Maria Ressa among TIME’s most influential women of the century

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler CEO Maria Ressa is among Time’s “100 Women of the Year,” the magazine revealed on Thursday, March 5. 

Time‘s “100 Women of the Year,” a list of the most influential women of the past century, puts the spotlight on “influential women who were often overshadowed.”

“This includes women who occupied positions from which the men were often chosen, like world leaders Golda Meir and Corazon Aquino, but far more who found their influence through activism or culture,” the magazine said. 

Time recognized Ressa as its Woman of the Year for 2018, noting her already impressive career in news before starting Rappler in 2012.

“But the news site turned into a global bellwether for free, accurate information at the vortex of two malign forces: one was the angry populism of an elected President with authoritarian inclinations, Rodrigo Duterte; the other was social media,” the magazine wrote in its piece about Ressa.

Time said that, since naming her as a 2018 “Person of the Year,” Ressa “has continued to navigate the murk between social media and despotism, calling out her findings to the rest of us at the risk of her life.”

Other women from Southeast Asia who made it to the list include late Philippine president Corazon Aquino (1986) and Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi (1990).

Former Time editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs said of the project: “The women profiled here enlarged their world and explored new ones, broke free of convention and constraint, welcomed into community the lost and left behind. They were the different drummers, to whose beat a century marched without always even knowing it.”

The magazine released the list ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8. For the complete list of Time’s “100 Women of the Year,” click here. – Rappler.com