When we decided to do a women’s issue I agonized over how to cover the fascinating women doing fascinating things all over the world. Should I include the obvious, like Hillary, Michelle, and RBG? What about Gaga, Meryl Streep, EARTHA KITT? The list quickly grew from 30 to 1,030. Thank god for page budgets—they force editors to edit themselves. In the end, I had only one criterion. I collected a group of women— some “famous” but most not—who are disrupting the status quo in their own neighborhoods. Whether it’s on the Lower East Side or in Pakistan, these are the women who are getting their hands dirty, making the lives of other women better, and as a result, making the world better. Editor in Chief Deb Martin
