This is not a satire piece. So yes, you read it right. Fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazine Glamour isn’t just about giving advice on how to become prettier or skinnier or more insecure in your own skin but it also believes that in strides made against misogyny and patriarchy, men deserve to be celebrated for their contributions. Because of course, the world has officially run out of women who matter.
CULTUREVULTURE
Glamour Magazine awards Bono one of their Women of the Year accolades.
This is not a satire piece. So yes, you read it right. Fashion, beauty and lifestyle magazine Glamour isn’t just about giving advice on how to become prettier or skinnier or more insecure in your own skin but it also believes that in strides made against misogyny and patriarchy, men deserve to be celebrated for their contributions. Because of course, the world has officially run out of women who matter.
In a bizarre decision that has drawn ire from across the globe and web, Glamour Magazine chose to honour the U2 lead singer and humanitarian Bono as their first ever Man of the Year, an anomaly in the 27 years since the inception of the publication. Glamour’s stand is based on the fact that the idea of not acknowledging men as being partisans in the fight for feminism is outdated (err, and patriarchy isn’t?) and Bono has genuinely worked tirelessly to help promote women’s rights.
Glamour argues that when a man who is a rock-star and can do anything with his time and resources instead chooses to concentrate on women empowerment and breaking down gender barriers, he deserves to be acknowledged. They admit that there’s no dearth of platforms that are willing to honour men and particularly privileged, white singing sensations and are also aware of the fact that Bono and his humanitarian contributions have been extensively feted but still feel strongly enough about him to bestow the title of Man of the Year upon him.
While some can shrug it off and call it women being nit-picky or cranky or pms-ing (aren’t we all, always?) others are rightly outraged. Glamour’s decision seems to be in line with another similar publication’s years old attempt to “rebrand” feminism and name it something less divisive or offending. It appears benign and well-intentioned but is sadly neither.
Yes, it’s great that Bono is working towards gender parity. Yes it’s amazing that a rock-star is choosing to lend his voice to a sensitive subject that is aimed at a marginalized group in society but really, does he need an award for it? What are we telling the other women who are recipients of the same award, that their accomplishments are eventually equated with a man’s ability to exercise free speech?
Nadia Murad, the UN ambassador who ran away from ISIS after being kept as a sex slave shares this platform with Bono and it seems arbitrary for them to be equated in their fight for feminism, considering one is a woman and has been through hell for it and the other is a man who has the world at his finger-tips. Can Glamour really say their contributions matter equally?
While Bono’s Poverty is Sexist campaign has drawn attention to the discrimination against women from lower income brackets and his voice has contributed to the intersectionality discourse, we can’t help but feel like promoting a woman and her stand against patriarchy would’ve furthered the cause better than by handing over the award to a man, even if the man was Bono.
