1990
Aung San Suu Kyi
Arrested hope A revolutionary spirit engulfed
Myanmar in the summer of 1988. The daughter of Aung San, the country's
independence hero, caught the fever. Aung San Suu Kyi joined the opposition,
lending her status as political royalty to the fight against the military
dictatorship. The uprising ended in bloodshed; the military killed thousands
and put the upstart National League for Democracy (NLD) activists in prison or,
in Aung San Suu Kyi's case, under house arrest. But her fight for democracy
persisted. In 1990, the NLD won a landslide in an election swiftly invalidated
by the junta. It would be another 22 years, 15 of them spent in confinement,
before Aung San Suu Kyi could claim a seat in parliament.
Then in 2015, Myanmar's first civilian
government in more than half a century took power with Aung San Suu Kyi at the
helm. She became the de facto head of state in the newly crafted role of state
counselor. But the Nobel Peace Prize laureate soon disappointed her supporters
abroad when her Administration, which still shares power with the military,
defended the army's brutal campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority. In
December 2019, Aung San Suu Kyi personally traveled to the International Court
of Justice at the Hague to deny allegations of genocide. Her rejection of the
claims delighted her domestic base, but further cemented her descent from
democratic icon to international pariah.
-Loignee Barron
1991
| COURAGE TO SPEAK
ANITA
HILL
BY
TESSA BERENSON
AS
THE CHORUS OF THE #METOO MOVEMENT REACHED a crescendo, with women everywhere
speaking out about abuse they had endured at the hands of powerful men, one
voice from the past seemed to echo into the present.
When
Anita Hill testified before Congress in 1991 and accused Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, she did so nearly three decades before
the start of the movement that might have supported her, and spoke alone as a
black woman in front of an all-white, allmale Senate Judiciary Committee.
Poised in her delivery, the attorney detailed ways she said Thomas had harassed
her when he was her supervisor at two government agencies. But with a cynical
reception from the committee and a forceful denial from Thomas, he was
confirmed.
Even
so, it's impact was profound the month after e stimony. Congress passed a law
extending the rights of-arasument victims. And the following year, the -
Empoyment Opportunity Commission received a 90% increase in sexual harassment
complaints than it had the year before. Hill continued her career as an author,
commentator
and professor, focusing on equality. Hermon was drawn back into the debate in
2018, when Christine Blase Fond acoused Supreme Court Dome brent Kavanaugh of
sexually assaulting her when they teen. Like Thomas Kavanaugh denied it and was
Conformed stinning up the same lasting questions about des and power. But as
more women come forward and pute for change, Hill's courageous voice resounds.
1992
Sinead O'Connor
Prescient
messenger
On Oct
3, 1992, Sinead O'Connor turned her Saturday Night Live performance into a
fierce political statement Eyes ablaze, voice quaking with rage, O'Connor
ripped apart a photograph of Pope John Paul II, after replacing a lyric from
Bob Marley's "War" with the words child abuse. A few weeks later, she
revealed that as a teen she had suffered abuse at the hands of the Catholic
Church. She was still widely condemned-and her career took a significant blow.
In 2010, O'Connor offered an explanation: "I wanted to force a
conversation where there was a need for one, that is part of being an
artist."
Today,
entertainers often speak out about their personal experiences; back then, it
was less common. As an Irishwoman, O'Connor was aware of the danger of
criticizing a powerful entity like the church. She took that risk in order to
publicly demand justice for children who were sexually abused by members of the
clergy. Nine years after ber performance, Pope John Paul II acknowledged and
apologized for the church's long history of sexual abuse. In recent years,
O'Connor has been vocal about her mental health struggles, once again laying
herself bare for the world. She remains an example of the power of provoking
necessary, if unpopular, conversations--and the courage it takes to do so.
-Olivia Wilde
1990s
1993
Toni
Morrison
Great
American storyteller
"We die. That may be the meaning of life.
But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.” Toni Morrison spoke
these words when she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993, becoming the
first black woman so honored. Not many people can squeeze so much meaning into
just a few sentences, but Morrison, an icon of storytelling, did it all the
time.
In
books like The Bluest Eye (1970), Sula (1973), Song of Solomon (1977) and
Beloved (1987), she used magical realism and poetic language to interrogate and
explore the black experience and the aftershocks of generational trauma. In
both fiction and nonfiction, Morrison wasn't afraid to hold a mirror up to our
society-even if we didn't like the reflection staring back at us. She wrote
from varying perspectives, employing nonlinear structures and
stream-of-consciousness monologues that relayed her tremendous capacity for
empathy.
Morrison's
words force us to re-examine what we think to be true about ourselves. When
reading them, I feel shaken one moment and completely seen the next. Her work
makes me think of my grandmother. It makes me want to know more about my
grandmother's grandmother. Morrison has always made me proud to be a black
woman. She was a superhero who looked like the women who guided and nurtured
our families for generations. She was one of us.
I'm
glad we weren't afraid to worship at her feet while she was still here. My only
wish is that we could've kneeled down at them for a little bit longer.
--Lena Waithe
Waithe
is an Emmy-winning writer, producer and actor
1994
Joycelyn
Elders
Challenging
public health taboos Raised in a poor Arkansas farming family, Joycelyn Elders
didn't visit a doctor until she was 16 years old. But she went to medical
school and, in 1993, became the first African American and the setond woman to
be named U.S.Surgeon General. Elders kept pushing boundaries while in office,
advocating for robust education and studies on drug legalizationand drawing
critics. Ne
even
then President BAC Clinton was ready for her progressive views on sexuality-he
asked her to resign in 1994, after she argued masturba tion should be discussed
in school sex ed. Today, many of her views are more mainstream. Recently, the
now 86-year-old doctor has adopted a new cause: advocating for more black
physicians in the medical field.
-Jamie
Ducharme
1995
Sadako
Ogata
Transforming the lives of refugees Sadako
Ogata was settling in as the head of UNHCR in 1991 when more than a million
Iraqi Kurds fled the fallout of the Gulf War. She jumped onto a helicopter to
the Iraq-Turkey border to hear firsthand accounts and promised rapid aid.
Nicknamed
"the diminutive giant," Ogatawho stood under 5 ft. tall-gained a
reputation as a formidable negotiator. The only Japanese citizen and first
woman to lead the UNHCR, she was re-elected three times and boldly expanded the
agency's mandate to include internally displaced persons. Throughout the 1990s,
which she called the "turbulent decade of her tenure, she navigated crises
in places from Afghanistan to the Balkans to Rwanda, helping to protect some of
the world's most vulnerable. -Laignee Barron
1990s
1996 I
CHANGEMAKER
RUTH
BAD ER GINSBU
BY
IRIN CARMON
IT'S
HARD TO BELIEVE NOW THAT THERE WAS EVER A TIME when Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not
known for her dissents. But for a stretch of 1996, the second woman appointed
to the Supreme Court could imagine a triumphant future building on her work as
visionary advocate in the 1970s-not just for women's Deration, as she often
said, but for women's and men's liberation.
The
prestigious Virginia Military Institute (VMI) still berred women, but when the
case went to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg argued that everyone was harmed, and
all stood to benefit. "If women are to be leaders in life and in the
military, then men have got to become accusomed to taking commands from
women," she said at sal argument, and men will not become accustomed if
women are not let in." Back in her ACLU days, on a quest - prove that
gender discrimination violated the Consti
ution,
she had represented not only women who broke s-ass ceilings but also men who
were caregivers, each lim. ed by the law as it stood. She had rarely convinced
Justice William Rehnquist. In 1996, though, the conservative
Justice joined a 7-1 decision requiring that women be admitIted to VMI, helping
Justice Ginsburg finish what attorney Ginsburg had started and establishing a
major precedent.
The
paradox of Ginsburg-reserved institutionalist argu. ing for radical
constitutional change-seemed to resolve it self in the VMI victory. But as
politics left her outnumbered on much that mattered to her, the Justice
stiffened the resolve she had from the days she was blocked for being, as she
put it, a "woman, a Jew and a mother." By age 8o, in 2013, her righteous
dissents would earn her fans around the world.
Today,
Ginsburg is surprisingly optimistie. Her work has been at the pinnacle of the
law, but she recognizes that, as she puts it, "change comes from a
groundswell of ordinary people... Ind men have to be part of the effort."
Carmon is the
co-author of Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
1982
| IRON LADY
MARGARET
THATCHER
BY
BILLY PERRIGO
THE
DECADES AFTER THE SECOND World War wene a ciastening time for the UK. The once
mighty British Empire lost most of its colonies, and despite steadily msing
bing standards, the British ecoowy was no longer the global steam en
Soin
3:2, when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher led a successful military campaign
to detend one of the last of Brita's overseas outposts, the Falkland Islands,
from an Argentine attack, it stirred 2 smell of patriotism, reigniting the
wartime spirit, especially for her Conservative Party's elderly woters. The
following year those voters rewarded Thatcher with a massive parliamentary
majority, which she used to unleash a free-market revolution Sne slashed the
size of the Britisb state, demegulated the economy, sold off dozens of
state-owned industries and cut taxes with the proceeds. Many became nich as a
result of her meforms, but inequality increased substantially to
The
rift she created in British society still cuts deep. But nobody disputes her
position as one of Britain's most influential Prime Ministers of the 20th
century.
1980s
1987 | THE PEOPLE'S PRINCESS DIANA,
PRINCESS OF WALES
BY TINA BROWN
IT'S EASY TO FORGET TODAY WHAT PARIAHS PEOPLE WITH AIDS were
in the year 1987. Ignorance, superstition and an aura of sexual seediness
swirled around those afflicted, their cause of death noted in obituary columns
with a vague lack of specifics that protected their relatives from opprobrium.
The 26-year-old Princess of Wales lived with the specter of
AIDS every day. In the loneliness of her failing marriage to Prince Charles,
gay men were the bedrock of her private world: fashion designers, ballet
dancers, art dealers and numerous members of the palace staff. They sympathized
with her, escorted her, lightened her load. It pained her to watch them sicken
and die.
In April 1987, Middlesex Hospital invited her to open the
first ward in the U.K. dedicated to the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Accepting the
invitation was the kind of socially progressive
statement that private secretaries usually steered their
principals to avoid. Diana was intensely nervous, even though she
unhesitatingly agreed to do it. She knew it was the chance to dispel the stigma
surrounding the disease. With her instinctive understanding of the power of
gesture, she resolved not only to open the new ward but to shake the hands of
12 male patients without gloves.
Such was the fear of ignominy that only one patient, a
32-year-old named Ivan Cohen, agreed to be photographed with Diana, and only on
condition that the picture be taken from behind. She extended her hand. The
cameras rolled. A broken taboo ricocheted round the world: Diana, exuding
compassion and confidence, clasping the terminally ill AIDS patient's hand in
hers. For the next decade, she continued her visits to hospitals and bedsides.
A nurse present at Diana's historic original Visit told the BBC, "If a
royal was allowed to go in and shake a patient's hands, somebody at the bus
stop or the supermarket could do the same. That really educated people."
That iconic moment also had a profound impact on Diana. It
clarified what her royal status meant--a new kind of global power. Whatever its
frustrations, being the Princess of Wales gave her the ability to change lives
and to expand tolerance. She saw what could happen when humanitarian concern is
connected with the global media. Celebrities have tried to emulate her ever
since.
Brown is the author of The Diana Chronicles
1988 Florence Griffith Joyner
World's fastest woman
Known by a single name-Flo-JoFlorence Griffith Joyner
remains the fastest woman in history. At the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials in
Indianapolis, Griffith Joyner ran the 100 min 10.49 sec., a world record that
still stands. "Cannot be," an announcer said after the race. "No
one can run that fast." At the Seoul Olympics that September, Griffith
Joyner won gold in the 100 m, 200 m and 4 x 100 relay, and set a 200-m world
record of 21.34 sec. that's yet to be broken.
Her fashion also drew attention: she wore one-legged racing
suits and long, brightly painted fingernails, flouting the idea that feminine
fashion and sports don't mix. "Conventional is not for me," she once
said.
In the track world, where the use of performance-enhancing
drugs is prevalent, Griffith Joyner's records will for ever be viewed by some
with suspicion. One track runner publicly declared that he sold Griffith Joyner
human growth hormone. She vehemently denied it.
But Flo-Jo died-young, at 38, after an epileptic seizure in
1998-an unforgettable icon. "We were dazzled by her speed," President
Bill Clinton said, "humbled by her talent and captivated by her
style." -Sean Gregory
1980s
1989 I PROVOCATEUR MADONNA
BY STEPHANIE ZACHAREK
1989, MADONNA, THE SCRAPPY PERformer born Madonna Louise
Ciccone, was already a superstar: she'd whirled into the landscape, in a
torn-up T-shirt and two wrists' worth of rubber braceJets, just as America was
awakening to the AIDS crisis, and for young people became a symbol of
determination and selfinvention. She had defied our expectations so many times.
How many surprises could she have left up her lace sleeves?
The bombshell answer came in the form of a hymn of joyous
carnality, "Like a Prayer," the lead single and title track of her
fourth studio album. In the video, Madonna-sending a marvelously mixed message
of purity and seduction in a 1950s-style slip, a discreet cross sparkling
around her neck-spreads her gospel of jov and erotic ardor within the sacred
confines of a country church. A statue of a saint, presumably Martin de
Porres-he's a black man locked in his own little cage, a not-so-metaphorical
prison--comes to life and kisses her gently on the forehead. This could be the
start of a mutual seduction, but he leaves her. She seizes a dagger and wraps
her fingers around the blade, though the resulting cuts aren't the normal kind:
stigmata flower in the palms of her hands like two bloody pennies.
Pepsi had used "Like a Prayer"-accompanied by
tamer imagery-in a commercial. But the video cast the song in a new light, and
religious groups were enraged. Pepsi canceled her contract in response. Yet
Madonna's allegedly blasphemous act of creation carried her all the way to the
bank: "Like a Prayer" spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot
100, and the album on which it appeared went on to sell more than 15 million
copies. Even more significantly, this close-to-perfect song marked Madonna as
an artist in it for the long haul, one whose marriage of provocation and pop
would inspire future generations to shape their careers in her image. She
couldn't be underestimated or circumscribed, least o by a multibillion-dollar
corporation. was a material girl, always, but only on her own terms.
'THE
SEARCH FOR HUMAN FREEDOM
CAN
NEVER BE COMPLETE WITHOUT
FREEDOM FOR WOMEN
-
BETTY FORD
American
Women
1975
PERSON OF THE YEAR I MAKING WAVES The cover of TIME'S Jan. 5. 1976, issue was
unprecedented. It featured a dozen "Women of the Yearwho sunabolizedarv,
religion, education, the White House, the statehouse, the Cabinet, ascent in
myriad realms: literature, the military, religion, education, the White House
the stata "Enough U.S. women have so deliberately taken possession of
their lives." Congress, sports, law, journalism and labor. "Enough
U.S. women have so deliberately take aimed that the event is spintually
equivalent to the discovery of a new continent. -Katy Steinmetz
WIESN
M. BYERLY. THE REV. ALISON CHEEK, JILL CONWAY, BETTY FORD. ELLA GRASSA IS BARBARA
JORDAN, BILLIE JEAN KING, SUSIE SHARP. CAROL SUTTONA
PROM
LEFT: SUSAN BROWNMILLER, KATHLEEN M. BYERLY, THE REV CARLA HILLS, BARBARA
JORDAN. BILLE
1970s
1976 Indira Gandhi Imperious leader In 1976, the
"Empress of India" had become India's great authoritarian. She was
the daughter of the nation's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, the
constitutional democrat who strained every sinew after independence from
Britain to establish liberal democracy. But his only child was different.
She started off as an ingenue, jeered at as a "dumb
doll." Party bosses propped up Nehru's daughter because they thought she
would be their puppet. Instead she split her party, yoking a tide of pro-poor
populism to storm to a massive election victory in 1971. She became the first
Prime Minister to win a decisive victory over Pakistan in the Bangladesh
Liberation War.
But in her mammoth victory lay the seeds of paranoid
insecurity, and she proved to be as ruthless as she was charismatic. By 1975,
as a result of economic instability, her government was swamped by an avalanche
of street protests, and after her election was deemed invalid, she declared an
emergency. On the night of June 25, 1975, the electricity was suddenly shut off
in Delhi's newspaper offices.
She quickly ripped apart her father's democracy and amended
India's constitution to give herself enormous powers. She jailed political
opponents, muzzled the press and extinguished fundamental rights across the
country. By 1976, she would scorn democratic processes to stamp out rivals,
dismissing party colleagues and state leaders at will. That year, her
government rammed through the 42nd Amendment arrogating supreme powers to
Parliament. She instituted "family rule" in her party with the
ascendance of her son Sanjay. She also oversaw a remorseless slum-clearance
drive in Delhi and forcible-sterilization campaigns across India. -Sagarika
Ghose
Lesley Brown
Pianeering mother
When Lesley Brown gave birth to her Daughter Louise in 1978, they called
her a "test tube baby. Today, we know the technique Brown pioneered one
that has helped millions of couples have children despite fertility
struggles-as in vitro fertilisation, or IVE. Brown and her husband volunteered to try the
experimental procedure after a nearly decade-long effort to conceive, Experts
did not
know if the method would work, and the American put lio was wary hut Brown had
a healthy prognancy on her first try. When she diod 34 years later, the
executive direc tor of the olinie where she was treated praised her
"incredible leap into the unknown" which would, over time, veshape
our nations of who gets to have a baby and when Jamie Ducharme
Tu Youyou
Tu Youyou's first triumph over an infectious disease was her
recovery from tuberculosis as a teenager, an experi once that inspired her to
pursue a career in medicine. History will remember her for her role in
discovering artemisinin, a drug that has prevented millions of deaths from
malaria Artemisinin is derived from sweet wormwood, a plant Chinese remedies Tu has described
her teams findings, published in English in 1979, as a gift from tradi tional
Chinese medicine to the world." The discovery eamed her a Nobel Prize and
won humanity important ground in the battle against one of history deadliest
diseases. Melinda Gates CURS IN chair of the Bill & Melinda Daneundation
