
“We don’t do simple journalism these days,” Zahra Joya, founder of Rukhshana Media and one of the country’s few female journalists, one of this year’s honorees, told TIME contributing editor Angelina Jolie. “We are trying to write for our freedom.” She and her team of female reporters inside Afghanistan and abroad continue to report on the issues affecting Afghan women, regardless of stifling conditions and intimidation.
Washington like others is using her power to lift up the less empowered, the mag writes.
“After the 2016 election, actor and producer Kerry Washington committed to leveraging her celebrity to fuel her political activism,” TIME said. “The most effective use of my microphone,” Washington said, “is handing it to women and marginalized people.”
“You have to have dogged determination,” human-rights lawyer and Women of the Year honoree Amal Clooney said in a rare interview, given to Nobel Peace Prize–winning journalist Maria Ressa, who was herself named a Person of the Year in 2018. “You’re coming up against people whose power and existence depends on them continuing to commit serious abuses, and they’re not going to give up. So we definitely can’t give up on our side.”
Musgraves performed at TIME‘s invitation-only Women of the Year gala in Los Angeles on International Women’s Day (March 8) with TIME Women of the Year honorees Tracy Chou, Allyson Felix, Amanda Gorman, Sherrilyn Ifill, Jennie Joseph, Amanda Nguyen, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Kerry Washington. Additional honorees highlighted in the TIME Women of the Year list include Amal Clooney, Adena Friedman and Zahra Joya, present.
