A bronze statue of a young girl standing defiantly with hands on hips. Flowers are placed at the base. People stand in the background.

‘What a World’ Women of the Year Awards


By Nancy Ford

Here’s to the fearless girls

One of my favorite movies is Woman of the Year. A Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy joint, it’s a rom com about a professional couple who both are columnists for the same New York newspaper—he, a sportswriter; she, a political pundit. They meet cute, fall in love, marry and almost divorce when his ego can’t handle her success. No spoilers here but, because it was filmed in 1942, you can imagine how it ends. Don’t care. It’s still one of my favorites because, well, Katharine Hepburn.
TCM aired it recently. As I watched, it struck me that as we close out 2017 (say it with me: “What a year, what a year…â€) there are a number of women who deserve the title of Woman of the Year for their not-to-be-understated accomplishments.
In lieu an Amazon gift card, I hope they will accept this token of my appreciation for the contributions that have made this year a little, if not a lot, more tolerable. That said, the first annual What a World Women of the Year awards go to—

Annise Parker. There’s been much speculation about what path our former first mayor will take following her historic three-term run as Houston’s mayor. She spent her first two years out of City Hall in positions of academia and altruism. As this year closes, she takes the reins of the Victory Fund and its accompanying Victory Institute.
Victory Fund is the Washington DC-based LGBT political organization whose main mission, unlike that of that other Washington DC-based LGBT political organization, is not to photobomb its logo into as many camera shots as possible. Rather, Victory Fund works to elect LGBT candidates to public office, and is actually successful in that endeavor.
Many of us have hoped Annise (just her first name is necessary at this point, like Cher and Madonna) would shoot for higher political office, perhaps Texas governor or a Senate seat. Maybe someday. But her move to the Victory Fund is brilliant. VF’s former CEO Aisha C. Moodie-Mills was often tapped by national news programs to join their panel discussions, and our own Annise would be a welcome, insightful and entertaining commentator on any of the networks. She can put that high-profile national visibility in the bank for some high profile future rainy election day.

Samantha Bee, Kate McKinnon and Michelle Wolf. These next-gen queens of comedy make us laugh even though there isn’t much to laugh about these days. They also sometimes make us cry and even spit up a little bit in our own mouths. But mostly laugh.

Melania Trump. No doubt, some will take issue with this selection. Nonetheless, Melania deserves at least a modicum of recognition for the amazing restraint she has displayed despite sharing a bed with the Orange Roughy. (OK, it’s debatable whether or not they actually share a bed, but that’s another sweaty fever dream for another time.)
Regardless of where she sleeps (or with whom), Melania is, on most days, within closer proximity to her husband than any other human being. Yet never—not one time—has she ever stabbed him with the steak knife that he uses to hack through his over-done New York strip. Never has she wrenched from his tiny little hands the hair dryer he uses everyday on his golden locks and pushed him and it into a full bathtub. She’s never beaten him at Mar-a-Lago with one of his many golf clubs. She’s never even extended her foot to trip him as he descends Air Force One, sending him tumbling empty noggin first onto the tarmac.
No, Melania simply sucks it up, holds her head high and her nostrils shut, and plows through her curious destiny as the First (and hopefully not the last) Lady of these United States.

Hillary Rodham Clinton. Is Hillary shrill? You bet. Whiney? OK. Robotic? Whatever. Call her what you will, but even though we can’t call her Madame President, no one can rightly call her a loser. Keep writing those books, Hillary. Keep making as much money for speaking engagements as organizations will pay you—you deserve every cent, and more. Keep working those talk shows to remind us what America could and should have had as its leader. Keep reminding us to vote like our lives depend on it. Turns out, they do.

Fearless Girl. Installed on Wall Street in New York City in March, Fearless Girl is artist Kristen Visbal’s bronze sculpture of a young woman bravely and stubbornly facing down Arturo Di Modica’s testosterone-spewing Charging Bull sculpture. She’s cold, she’s hard (she is bronze, after all) and she stands her ground despite many detractors who claim she has no right to be in such an audacious, un-ladylike position.
If ever there was a time this world needed more fearless girls to face down the bull, it is now.

So good-bye, 2017. May we all be more fearless in 2018.

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