womens in centuries Time magazine article

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