Bono Named Among Glamour’s Women of the Year

U2 lead and lifelong humanitarian Bono was named among Glamour magazine’s ten Women of the Year in November, breaking a 26-year-long precedent of honoring, naturally, women.
The magazine wrote that, while for years the Women of the Year advisory board, which is made up of past winners and Glamour editors, “put the kibosh on naming a Man of the Year on the grounds that men aren’t exactly hurting for awards in this world,” several events this year, including Obama declaring himself a feminist and the United Nations’ #HeforShe campaign, opened the board to the idea of naming a man. “When a major male rock star who could do anything at all with his life decides to focus on the rights of women and girls worldwide – well, all that’s worth celebrating,” the magazine wrote. Officially, the magazine named Bono their first Man of the Year, and recognized his work on the campaign “Poverty is Sexist,” which aids the world’s poorest women and seeks to establish a link between poverty and gender.
Bono recognized the irony of the award in his acceptance speech in Los Angeles on November 14, joking, “I know how ridiculous it is for me to be on this stage accepting this award. But if I didn’t know how ridiculous it was, I did have the blessed Internet to remind me.”
He also acknowledged that he, as well as all men, must contribute to the demand for gender equality. “If it is the measure of a man’s maturity – his relationship to and with women – well, there’s a large part of me that reckons if I could someday be worthy of this award, this faith you have placed in me this evening, then I might become the man that I aspire to be.” ♦