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The Women of RAICES Have an Important Message: ‘Stand Up. Fight Back’


The truth isn’t so easy. I had a choice of going either to school or surviving. I had to help my madrecita put food on the table and raise my brother. But the system doesn’t reward those priorities. Instead, the system made me and my family suffer. It’s deporting my friends, it’s killing families, it’s putting children in cages, and keeping thousands of people in danger across the border. It’s this system that these women on stage are fighting every day.

My mom, sitting right there, the love of my life, that beautiful woman, is a woman who knows how to play both mama and papa. She’s a woman who gave up her dreams, left everything behind in Peru, like so many mothers may be doing at this moment. The story I continue to write is her story, and tonight, I want to give her some hope in writing a new chapter in her life.”

She then called her mother up to the stage and presented her with a gift: an envelope containing her green card. “You’ve been waiting for this for the past 17 years,” she said, “and I’m happy to let you know that you are finally getting it.”

The women then led the audience in a chant: “When immigrant rights are under attack, what do you do? Stand up. Fight back!”

A leader in providing legal services to immigrants in federal detention centers and in the community, RAICES is a resource for asylum-seeking families in a system designed for them to fail. With over 10 million undocumented individuals in the U.S., RAICES helps unaccompanied children, single adults, families, and the LGBTQ community feel welcomed, safe, and protected in their new cities.

With the enactment of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy, RAICES’ work is more vital than ever. And after raising $20 million through a Facebook fundraiser amid nationwide uproar over family separations—it’s clear that they’re not slowing down. The majority of RAICES’ employees are female, and women hold most of the leadership positions, so Glamour was honored to welcome the change-makers at the annual awards ceremony.

Find out more about Glamour’s 2019 Women of the Year here.



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Charlize Theron's Speech at Glamour's 2019 Women of the Year Awards Is Required Reading


Charlize Theron gave an incredible speech when she accepted her Glamour 2019 Women of the Year Award on Monday night—and it should be required reading.

The actor, who’s set to appear in the upcoming movie Bombshell, took the stage at New York’s Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center on Monday, November 11.

She was introduced by her Bombshell co-star Kate McKinnon, who told the audience about the first time she was captivated by Theron—her Oscar-winning performance in Monster—and what it was like to share the stage with her on Saturday Night Live.

“For some reason I was asked to introduce Charlize Theron at this Glamour event, which is sort of like a bridge troll being asked to introduce a Queen, but trolls love snacks and green rooms, so here I am,” McKinnon joked. “What can be said about Charlize Theron, a person whose Helen of Troy-esque, ship-launching face, is absolutely the least remarkable thing about her? A person whose real-life bad-assness makes her character from Mad Max: Fury Road look lazy and selfish? A person so grand that when you meet her, it only feels right to get on the floor—but who is so nice and normal that you end up just kind of doing a little curtsey?”

She continued, “In my mind, the finest screen performance of all time is Charlize in Monster. A performance filled with so much compassion and so much humanity that I found myself thinking 1) my god, the pain of so many women in this world is so overwhelming that I can’t even move; and 2) my god I want someone to make out with me outside of a roller rink. Charlize’s finest screen work came in 2014, of course, when we did an SNL sketch together about two ladies working in a cat shelter, a sketch that would go on to win a BAFTA. But seriously, she kind of swooped in and turned a bunch of cat jokes into a fully-fleshed out drama dynamic and for that I owe her so much.”

McKinnon concluded with insight into their time together filming Bombshell. “What I owe her everything for is getting to be a part of her latest incredibly important film, Bombshell. Where she not only transforms into Megyn Kelly but she embodies every nuance of a horrifying and horrifyingly common situation, which is the Goliath that women face when they choose to come forward about sexual harassment. But these kinds of revelatory roles have become par for the course for Charlize. In whatever she does, she always stands for bravery, risk and making tough choices. She does it as an actor, as a producer, an activist, a philanthropist, and a mom. And that’s what makes her a Glamour Woman of the Year.”

Naturally, Theron’s speech was as inspiring as her work. Read it, below:

“What a night. I’m a mess, there’s nothing ‘glamour’ about my face anymore. You all fucked me up in the most beautiful way. Thank you, Kate for doing this. For asking me to be your cat lady. It’s been a privilege to work with someone so incredibly funny and talented. That is until the day you do an impression of me in a celebrity game show sketch…then you’re dead to me.

I also want to thank Sam and everybody from Glamour. It is an incredible honor to be named Woman of the Year when this is the kind of company I get to keep. Ava, Yara, Megan, Tory, Margaret, Greta, Erika, Lucia, Andrea, Mayra,…a thousand times I say yes, every time.



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Ava DuVernay's Speech at Glamour's 2019 Women of the Year Awards Must Be Read


Ava DuVernay (of course) delivered an incredible, moving speech when she accepted her Glamour 2019 Women of the Year award at Alice Tully Hall in New York on Monday, November 11.

Niecy Nash, who starred in DuVernay’s Netflix limited series When They See Us, put it best when she presented the director with her award: “Ava DuVernay affirms you and assures you; she validates your choices as an artist. She makes each actor feel like you’re her favorite—’Wait, she likes them that much, too?’ She is indeed that gorgeous dreadlocked woman we know, in the gowns, on the red carpet, but her sweet spot is on the couch, eating Pinkberry (absolutely with toppings).”

“At the core, we are two girls straight outta Compton, trying to use our talents to be of service to the world,” Nash continued. “Through her production company, Array, Ava creates opportunities for underrepresented storytellers, like a fifty percent female production crew on her latest series, Cherish The Day. Her goal for When They See Us wasn’t, ‘Let me tell a story that will be critically acclaimed, so I can be the industry darling.’ It was, ‘Let me tell a story about the pain that people have suffered. Let me shine a light of truth.’ Now that light is shining. And because she’s smart, she made sure the series was critically acclaimed too. Because the size of that light means more people will see. I am blessed to know Ava as an artist and a friend. I’m double dipping. Normally I don’t advocate jealousy but I’m saying, if you are jealous of me, rightfully so. Because what the rest of the world sees in her art, I see in her heart.”

In her interview for Glamour‘s 2019 Women of the Year profile, DuVernay spoke about what success means to her. “I am trying to disrupt systems—systems that we in this country take as gospel. We’re born into them. We abide by their rules without interrogating what the rules are meant to do, who they’re meant to serve. And you can’t disrupt what you don’t understand,” she said. “But once you understand, perhaps you engage with these things differently, no matter who you are. Perhaps you don’t assume that, because it’s a longstanding institution, it is right and fair, and you interrogate for yourself what you’ve been taught and told, and you learn to relearn for yourself.”

DuVernay elaborated on the power of interrogating those systems on stage. Read her full speech below.

“I got into town last night and my dear friend Sarah Elizabeth Lewis invited me to hang out. You know, like you don’t have to work all the time. Hang out—what’s that? Not sure. She invited me to go see a public art installation that currently sits in Times Square. By a great artist Kehinde Wiley, called called Rumors of War, maybe you’ve seen it. It’s a bronze sculpture of massive scale that reimagines monuments usually made in the likeness of white men, many of whom had a demonstrated history of white supremacy. This be reimagining those sculptures in a likeness of a black man on a horse, valiantly riding for the future with a city united in a search for presence of excellence.

As I was walking away from Times Square with Sarah and Kehinde and our friend Brian today a woman stopped me to tell me she loved “Queen Sugar” and all the women directors who make the show and that she’s read about us achieving in gender parity on our upcoming show Cherish The Day. She said, sorry I get emotional, she said, ‘Keep bringing the truth with you. And the truth is, you’re excellent.’ This woman on the street.

I kept thinking about her warmth and those words and that woman and her faith. ‘Keep bringing the truth with you. And the truth is you are excellent,’ and her her encouragement to me to speak those words that we really connected with. Ideas I’ve been having lately around inclusion, and my truth within that term. What does that mean? Does it mean enough? Are we taking it further? Are we interrogating with the word is?



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All the Looks From the 2019 Glamour Women of the Year Awards


Glamour‘s 2019 Women of the Year Awards went down tonight, November 11, in New York City, and so many celebrities came out for it. Everyone from Kate McKinnon to Aja Naomi King showed up and showed out on the red carpet. Naturally, the honorees—which included Charlize Theron, Megan Rapinoe, and Ava DuVernay—looked stunning as well. (For a full list of Glamour‘s 2019 Women of the Year honorees, click here.) Of course, tonight was about so much more than red carpet style, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate all the looks we saw. Here are all the WOTY fashion moments you need to know about.

To find out more about Glamour‘s 2019 Women of the Year, click here.



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Glamour Women of the Year Summit 2019: All the Best Moments


“I’ve always had something inside me, something like an alarm that goes off when something isn’t right or when someone is trying to pull a fast one on me,” she told the crowd. “I’ve been like this my whole life; people even called me Bossy Stassi growing up. It’s been my experience that women who go after and get what they want are often criticized. I would know. After the first season of Vanderpump Rules aired in 2013, I was called a villain, a bitch, an asshole.”

But then, she said, there was a noticeable shift. “People went from hating me to loving me for the very same reasons,” she explained. “In season one, people hated the way I spoke. Now I’m praised for my conviction. In season one, people said I was mean and entitled. Now I’m praised for being unapologetically honest. In season one, I had a ‘bad attitude.’ Now everyone ‘relates’ to me, because we’re all just moody.”

She continued, “Looking back, there really aren’t many times when I wish I had been less of an asshole. There are only times I wish I would’ve spoken up more—especially with my ex-boyfriend(s). I’ve reached a point in my life where, for my own sanity, I gotta do me. If I don’t speak my mind, my personal life suffers; I feel exhausted, walked all over, and annoyed all the time. It’s my opinion that being an “asshole” is basically listening to what your wants and needs are. To get what you want out of life, whether it’s stepping away from a business deal that brings you no joy or skipping a friend’s birthday party because you really just can’t that night, you have to say, ‘This is what I expect out of people, my bosses, my family, my friends, and my relationships.'”

This backfires all the time, she added. But she has to stay true to herself. “Now I don’t want anyone to hear this and think, I’m going to go be a total bitch now. That’s not it,” she explained. “That’s not what I’m saying. Girls come up to me all the time trying to bond with me by talking shit. I hate that. I don’t think of myself that way. I’m saying that the qualities some people might characterize as “bitchy” are the same qualities that you might need to forge your own path. I am who I am. I know what I want. I know what bothers me and what doesn’t. What I’ll stand for and what I won’t. And if that makes me an ‘asshole,’ I’m cool with that.”

Read Stassi’s full, unfiltered speech here.



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5 Women Trailblazing Who Are Having the Year of their Lives


Fast-forward a couple of years later, the Pulitzer Prize–winning play Wit landed on my desk. It’s written by Margaret Edson about a woman with stage IV ovarian cancer. By the time I finished reading the script, I was weeping. I flew to New York and auditioned. I knew it was required for the lead to get completely naked and shave her head. At the time I was so connected to my hair and what I looked like, I could never imagine myself doing anything like that. Truthfully, I never thought I was going to get the part.

I was sitting in my car in Los Angeles when my manager called to tell me I got the role. In saying yes, I chose my personal growth over my fear and discomfort. The first night I got up on that stage, I remember thinking, Are you out of your mind?

I didn’t wear a wig for the whole year I did Wit. People stopped me in restaurants and thanked me for standing in solidarity with everyone who has lost their hair from cancer. There’s a way to use art to make a difference: Art can change the culture and open people’s minds.

I still keep a photo of the day I shaved my head in my dressing room. It’s a reminder that I never want to just survive. I’d rather thrive. —as told to Caitlin Brody

Judith Light is a Tony- and Emmy-winning actress and LGBTQ+ advocate. She appears in The Politician and, most recently, Transparent’s musical finale.

Tracy Edwards
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I started sailing when I was 17 years old. It wasn’t just a job—it was my life. I went from boat to boat, learning everything I could about sailing, engineering, and rigging. For seven years the only time I was on land was when I was hopping aboard a different vessel. In 1985 I found myself working as a cook during the Whitbread Round the World Race, which is said to be the longest and toughest sporting event that exists. I aspired to become a navigator, the person who oversees the route, but no male team would let me.

The next year, when I was 23, I recruited a team of girls to enter the Whitbread. We spent two years bashing our heads together trying to raise money. I even remortgaged my house to help pay for Maiden, a 58-foot yacht we found in South Africa. On September 2, 1989, we set sail from Southampton, England, covering 33,000 nautical miles over a nine-month period. We won two of the six legs of the race and came in second place overall in our class.

People laugh when I say this, but I’m not an especially great sailor. I’m not. I’m a good manager, and I surround myself with the best people. I often don’t have confidence—I was riddled with self-doubt during Whitbread—but rather annoyingly, I have the inability to give up. These days Maiden is traveling the world with a crew of women, raising funds for girls’ education.

I don’t particularly want to go back to sailing on Maiden. I think it’s a mistake to try to go back in life. We’re moving forward, and that’s the important thing. It’s like my mom always said, “If you don’t like the way the world looks, change it.” —as told to Caitlin Brody

Tracy Edwards is the founder of the Maiden Factor and the subject of the documentary Maiden.



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