Every year Glamour magazine honors women who make our world better: in entertainment, business, sports, fashion, science and politics.
This time the glam event Glamour Women of the Year Awards was held at NYC’s Carnegie Hall on Monday November 9. L’Oreal Paris was the main sponsor of the awards.
Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas were presenters, so were Katie Couric and former President Bill Clinton, three Beatles wives, Tyra Banks, model Iman and others.
The annual Glamour Women of the Year Awards always honor a group of eclectic women, and this year was no exception.
Let’s see who are the winners of the Women of The Year Awards 2009:
1) Model Iman presented Rihanna with the award.
The 21-year-old Barbados singer Rihanna received the prestigious honor for her unique style, songs, positive role model and her work with Believe Foundation.
Rihanna was dressed in hot white gown by Stephane Rolland and completed her look with Cartier and H. Stern jewelry.
2) Tyra Banks presented tennis champion Serena Williams, who has her own Serena Williams Foundation.
Tyra said:
You can do whatever you want to do. The most important belief is self-belief.”
In 2009 female athlete Serena released an autobiography, opened a secondary school in Kenya, gave grants to college students, and won the greatest monetary prize than any female sportsman in the history of world sports.
She was in red one shoulder gown by Pamela Rolland and wore silver bangles on her hands.
3) First Lady of California Maria Shriver (John F. Kennedy’s niece) steers the California Women’s Conference. This is a growing association for female power.
She has overrided her role to encourage and give out light and help in roles of women at their muti-role lives. This year she also produced a documentary on Alzheimer’s disease, which afflicted her father, Sargent Shriver.
She was in a beautiful lace dress designed by Californian designer Monique Lhuillier.
4) Daudher of Paul McCartney, designer Stella McCartney is one of the most influential fashion designers and animal rights activists. She refuses to use leather and fur in her designs but makes amazing clothes and footwear.
Her dad wasn’t at the Awards, but her honor was presented by three Beatles wives: Yoko Ono, widow of John Lennon, Olivia Harrison, widow of George, and Ringo Starr’s wife, Barbara Starkey.
She opted for the purple short dress and jacket from her collections.
5) Comic actress Amy Poehler took her award from hands ofSaturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. Poehler views her work as a ruse mission to help authorize young women.
Poehler’s advice to the young women and girls:
Girls, if boys say something that’s not funny, you don’t have to laugh.”
For the Award she dressed in a sparkling gold dress by Stella McCartney.
6) Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience, Marissa Mayer, who became the first female engineer at Google Inc, has increased and developed all of the company’s popular products, from Gmail to Google Earth.
She sees her real goal in bringing more women into the technology space.
Matt Lauer, host of NBC’s Today, who presented the award to Marissa Mayer said:
I discovered she had 600,000 mentions,” Lauer quipped. “Not as huge as me, but no slouch”
7) Actor Michael Douglas presented award to Susan Rice, the first female African American U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who was also praised via TV by President Barack Obama.
She is leading a campaign at the United Nations to oblige a zero-tolerance policy on sexual violence.
She puts women’s rights at the top problems of the American agenda at the U.N.
8) Laura Ling and Euna Lee – These two American journalists, who were arrested and confined while reporting on the plight of North Korean women and ran away into China to avoid famine.
They were jailed for 140 days and were freed in August 2009
9) U.S. poet Maya Angelou, 81, doesn’t stop writing and informing the young generation. She is confidante of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, a memoirist, poet, educator and civil rights activist.
She has written about her personal life, childhood rape, teenage motherhood and racism.
10) A pediatrician, who created Worldwide Orphans Foundation, Dr. Jane Aronson received a special award.
This foundation has provided life-altering support to more than 20,000 orphans around the world.
Dr. Aronson works with adoptive parents, including Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, to take care for children and assure them that their new families can
work.
I am grateful to be a woman,” said Angelou, who won the lifetime achievement award. “I must have done something great in another
life.”
11) One Million Signatures Campaign is a group started in 2006 by a group of Iranian women to end gender disparity.
The organizers of this campaign risk their lives when asking women and men to sign a formal request demanding changes in the laws that make women second-class people.
And U.S. first lady Michelle Obama also received special recognition from Glamour.
A hallowed mother, and the granddaughter of a slave, the first Michelle Obama earned the respect of the world by unflagging normal despite the defiances of her new role.
She has shown engagement to helping the next generation of young women swell their horizons by providing them with the inspiration and information to fancy themselves as the leaders of tomorrow.
Katharine McPhee looks wonderful at the Glamour Women of the Year Awards in New York City on Monday (November 9).
The 2009 Women of the Year are profiled in the December issue of Glamour, on newsstands November 10.
