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Cape Town - As Time magazine’s iconic Person of the Year cover spreads across the internet, thousands took to Twitter to voice their opinions on this year’s winner – The Silence Breakers.
From congratulatory tweets to heated debates on whether Taylor Swift deserved to be on the cover – the internet did not hold back.
The “Silence breakers”
Time chose to celebrate the anti-harassment #MeToo movement as the “Person of the Year” by featuring a few of the women who shared their stories of sexual abuse.
The cover included Susan Fowler, a former Uber employee whose blog post about Silicon Valley sexism led to the departure of CEO Travis Kalanick, “Isabel Pascual”, a pseudonymous agricultural worker who has been stalked and harassed by her boss, and Adama Iwu, a corporate lobbyist who inspired dozens of women to expose sexual harassment in California’s state capitol.
Ashley Judd also stood alongside the fearless women as one of the first women to accuse film mogul, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual harassment in October.
Taylor Swift controversy
Taylor Swift earned her place on the cover after she took a former DJ to court after she accused him of groping her. Twitter users came out in droves in support of Taylor, while others questioned the validity of her place on the cover.
Think-pieces have already been penned and are currently circulating on the internet – analysing Swift’s lack of support for the #MeToo campaign
3. The irony of Donald Trump
To many, it was just as significant who failed to “win” the title: Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Time announced that Trump was first runner-up for Person of the Year, according to The Guardian. Twitter celebrated his loss and pointed out the irony that the first runner-up to the Silence Breakers is a man with a history of sexual assault allegations.
Sources: The Guardian, Time, Vox
