Women of the Year 2011

[FizzyChristmasFairyDust]

So is this the best list or can you come up with a better one?

Gabrielle Giffords, Adele, Eman al-Obeidi, Sarah Burton, Nafissatou Diallo, Jelena Lecic, Princess Charlene, Pauline Pearce, Rebecca Leighton, Duchess of Alba, Corporal Kelsey de Santis, Sweetie the panda.

and is it any less worthy than the men's list?

Mark Kennedy, Colin Firth, Sean Donnelly, Ronan Kerr, William McRaven, Rory McIlroy, Paul McMullan, Ashraf Haziq, Alan Graham, Adam Werritty, Gary Speed, Herman Cain

rubbish list!!

I vote for lovely kris who has done so much for womans cancers its unreal here
all while battling cancer herself, no thats a woman who deserves it!!

It's an odd list. I think the women should all have achieved something impressive, or set a fantastic example, or shown great bravery or fortitude.

I am a bit bewildered as to why half of them are there, and equally bewildered by the glaring omissions.

It is a shit list. Bizarre too, it seems to work on the basis of having made the news - in which case Vincent Tabac & Rupert Murdoch should really feature on the mens list. And would be as appropriate.

And The Duchess of Alba is there presumably for getting married - which overlooks the far more newsworthy than Kate Middleton/Duchess of Cambridge's modest wedding which you might have seen reported earlier in the year...

Just gegging in here a little, I LIKE that Sarah Burton is in the list, she took over the brand and kept it true to the original aesthetic whilst adding her own mark. I think she's great. I could have lived without the wedding dress mind.

And on a not so deeply shallow level I'm glad Eman al-Obeidi is in it, what she did took courage.

I think Adelle is a fab role model for young women, she has talent and isn't a size 6/0.

The rest is crap.

JustSayin'Tiggaxx

Wow. So to be a 'woman of the year' you have to be a victim, a wife or a panda??? Oh or Adele.

Disgraceful.

LeBOF the woman who berated the rioters were in the list.
The man who stopped the riots, father of a victim, should have been also.

Wow. So to be a 'woman of the year' you have to be a victim, a wife or a panda??? Oh or Adele.

Disgraceful.

LeBOF the woman who berated the rioters were in the list.
The man who stopped the riots, father of a victim, should have been also.

In fairness, there a number of victims on the male list as well. And I'd rather be a panda than Adam Werrity, Herman Cain or Paul McMullan. I doubt anyone is suggesting they are good role models either.

Yes, PP is that Asian chap whose son dies not there then? That is just wrong. He has been prbably the most inspirational person to come out of 2011.

I don't think being an alleged 'victim' of something is enough on its own to get you on the list - I think it should depend on how you dealt with what happened to you and turned it into something that was inspirational and brave. So I can totally see why Emam Al-Obeide is on there, but not the Guinea chamber maid or the facebook girl or the nurse. (sorry - can't be bothered to scrool up and find their names)

Also - Charlene Wittstock - tried to jilt her husband the night before the wedding, but ultimately....didn't. So?

Duchesse of Alba - just all round really.

died not dies

The Men of the Year list is equally bizarre in its choices, so it is clearly not meant to be a list of inspirational role models.

Erm it's faces of the year not most inspirational/deserving, the criteria being male or females that had the headlines in the news on any given month.

it's faces of the year ... the criteria being male or females

So it's face-ist, no entry for creatures without faces. Will no-one think of the fossils? (I thought it could be particularly hard on them, having previously had faces but now being banned from competition - whereas at least your average rock or plant grew up resign to its fate).

Hmm....yes I see your point. Still a bit shoddy as it truly identifies what makes news!!

I'll take a step down from my feminist soapbox to firmly be embarrassed.

So to be in the headlines as a woman, you need to be victim, a wife, a singer or an animal.

That says a lot about the roles the media have decided are acceptable for women.

Oh FFS, it's people that made the headlines, men and women.
Neither sex come off very well but it's certainly not a feminist issue.
Just rather sad that the majority of the ones mentioned are all total nonenities.

Okay, so male list:

Mark Kennedy - policeman who went undercover and then regretted his role in infiltrating the movement ... then moved abroad?
Colin Firth - all round national treasure
Sean Donnelly - perhaps not the biggest fan of Andrew Lansley
Ronan Kerr - policeman killed by a bomb
William McRaven - led the team that killed bin Laden
Rory McIlroy - golfer
Paul McMullan - phone hacking weasel
Ashraf Haziq - mugged by rioters
Alan Graham - perhaps not the biggest fan of Rihanna
Adam Werritty - weasel advisor to Fox
Gary Speed - football manager (but in the news because of his suicide)
Herman Cain - highly viable candidate for the Presidency, with clear grip on foreign events.

Perhaps therefore the absence of the 'panda candidate' was the presence of the two human weasels?

Think you meant Herman Cain - discredited candidate for the Presidency due to allegations of sexual harassment and adultery. I'd rather have the panda.

Sorry, I should stress I was being extremely sarcastic, after his incisive deconstruction of his government's policy in Libya. (I do mention further up the thread I would rather be a panda than McMullan, Werrity or Cain).

Oh, it's him! I suspect that in the US a sex scandal is more likely to derail presidential hopes than being an idiot (sex scandals after becoming president not so much) so it is possible the world dodged a bullet there.

Trouble is, the lists are neither one thing or another. It's not a list of achievers of the year but nor is it the list of most newsworthy people of the year. Kate Middleton (or her sister) would surely merit inclusion if they were. It's just a list of random people who happened to be in the news in each month of 2011.

I think what they're trying to do is to highlight some of the major news events of the year by identifying some of the individuals involved in them (the royal wedding - Sarah Burton; the August riots - Ashraf Haziq, etc.) but it's a pretty clumsy way of doing it.

But then so many (generally awful) stories were left off - the tsunami, the killings in Norway - slightly more important than a panda, or frankly a farmer who's not fond of Rihanna.

'Oh FFS, it's people that made the headlines, men and women'

What media did they make the headlines in? I don't recognise more than half of them.

Who compiled the list? It's a deliberate piss take
I'm not surprised that Kate Middleton doesn't feature. Isn't it a BBC list?

They call the list 'Faces of the year - the women'

and say

'Some of the women who have made the headlines in 2011'

and after running out of entries in their list (many of whom lots of the public have never heard of), they include an animal not a woman.

They're sending out a message and having a laugh.

The male list is also a piss take, but not to teh same extent as it doesn't include any animals.

If you look at the gallery of faces, you notice that it ends in December with the face of the panda. That is the culmination, the punch line of the piss take.

I'm surprised they chose a panda and not a polar bear. With a polar bear, they could have sent out their message and also pumped out their usual 'climate change catastrophe' message as well.