They gave voices to sexual assault and harassment survivors across the world.
They took down powerful sexual predators.
A lot has changed in a year.
Exactly a year after Time picked then United States-President elect Donald Trump -- who had been accused of sexual misconduct and been recorded saying 'grab 'em by the p*ssy' -- as the Person of the Year, the magazine has picked those who broke the silence against powerful sexual predators as the Person of the Year.
Explaining this year's choice Time's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote, 'It became a hashtag, a movement, a reckoning. But it began, as great social change nearly always does, with individual acts of courage.
'The actor who went public with the story of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's "coercive bargaining"; in a Beverly Hills hotel suite two decades earlier.
'The strawberry picker who heard that story and decided to tell her own.
'The young engineer whose blog post about the frat-boy culture at Silicon Valley’s highest-flying startup prompted the firing of its founder and 20 other employees.
'The California lobbyist whose letter campaign spurred more than 140 women in politics to demand that state government “no longer tolerate the perpetrators or enablers” of sexual misconduct.
'A music superstar’s raw, defiant court testimony about the disc jockey who groped her.'
Their 'galvanizing actions,' he noted, 'along with those of hundreds of others, and of many men as well, have unleashed one of the highest-velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s. Social media acted as a powerful accelerant; the hashtag #MeToo has now been used millions of times in at least 85 countries.'
On the cover of the Time POY edition are actor Ashley Judd, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, Susan Fowler (who spoke out about the sexual harassment at Uber), farm hand Isabel Pascual (whose name was changed to protect her identity), lobbyist Adama Iwu and a strategically cropped arm.
Time explained, 'It belongs to an anonymous young hospital worker from Texas -- a sexual harassment victim who fears that disclosing her identity would negatively impact her family. She is faceless on the cover and remains nameless inside TIME's red borders, but her appearance is an act of solidarity, representing all those who are not yet able to come forward and reveal their identities.'
Meet all the Time Person of the Year 'Silence Breakers'.
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Ashley Judd
Actor
That changed in October when she went on record -- the first big star to do so -- in the explosive The New York Times story exposing Weinstein.
Photograph: @ashley_judd/Instagram
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Rose McGowan
Artist and activist
There is much anger over the fact that she is missing from the Time POY cover.
Photograph: @rosemcgowan/Instagram
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Selma Blair
Actor
Since then, more than 300 women have spoken up against him.
Photograph: @therealselmablair/Instagram
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Terry Crews
Actor
Crews has accused Venit of groping him at an industry event and has questioned why people have responded to the accusation by asking him why he didn't beat up Venit.
'Why is nobody questioning him,' he said in his Time cover story interview.
Photograph: @brooklyn99fox/Instagram
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Alyssa Milano
Actor
She tweeted, 'In 2017 women stood up and said #MeToo. We overcame our fears to #BreakTheSilence. Technology and social media have connected us all. We can’t turn away from each other’s pain. We are connected to it. We are connected to each other.'
Photograph: @milano_alyssa/Instagram
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Tarana Burke
Activist
This year, her movement spread to all corners of the world.
Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters
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Taylor Swift
Singer-song writer
She was applauded for her testimony in court in August in a case involving radio DJ David Mueller who had grabbed her rear end during a photo op.
She had initially reported the incident privately, which got the DJ fired. When the DJ sued her, she countersued to prove a point -- 'a symbolic $1' --and won.
However, there are many who have criticised why she is on the Time POY cover when someone like Rose McGowan is not.
Photograph: Jason Meritt/Getty Images
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Susan Fowler
Former Uber engineer
Photograph: @susanthesquark/Instagram
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Adama Iwu
Lobbyist
Photograph: @Adamanation/Twitter
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Sara Gelser
US State Senator
Photograph: @SenSaraGesler/Instagram
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Terry Reintke
European Parliament member
Photograph: @TerryReintke/Twitter
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The Plaza plaintiffs
Hotel employees
'While patrons enjoy the iconic culture of The Plaza, many of its female employees are forced to endure a culture of a different type –-- rape culture,' their suit said.
Representational photograph: @Peter Morgan/Reuters
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Sandra Pezqueda
Former dishwasher
She told Time, 'Someone who is in the limelight is able to speak out more easily than people who are poor. The reality of being a woman is the same -- the difference is the risk each woman must take.'
Representational photograph: @terranearesort/Instagram
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Juana Melara
Housekeeper
While many of her co-workers still bear it silently because they fear losing their jobs, she was willing to break her silence.
Representational photograph: Wikimedia Commons
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Isabel Pascual
Strawberry picker
Photograph: Time.com
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Blaise Godbe Lipman
Director
He told Time about the victim blaming and victim shaming he faced because of his sexy posts on Instagram and his sexual orientation.
Photograph: @blaisegodbe/Instagram
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Zelda Perkins
Producer
She told The Guardian, 'Unless somebody does this there won't be a debate about how egregious these agreements are and the amount of duress that victims are put under.'
Photograph: Zelda Perkins/Facebook
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Wendy Walsh
Former Fox News Contributor
The network cut ties with the anchor, and, according to media reports, has spent millions of dollars to settle claims of sexual harassment.
Photograph: @DrWendyWalsh/Twitter
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Lindsey Reynolds
Food-blog editor
Besh has since stepped down and the company has said it is working on addressing the issues Reynolds raised.
Photograph: lindseyreynolds/LinkedIn
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Sandra Muller
Journalist
Photograph: @muller3574/Instagram
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Megyn Kelly
Journalist
She told Time, 'I believed the system was stacked against women, and the smart ones would understand how to navigate it... I am starting to see it so differently. What if we did complain?'
Photograph: @MegynTODAY/Facebook
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Jane Merrick
Journalist
Photograph: @janemerrick23/Twitter
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Celeste Kidd and Jessica Cantlon
Professors
Cantlon told Time, 'If they couldn't stop us from talking, they were going to stop everybody from listening.'
They believe that eight women joining hands to fight them was what made it tough to silence them.
Photograph: @CantlonLab and @celestekidd/Twitter
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Lindsay Meyer
Entrepreneur
After her, six other women accused Caldbeck of harassment, which led him to resign from his VC firm.
Photograph: @lindsaymeyer/Twitter
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Bex Bailey
Charity worker
She finally opened up this year, leading the party to appoint an independent expert to examine sexual harassment complaints.
Photograph: @bexbailey/Twitter
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Amanda Schmitt
Art Curator
But she finally gathered the courage to sue the publisher.
She told Time, 'I was afraid that I didn't have the strength to make it stop. I don't feel that fear any more.'
Photograph: @teachamantafish/Instagram
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The Anonymous
A hospital worker and a former office assistant
The latter worked in a small office with no HR department and didn't believe that her co-workers or her conservative Native American family would support her.
Representational photograph: Pixabay.com