For 29 years, our Women of the Year Awards has honored game changers, rule breakers, and trailblazers. This year's class of extraordinary winners is no exception.
The accomplishments of Glamour’s Women of the Year Awards honorees are vast, but their stories all have one thing in common: These women aren’t waiting for the world to become a better place—they’re making it one. They span a wide range of ages, backgrounds, and professions—an author, a director, an athlete, a designer, actors, and activists fighting to make a lasting difference. They’re all warriors on the front lines of change.
Hosted by Busy Philipps at Alice Tully Hall in New York City’s Lincoln Center on November 11, Glamour’s 2019 Women of the Year Awards was one of our greatest yet. All year we’ve watched women go higher, think bigger, and demand more. A record number of women won congressional elections last fall. More women are starting businesses than ever before. We continue to share our #MeToo stories and our demands for safety in the workplace and in our relationships. We insist on equal opportunity and equal pay, especially for women of color.
On Monday night, November 11, we celebrated these messages of hope, strength, and resiliency—and the women using their platforms to spread them. Read on for our recap of every unforgettable moment from the 2019 Glamour Women of the Year Awards.
Opening Remarks From Busy Philipps
Busy Philipps—the best-selling author, actor, activist, and your favorite follow on Instagram—was the host of Glamour’s 2019 Women of the Year Awards. She kicked things off by marveling at the many accomplishments the Women of the Year honorees have had this year, before sharing a big moment of her own. “A year ago I launched a late-night talk show called Busy Tonight,” she said. “Yes, I interviewed celebrities and talked about pop culture news, but I also wanted to use the opportunity to subversively talk to my audience about things like sexual harassment, systemic racism, and internalized misogyny—you know, but in a fun way. I also talked about my period a lot. Then, in the face of terrifying reproductive rights legislation last spring, I shared my own abortion story on air. I encouraged other women to join me on social media using the hashtag #YouKnowMe, which resulted in empowering millions of women to not only join the fight for a women’s right to choose but also to rid themselves of a stigma we don’t need to hold onto any longer. I even testified before Congress.”
She continued, “I don’t share this story to pat myself on the back—although, Jesus, that’s allowed, ladies! Do we have to get [Megan] Rapinoe out here for a symposium on confidence? I share this story to say I’m not fearless. I was scared at times. I don’t think there’s a person in this room who is fearless. I just think we realized that in order for change to happen, we have to be willing to be a part of it. And at this point, I just hope that our hope for how things could be and our anger at how things have been is so much greater than any fear that could ever hold us back.”
Read more of her best quotes of the night here.
Megan Rapinoe
We made ourselves hoarse cheering for Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris, lovingly known as “Krashlyn,” during the women’s World Cup soccer finals this summer. So it was only fitting the defender and goalie of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team were met with the same applause when they took the stage to honor their teammate and cocaptain Megan Rapinoe.
“It’s incredibly rare to see a player who’s got that kind of technical skill along with the leadership that our team needed,” said Harris. “But Megan has something even more: leadership our country needed. Her mission may have been amplified this year with the World Cup, but Megan has always fought against inequality and discrimination. That includes gender equity, pay equity, and racial justice.”
Krieger and Harris then surprised the room by inviting Harlem's Mott Hall girls’ soccer team from America SCORES, which supports youth in underresourced communities with a combination of soccer, poetry, and service learning, to the stage. One of the players, Mia, even wrote a poem that she read aloud:
It is not fair for us women to work hard every day
and not get paid equally
Color no importa
Color no decide quién recibe mal trato o no
We are all human beings
And we all deserve to be treated like one
I want to be the beginning of the end
I want to show that equality matters in this world
Hopefully I can create a domino effect
Where the people who support me take action
Rapinoe then took the microphone for her acceptance speech, in which she took the opportunity to thank former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for his courage and bravery for “doing what is necessary” instead of worrying about the consequences. “While I am enjoying unprecedented personal success, in large part due to my activism off the field, Colin Kaepernick is still effectively banned. Still banned by the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem in protest of known and systematic police brutality against people of color, known and systematic racial injustice, and known and systematic white supremacy,” she said. “I see no clearer example of that system being alive and well than me standing before you right now. It would be a slap in the face to Colin, and so many other faces, not to acknowledge and work relentlessly to dismantle this system that benefits some at the detriment of others, and is also quite literally tearing us apart in this country.”
Rapinoe went on to call out the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s ongoing battle to receive equal pay for their work. “While we all have injustices we are facing, for me, personally, we’re in a very public fight with the U.S. Soccer Federation over why we don’t deserve to be paid the same as our male counterparts for doing the exact same job, perhaps, even doing it better, as some have said,” she told the room. “I know in my bones, I can do more, we can do more. We must. It’s imperative that we do more.”
Read Rapinoe’s full Women of the Year profile here.
Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale star Samira Wiley took the stage to present Margaret Atwood with the night’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “What’s so powerful and awe-inspiring about Margaret’s work—not just The Handmaid’s Tale and her brand-new sequel The Testaments, but her entire body of brilliant, subversive, multigenre writing—is that she creates art that elicits real change in our society,” Wiley said. “She makes you look. She makes you terrified—particularly about reproductive rights. And then she makes you brave. Along with millions of fans around the globe, she has expanded my idea of the impact I can make in this world. And I am certain that we all dream bigger because of Margaret Atwood.”
After calling out how “lucky” she was to have such great actors bring her novel to life on screen, Atwood shared her words of advice to young women everywhere. “I’m often asked what words of encouragement I might have for women at this moment,” said Atwood. “With so many countries trying to roll back women’s rights, with female politicians subjected to vicious attacks and with uncertainty everywhere, what’s encouraging to me is to see how women are coming together. In journalism, to research and expose abuses; in business, to invent their own companies; in politics, to defend and to extend democracy; and in health and welfare, to help other women around the world.”
Atwood also called out the work of Greta Thunberg, another 2019 Glamour Woman of the Year. “Extinction Rebellion has truly been the most important mass movement of the 21st century. It was started by a very young woman, Greta Thunberg, also honored here tonight,” she said. “So you hardly need my words of encouragement, young women, because you are creating your own words. You are encouraging one another.”
Read her full Women of the Year profile here.
Aja Naomi King Presents L’Oréal’s Women of Worth
In addition to sponsoring the Glamour Women of the Year Awards, L’Oréal Paris also hosts its own inspirational annual event called Women of Worth, which celebrates extraordinary women who selflessly donate their time and energy to serve their communities. “L’Oréal Paris deeply believes that ‘Every Woman Is Worth It,’ and each year they elevate inspiring women who find beauty in giving back,” actor and L’Oréal Paris ambassador Aja Naomi King said. She then called two of those women—Nadya Okamoto, a junior at Harvard and founder of Period, and Monica Gray Logothetis, cofounder of DreamWakers—to the stage to honor them with the Glamour and L’Oréal Paris Heroes Among Us Award.
Okamoto, who is 21, founded Period, an organization that provides menstrual products to people in need, when she was only 16. “When I heard from homeless women who used toilet paper, socks, and cardboard to take care of their period—and learned that 40 states had a sales tax on period products—I took action,” she said. “Because it’s a fundamental human right to be able to discover and reach one’s full potential, regardless of a natural need.”
Logothetis also gave a short speech to accept her award for starting DreamWakers, a national education technology nonprofit that brings diverse professional role models into low-income classrooms via video chat. “Intelligence is equally distributed across this country; opportunity is not,” she said. “Every person in this room has the power to narrow the career opportunity gap by virtually volunteering—you can use your phone to beam into a low-income urban or rural classroom and awaken a student’s dream. Because truly, kids can’t be what they can’t see.”
Greta Thunberg
Sixteen-year-old Greta Thunberg is proof that activism can start at any age—a message that was received by teen climate justice activists Xiye Bastida, Alexandria Villaseñor, and Jade Lozada, who were all on hand to present Thunberg’s award. All three shared stories of how Thunberg inspired them to fight for the future of our planet.
The young women then introduced legendary actor and activist Jane Fonda, who accepted the award on Thunberg’s behalf. “I have not met Greta Thunberg, but Greta Thunberg has changed my life,” said Fonda. “I have been feeling anxious and depressed because I knew I wasn’t doing enough in the face of this catastrophe that is looming. I drive an electric car. I’ve stopped using single-use plastic in my home. I eat a lot less meat or fish…. These things are all wonderful. They’re very important, and we should all do it, but it’s a great place to start—not a great place to stop.”
Read Thunberg’s full Women of the Year profile here.
Tory Burch
The next presenter was Tony-nominated playwright and The Walking Dead and Black Panther actor Danai Gurira, who said of honoree Tory Burch: “Tory is unapologetic with her brand, in the bold way she adorns women with class, flair, and fun all at once, and with the way she is working to leave no woman or girl behind. To popularize feminine ambition. From the millions she invests in female entrepreneurs to her awareness campaigns, arming people with education on the grotesque gender gap that still exists in multiple ways, Tory is a champion for change, using the fruits of her ambition to nurture and empower the ambition of others.”
In her speech, Burch thanked her team—which, by the way, is made up of 80% women. “When I was first launching the company, I presented my business plan to potential investors—all of which were men. I told them I was going to build a company with purpose at its core,” she said. “They very concretely said to never mention the words business and social responsibility in the same sentence. It only furthered my resolve. What they called charity work, I called a business plan.”
Read her full Women of the Year profile here.
Chanel Miller
In 2016 we honored Chanel Miller as a Glamour Woman of the Year for changing the way our society sees assaults against women on college campuses. Known then as Emily Doe to protect her privacy, Miller told the story of her rape at Stanford University with a courtroom impact statement that vibrated around the globe—becoming a real-life hero to assault survivors everywhere.
This fall she finally felt safe enough to publicly share her identity, and tonight she took the stage to accept our gratitude and her award. She shared a poem she wrote called I Don’t Give a Damn as her acceptance speech. “The only reason I am standing here is because people gave a damn about my well-being,” she said. “Even when I did not. They reminded me that I carry light and deserve to be loved. Even when I forgot.”
Read her full poem here, and her Women of the Year profile from 2016 here.
Ava DuVernay
Ava DuVernay is an extraordinary director for many reasons—her support for the female actors and crew on her sets included. Ask When They See Us actor Niecy Nash, who was on hand to present DuVernay’s award. “I am blessed to know Ava as an artist and a friend. I’m double dipping,” Nash said. “Normally I don’t advocate jealousy but I’m saying, if you are jealous of me, rightfully so. Because what the rest of the world sees in her art, I see in her heart.”
In her speech DuVernay encouraged the women in the room to not only think about creating a seat at the table for ourselves—or smashing the glass ceilings that have been set for us, but to also think about what new bars we can create for ourselves. “So much of the conversation is about how the table needs a chair for us,” she said. “But I also believe in making your own doors, making your own system, in such a way that inclusion is even needed. My truth is I don’t want a chair at the table, or even three, or even half. The real truth is I want the table to be rebuilt in my likeness.”
Read her full Women of the Year profile here.
The Women of RAICES
Kal Penn, cocreator and star of Sunnyside and former associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement for the Obama administration, took the stage next to introduce the women of Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) who fight for immigrants’ rights: Lucia Allain, Erika Andiola, Mayra Jimenez, and Andrea Meza.
“In the past year, Border Patrol has taken nearly one million migrants into custody, many held in unsanitary, overcrowded detention centers for months at a time. We’ve all heard horror stories of deportations and family separations,” he said. “But tonight you’re going to hear about an organization in Texas that steps in to right the wrongs and bring families back together, doing their damnedest to get them on a path to American citizenship.”
Allain spoke on behalf of the women, stating, “I had a choice of either going to school or surviving. I had to help my madrecita put food on the table and raise my brother. But the system doesn’t reward those priorities. Instead, the system has made me and my family suffer. It’s deporting my friends, it’s killing families, it’s putting children in cages, and keeping thousands of people in danger across the border. It’s this system that these women on stage are fighting every day.”
She then asked her mother, who was in the audience, to join them on stage. “She’s a woman who gave up her dreams, left everything behind in Peru, like so many mothers may be doing at this moment,” said Allain. “The story I continue to write is her story, and tonight, I want to give her some hope, writing a new chapter in her life.” She then handed her mother an envelope, which contained an emotional gift: her mom’s green card.
Read their full Women of the Year profile here.
Yara Shahidi
Black-ish star Yara Shahidi isn’t a typical college student—she’s a monumental civic activist. She’s sent a powerful message to her entire generation: It’s cool to be engaged and aware of the world, and to participate in democracy. This was the message Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, delivered while presenting his close friend her Glamour Woman of the Year Award. “I’ve met few people in my life who are as enigmatic and amazing as Yara Shahidi is,” he said. “She is equally brilliant, funny, intelligent, caring, and just all-around kick-ass…. What I love about Yara is she shows politics is not the boring, stiff conversation of the elite and old. It is engaging. It is of the younger generation.”
That became immediately clear in her speech.
“To be a woman is to be an abolitionist,” said Shahidi. “To be a woman is to understand the power of our yes, of course, but to understand how groundbreaking and system-shaking it is to say no. But it’s because no is productive. Our no doesn’t just sit still saying, ‘I am okay being discontent with the system in front of me.’ Our no takes action. Our no stands up. Our no is allyship. Our no understands that I must advocate for something greater than myself because I am you and you are me and we are of each other. Our no understands that we are tearing apart this system, what it means to connect in spite of. But it’s because of our differences in creating spaces to celebrate one another.”
Read her speech in full here.
Charlize Theron
Saturday Night Live comedian Kate McKinnon told the audience that she first noticed her Bombshell costar Charlize Theron in 2003 when she saw Monster. “It was the finest screen performance of all time, and while I’m hilarious, that’s no joke.”
She continued, “When she called me in to her trailer on Bombshell, I really thought I was meeting Megyn Kelly. It’s the most spot-on impression. But Charlize also embodies all of the complicated feelings women have around a complicated issue—in this case, the Goliath women are up against when they choose to come forward about sexual harassment. Charlize always stands for bravery, risk, and making tough choices.”
When Theron took the stage, she praised the “powerful, female, witchy alchemy” she felt in the room. “It’s clear to me that my job as a storyteller—whether I’m acting or producing or talking to my kids before bed—is to create as much empathy as I can. Especially right now,” she said. “We need to help the hard-hearted empathize with others.”
So, she said, tell your story. “Be proud of it. Don’t worry about everyone liking you. Wash your face, even if you feel super tired. Take risks. Radiate empathy like you’ve got it on tap. Fight for change. Because it’s people, especially girls, who have the power to create change, and the ‘fuck you’ not to give up.”
Read her Women of the Year speech in full here.
Everyone at Glamour would like to extend a very special thank you to our sponsors. Without them, Women of the Year would not be possible.
Special thanks to our presenting sponsors: L’Oréal Paris | Mercedes-Benz
Supporting sponsors: Aerie | JNSQ | Verizon
And philanthropic partner: Children of Fallen Patriots
Special thanks to: America SCORES New York | Rent the Runway | The Wall Group
Special thanks to our gift-bag contributors: Aerie | ASHA by Ashley McCormick | Aritzia | Botkier | Carolina Lemke | Casa Dragones | Clare V. | Emily & Meritt Glamsquad | L’Oréal Paris | Rothy’s | Small Packages | Terez | Tory Burch | The Little Market