Jezebel’s annual list of Best Women is always invigorating for us to put together. But 2018 had a special tenor to it, not because it was the Year of the Woman as some rather emptily declared, but because it was a year when so many of them showed true resilience, in both triumph and (relative) defeat. Here’s to our list of heroines, who stood tall and kept us motivated.
Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher
I absolutely lost my shit when I saw that video of Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher confronting Senator Jeff Flake as he stood in an elevator ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. I was fairly composed when Archila yelled at Flake: ”You have children in your family… What are you doing, sir?” But then Gallagher chimed in, through tears: “Look at me when I’m talking to you! You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter and that you’re going to let people who do these things into power!” All of a sudden, her tears were my tears, and then they weren’t just tears and I was sobbing at my desk. In the end, of course, Kavanaugh was confirmed, but Archila and Gallagher’s emotional confrontation was a powerful reflection of—and an outlet for—the anger and sadness so many of us felt amid those hearings. My greatest hope for 2019 is more women yelling at men in elevators. –Tracy Clark-Flory
Samin Nosrat
Samin Nosrat, an obvious choice here, almost instantly became one of the most beloved figures of 2018 through her Netflix series Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, a simple four-part cooking show about food, based on her popular cookbook. The series is as much about the chemistry and quality of a good meal as it is the diligence of the people who make the food. But really, Nosrat makes the show. As a host, she’s respectful and effervescent, demonstrative without being showy. She is your mom, your sister, your best friend, your granny. She convinces you that even the worst cook can become proficient at the thing they fear. Her advice, delivered with equal measures of exuberance and conciseness, is refreshing to hear if you’ve never been much of a cooker but adore cooking shows. There is an art to food and to being a good host, and Nosrat taught me that neither has to be complicated. —Clover Hope
Tarana Burke
Late last year, the activist and founder of Me Too almost saw herself erased from the movement she’d been working on for a decade, thanks to the Twitter hashtag’s capacity for swift subsumption as a general rule. After several corrective measures by the media to recenter Burke, this year she was recognized and honored for her tirelessness and unwavering moral compass in the crucially important work of, in the organization’s words, helping “survivors of sexual violence, particularly Black women and girls, and other young women of color from low wealth communities, find pathways to healing.” While Me Too in the media was often focused on Hollywood and other celebrities, Burke constantly reminded us that most of the work is, as ever, down here on the ground. As she told Jezebel’s Katie McDonough in October, “Those of us who are committed to this work and have some level of profile in this moment have to be committed to narrative change… If you stay consistent and keep your head down, keep moving forward, I feel like people get it after a while.” Thanks largely to Burke, we sure did. –Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
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