The Financial Times magazine has done it again. It has somehow managed to skew its awards for women of the year so far to the left as to render it laughable. It is nothing short of astonishing that women “across continents, industries, and issues” all have one thing in common – almost all hail from the ideological left. So here are a few who made the list for the most influential women of 2021 – just to amuse you.
The Meaning of Is
In classic progressive woke-speak, FT seeks to define “influence” and how it is changing. Oddly they ask these questions but never give the reader their profound insights. Perhaps they assume the answers lie in the very naming of the women.
Or maybe not.
The Times separates these undefined influencers into three categories: leaders, heroes, and creators. Perhaps you are the one in a thousand who know the names Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala or Elisa Loncón Antileo. If so, you’ve earned our applause. But for those who aren’t intimately familiar with the director-general of the World Trade Organization or the president of Chile’s Constitution Convention, we’ve culled the list to bring you a few highlights.
Liz Cheney (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
From the leader category – drum roll please – we have none other than Madam Speaker herself, the masked marauder of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The FT hails Pelosi, 81, as “a unique figure in American politics” as well as a “master negotiator.” Pelosi is proclaimed as someone with “a safe-cracker’s touch” who “recently sent to [Sen. Joe] Manchin a private message literally on a silver platter — one given to her by her good friend, the late West Virginia senator Robert C Byrd, a hero of Manchin’s. “I thought he should see it,” she chuckled.
Laughter does seem appropriate.
But wait, as the huckster on TV is wont to say – there’s more. Next up in the hero category, though one wonders what happened to the word “heroine,” is Liz Cheney. Christine Todd Whitman penned Cheney’s tribute as a world hero by positing that the “Wyoming congresswoman unabashedly stood up to Trump’s attempts to undermine American democracy.” Then she wrote, “While many men in the Republican party do a lot of talking about ‘strength’, Cheney is the one walking the walk.”
This walk has made the former vice president’s daughter so popular, the Wyoming Republican party publicly censured her and “no longer recognize” her “as one of their own.” A badge of honor to progressives.
Last but not least, there are two women who you actually may know that made it into the coveted creator category. First, is movie “actor” (not actress?) Scarlett Johansson for her courage in challenging “the cinema establishment by suing Disney.” However, the one worth taking notice of is Shonda Rhimes. The TV producer/screenwriter is touted for her “deft touch in identifying … the gaping hole that existed in television for costume dramas that go beyond whiteness at their centre.”
Kamala Harris (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
Indeed, in Rhimes period drama Bridgerton, one is introduced to a black queen of England. Still, Rhimes is applauded for her efforts to bury “her social commentary deep within narratives that entertain and provoke,” according to a glowing essay of Rhimes written by Amma Asante. A woman of color playing the British monarch doesn’t seem very “buried” to viewers. If anything, it is remarkably hard to miss.
One interesting side note in the Financial Times top 25 is the glaring absence of the first black woman to hold the title of vice president of the United States. Kamala Harris is nowhere to be found in this august list of leftist luminaries.
Ouch.
Pulling back the viewfinder to take in the big picture, one wonders why the left has managed to monopolize national and international awards. From the Pulitzers to the Oscars, only progressives need apply, while those with an alternate political ideology are left (no pun intended) on the ash heap. Perhaps it is because these people need – no, crave – recognition, and if they can’t get it from the world writ large, then dadgummit, they’ll do it themselves.
~ Read more from Leesa K. Donner.
