Maya Angelou
The Women of Iran 
Euna Lee and Laura Ling
Susan Rice
Jane Aronson
Serena Williams
Marissa Mayer
Amy Poehler
Stella McCartney
Maria Shriver
RihannaPhoto: by Brigitte Lacombe
Maya Angelou: The Poet
Is a Woman of the Year Because: She speaks to every person who has been through things that could break them. She proves that you can rise above. She is a beacon of light. She is like a beautiful, warm embrace.” —Alicia Keys, singer and 2004 Woman of the Year
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
—From “Phenomenal Woman,” by Maya Angelou
For the millions of women who can recite those lines by heart and draw strength from their earthy take on female empowerment, it is comforting to know that the woman who penned them, Maya Angelou, continues to write, lecture and teach at age 81.
Photo: by Raha Askarizadeh
The Women of Iran’s One Million Signatures Campaign: The Activists
They are Women of the Year because: “One Million Signatures seized every opportunity to show the world that they do not agree with the discriminatory laws in Iran.” —Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and 2008 Glamour Woman of the Year
Watching the thousands of women who joined their peers to defy bullets and police batons in the streets of Iran this June, you’d never guess that each one’s life was, legally speaking, worth only half a man’s. Via shaky cell phone images on TV, viewers around the world saw slender arms raised in the air and green scarves slipping back on the heads of female marchers as they stood alongside men to demand a recount of what they insist was a rigged presidential election. They risked their lives—and some made the ultimate sacrifice, like 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, whose shooting rocked the Internet.
Photo: by Brigitte Lacombe
Euna Lee and Laura Ling: The Journalists
They are Women of the Year because: They are extraordinary women who were brave and resourceful, reporting a story that no one else was. They showed remarkable courage and initiative during their ordeal.” —Former Vice President Al Gore, chairman of Current TV
Current TV’s Laura Ling and Euna Lee went to Asia this spring to investigate a chilling situation: the plight of women who cross the border from North Korea into China to escape starvation, only to fall prey to human traffickers. Then, suddenly, the journalists became the story, arrested for stepping into North Korean territory and thrown into jail. For 140 nightmarish days Ling, 32, and Lee, 37, bided their time, expecting to be sent to a hard-labor camp for the next 12 years. While the U.S. worked diplomatic channels to negotiate their release, Laura’s sister, Lisa Ling, an investigative TV journalist, kept the case in the public eye. Finally, on August 4, President Bill Clinton flew to Korea and brokered their freedom.
Photo: by Matthias Vriens-McGrath
Susan Rice: The Peacemaker
Is a Woman of the Year Because: She understands the complex threats we face in the twenty-first century, and when those challenges demand action from the international community, Susan gets it done through a combination of skilled diplomacy and sheer determination.” —President Barack Obama
Ask powerful people about U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and certain words keep coming up: “Incredibly effective,” Vice President Joe Biden tells Glamour; “tough,” says former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; “brilliant” from Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine). Oh, one more: “Sportin’,” a nickname from her high school basketball days that followed her to Barack Obama’s hoop-shooting White House. Rice, just 45, is tapping into those qualities in her quest to renew America’s image around the world. The first-ever African American female in her position, she has called out Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for his “hateful” comments on Israel; stood up to the North Korean missile threat; and condemned the Darfur genocide. Her latest goal: getting the U.N. to enforce a zero-tolerance policy on sexual violence. “When you see the damage done to women, it leaves you powerfully moved,” says Rice, who recalled meeting a rape survivor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “She asked me to do everything I could to end the horrible violence. I gave her my word that I would.”
Photo: by Brigitte Lacombe
Jane Aronson: The Guardian Angel
She is a Woman of the Year because: “She has a heart the size of Texas and a drive like Tiger Woods, and she has made a huge difference to countless children and their families.” —Hugh Jackman, actor and longtime supporter of Worldwide Orphans Foundation
“What got to me most was the smell,” says pediatrician Jane Aronson of her years touring overseas orphanages in the nineties, “that terrible odor of filth and illness and neglect.” Once home, she couldn’t shake the sights she’d seen: famished, sore-covered babies in Romania; glassy-eyed AIDS-doomed kids in Vietnam. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” says Aronson. “There was no way I was going to continue practicing medicine without helping the kids left behind.” Her solution: Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO), which she started in 1997.
Photo: by Brigitte Lacombe
Serena Williams: The Athlete
Is a Woman of the Year Because: When most people would falter, she is able to raise her game a level, and that’s what you look for in champions. I feel confident she will win more major singles titles than my 12. And that makes me very proud.”
—Billie Jean King, tennis champ and 2006 Woman of the Year
Serena Williams feels the pull of competition the way the rest of us feel gravity. It’s why she entered her first tennis tournament at age eight (against her dad’s wishes). It’s why she’s earned 11 Grand Slam titles, two Olympic gold medals and more prize money than any female athlete in the history of sports. “I use the trophies as punch bowls,” she says, laughing. But along the way, she’s had to overcome setbacks and personal tragedies, including the 2003 murder of her beloved sister Yetunde and injuries that relegated her to 140th place during the 2006 season. After tooth-and-nailing her way up the rankings again, this year she capped her comeback by winning Wimbledon against her sister Venus. (“I love you, Venus,” she later tweeted. “You made me work hard today.”) Of course, Serena’s competitiveness also fueled her outburst at this year’s U.S. Open, for which she soon made amends. “I want to sincerely apologize…. I handled myself inappropriately,” she said, then calmly won the doubles title with Venus. Other recent victories: She came out with an apparel line on HSN and an autobiography, On the Line. Even more important, in 2008 her Serena Williams Foundation opened a secondary school in rural Kenya, with plans for more. “My goal is not to be the best athlete in the world,” she says. “My goal is to help others…. When I cut the ribbon at that school, I felt so genuinely happy. I’ve never felt that way winning Wimbledon or any other tournament. And I have won them all!”
Photo: by Brigitte Lacombe
Marissa Mayer: The Visionary
Is a Woman of the Year Because: She has been a powerhouse of creativity and business acumen for one of the world’s most innovative companies. Marissa Mayer is leading the way in keeping America number one.”
—Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and 2002 Woman of the Year
You do it. Your mom does it. Nearly every American does it: We google, about 7 billion times a month. And each time, it’s like a trip into Marissa Mayer’s mind. That sunny logo, blessedly spare interface and perfect list of links you get in response to a query are all pure Mayer. As vice president, search and user experience (and a 10-year veteran of Google), she’s helped make the company the world’s number-one search engine, with revenues of nearly $22 billion last year. “I’ve always liked simplicity,” says Mayer, 34. “It’s hard to tell where my aesthetic ends and Google’s begins.” Almost nothing gets out the door without her approval, including innovations like Gmail and Google Earth. “It’s pretty hard to overstate her impact,” says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “She built the team that designs the products we all use.” With a wardrobe that’s strong on Oscar de la Renta and Armani, Mayer cuts a striking figure on the company campus. “When people think about computer science, they imagine people with pocket protectors and thick glasses who code all night,” Mayer jokes. “I do code all night! I am the stereotype, but I also break the stereotype.” Among her goals: to bring more women into technology and teach them to take chances. “Get in a bit over your head,” she says. “That’s how you grow and learn and stretch yourself.”
Photo: Brigitte Lacombe
Amy Poehler: The Entertainer
She is a Woman of the Year because: “She’s a firecracker. She has an explosive amount of energy and just lights up a room. She is an inspiration to young women to get into comedy. And she can fly.” —Tina Fey, comedian and 2002 Woman of the Year
“When you’re short and blond and a woman in comedy, you get underestimated,” says Amy Poehler, 38. “I love being underestimated.” But who’d do that after the run she’s been on? A star player on the team that restored Saturday Night Live to water-cooler dominance in 2008 (even Hillary Clinton adored her Hillary Clinton impersonation), she left the show, had a baby and emerged in 2009 as the star and producer of NBC’s Parks and Recreation. Her alter ego on Parks, Leslie Knope, “has no cool, no cynical skills,” she says—in other words, the kind of lovable loser a comedian needs a double scoop of bravery to play. “Amy is fearless in front of the camera,” says SNL’s Kristen Wiig. “Her confidence draws the audience in, and soon they’re laughing their asses off.” Poehler’s comedy, though, is part of a stealth mission to empower young women. “She wants girls to feel they can do anything,” says costar Rashida Jones. So Poehler plays a feisty 10-year-old on her cartoon series, The Mighty B!, and hosts a Web show, Smart Girls at the Party. At the end of each episode, Poehler and her preteen guests bust a move. “Being silly is how you get your power,” she says. “No one looks stupid when they’re having fun.”
Photo: by Brigitte Lacombe
Stella McCartney: The Designer
She is a Woman of the Year because: “She is extending the definition of fashion to include compassion.” —Natalie Portman, actress
Stella McCartney’s love affair with fashion started when she was a child exploring her parents’ closet. She must have marveled at her mother’s hippie dresses and her father’s Sgt. Pepper coats; it doesn’t hurt one’s sartorial imagination to have a Beatle for a dad. Fast-forward three decades and McCartney is now one of the world’s most influential designers, combining the exquisite technique she learned as an apprentice tailor on Savile Row (it was three years before she was allowed to attach a sleeve) with an inborn sense of what makes a woman look really, really cool. “Stella,” says Barneys creative director Simon Doonan, “makes women feel empowered and completely gorgeous.”
Photographed by Brigitte Lacombe in West Hollywood, California
Maria Shriver: The Dynamo
She is a Woman of the Year because: She is at once maternal and fiercely independent. I am constantly amazed by her physical energy, intellectual curiosity and spot-on, wicked sense of humor. Arnold is a lucky guy—and the rest of us are equally lucky to have her in our lives.” —Tom Brokaw, NBC News special correspondent
Yes, as the daughter of the late Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the niece of President John F. Kennedy, Maria Shriver is part of America’s most legendary family, but you’d better not stop there—because she certainly didn’t. She once blurted to a writer that she hates being described as “the daughter of, the girlfriend of, the niece of,” adding that she wants to be someone “considered for her work alone.”
Photo: Matthias Vriens-McGrath
Rihanna: Back On Top!
What a year it’s been for the superstar. (“I went to sleep as Rihanna and woke up as Britney Spears,” she says.) Here, we salute her for, yes, her style and songs—but also for her message to young women, which she talks about in this Glamour exclusive. “Domestic violence is a big secret,” she says. “I want to give as much insight as I can to young women…to help speak for them.”
(Glamour magazine)
Hats off, not only to this extraordinary group of women, but to women everywhere who champion a cause, fight for what they believe in, have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and those "sheroes" to numermous to name.
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