In an effort to rectify the 72-year stretch during which Time awarded only a "Man of the Year" honor, before transitioning to the still largely male "Person of the Year" in 1999, the magazine is commemorating 100 women who deserved equal honors throughout the time period.
These "often overshadowed" women are honored with 89 new Time covers commissioned from artists around the globe, as well as the 11 existing female Person of the Year covers, which Time left intact for the project. The 100 "Women of the Year" were compiled in honor of the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage in the U.S., with one woman or group of women chosen to represent each year since 1920.
In an article explaining Time's decision to revise its own history, Nancy Gibbs, former editor-in-chief of the magazine, wrote, "In Congress and courtrooms and corner offices and ivory towers, it was largely men who were writing the first draft of history, deciding what mattered, and who mattered, and why. So now that we are marking anniversaries, it was an irresistible exercise to go back and look again, at different ways of wielding power, and the different results derived."
Among the 100 leaders spotlighted as Women of the Year are several who made major strides in healthcare, listed below:
- 1925: Margaret Sanger, RN, an advocate for women's reproductive rights
- 1953: Rosalind Franklin, PhD, who helped discover the double-helix structure of DNA molecules
- 1973: Jane Roe, the pseudonymous woman at the center of the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in the U.S.
- 1978: Lesley Brown, the first woman to give birth via in vitro fertilization
- 1979: Tu Youyou, who discovered the malaria treatment artemisinin
- 1983: Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, PhD, who helped identify the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
- 1994: Joycelyn Elders, MD, the first African-American and second female U.S. Surgeon General
View the full Women of the Year project here.
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US ranked 53rd globally for gender parity by World Economic Forum
Why CEO candidate pools need more women
International Women's Day spotlight: 11 thoughts on leadership from women in the healthcare industry