and broadcast platforms exploring the lives of women and the massive changes
under way for girls and women around the globe.
You can see the shift begin with one grainy picture from the archive, on the
previous page. It captures crowds surrounding a Washington, D.C., parade of
women seeking the right to vote—which they got when the 19th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in August 1920. Our coverage through 2020
will celebrate the centenary of that victory. And of course, that was just a start.
This issue documents how women around the world are rising up to demand
civil, personal, and professional rights. It’s happening through the #MeToo and
equal-pay movements rippling through workplaces from Hollywood to soccer
fields. It’s happening among women governing in Rwanda, insisting on safety in
India, and being finally acknowledged as groundbreaking pioneers in their fields.
In addition, throughout this issue you’ll find interviews and portraits of accom-
plished women. They are scientists and self-described social justice warriors;
attorneys, philanthropists, writers, athletes; a doctor fresh from a war zone, and
a seasoned war correspondent. Four of the women are ranked in the top 30 in
Forbes magazine’s 2018 list of powerful women.
We put the same questions to all these impressive, insightful women, and we’re
delighted to share excerpts from our conversations. Every one of them espoused
this belief: that women who follow their convictions can overcome almost any-
thing. “Never take no for an answer,” said broadcaster Christiane Amanpour. Or as
American soccer star Alex Morgan put it: “Don’t be discouraged in your journey.”
“Journey” is the right word for reflecting on the story of women. I was a news-
paper editor in 1992 when my publication and many others proclaimed it the
Year of the Woman. Why then? That was the year we saw the largest number of
women voted into the U.S. House in a single election—24, of 435 total members—
and the greatest number of women ever in the Senate: six members out of 100.
As naive as it seems now, this was hailed as a harbinger of real change.
So when there’s yet another assertion that women’s status is rising, skepticism
might be forgiven. But this time, to me, it feels different. It is different. I’m the
10th editor of National Geographic since its founding and the first woman to
hold this job—an appointment that once would have been unthinkable. Wher-
ever you look, women are reaching higher positions: in business, the sciences,
the law. And they’re being seen and heard on their own terms, as speed-of-light
communications and social media allow them to make an end run around
patriarchal systems that once stifled them.
Today the numbers really do tell a story of change. The sheer volume of elected
women has vastly increased in developed and developing nations around the
globe. You can see a snapshot of that change in this issue’s exclusive maps and
graphics, on page 74.
Throughout this yearlong project, we’ll share heartening examples of how
women have gained rights, protections, and opportunities during the past
century. We’re bound to also come across cases where women have experienced
the opposite: rights denied, opportunities withheld, vulnerabilities exploited,
contributions ignored.
In more than 130 years of covering the cultures of the world, we’ve witnessed
how inequality can become invisibility, until the oppressed hardly can be seen
or heard at all. At this anniversary, we aim to bring more women’s lives into the
light—and more women’s voices into the conversation.
Thank you for reading National Geographic. j
October 1959: The first woman
on the cover was Eda Zahl,
shown gathering sea urchins.September 1964, a U.S. woman
at work abroad: Peace Corps
volunteer Rhoda Brooks.Pioneering primatologist Jane
Goodall and her chimps were
on the December 1965 cover.January 2017: Avery Jackson,
age nine, was the first trans-
gender female on the cover.March 2018: Astronaut Peggy
Whitson holds the U.S. record
for days spent in space (665).NOVEMBER 2019 Past issues show
how the magazine’s
representation of
women evolved.