By Emilia Benton

At one point last year, one of my classmates and fellow Chronicle staffers stood in our very office and mockingly proclaimed, “Students don’t come to Hofstra to be journalists. They come here because they think they want to for magazines!” As someone who has put a lot of hard work into the three magazine editorial intern positions I’ve held over the past two years, I resented that statement.

Back when I was a sophomore sending my résumé to nearly every opening in sight, I was frequently advised not to chase jobs at publications that I love to read because it would likely ruin the experience for me. My job at Glamour magazine was initially just supposed to be a summer-long, unpaid internship for a journalism credit requirement. I never expected it to turn into a going-on-two-years-long freelance editing and reporting gig.

At around this time last year, I wrote about my experience in attending the magazine’s Women of the Year (WOTY) Awards, an annual event in which the magazine honors approximately 17 women who have made a significant impact in the world, in areas like education and philanthropy to medicine and politics. Last year’s WOTY ceremony was one of the first moments in which I realized just how valuable my experience at Glamour has been and just how fortunate I am to have a job that I love at a publication with a message of empowerment that I truly believe in and stand behind.

I was lucky enough to be invited again for this year’s ceremony, which took place Monday night at Carnegie Hall. I walked out with the same reaction of complete awe and inspiration at the amazing things the honorees are doing. As honoree and Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor (who was honored along with teammate Kerri Walsh) put it, “I can’t wait to wake up tomorrow, because I feel like a changed woman just sitting here tonight.”

In her opening speech, Editor-in-Chief Cindi Leive noted that these awards are meant to leave us asking ourselves, “If we don’t speak up, who will? If we don’t act, who will?” She pointed out that President-elect Barack Obama’s victory last week is the perfect example of why you should never let anyone tell you “that’ll never happen”-because it just did. Presenter and 2002 winner Katie Couric later pointed out that the real beauty of the evening is that it leaves everyone in attendance wondering, “what more can I do?”

I’ll admit that I was skeptical at what supermodel-turned-talk-show-host Tyra Banks had accomplished to deserve being honored with the likes of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and environmentalist Jane Goodall. I could relate to Banks’ honesty in saying that she was “shaking a little bit, but shaking it off” at the prospect of simply being in the presence of all of these groundbreaking women.

This pretty much summed up just how nervous I was feeling the day before the ceremony, when I was assigned to escort 1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner and WOTY honoree Rigoberta Menchú Tum to her hotel after picking her up from the airport.

Throughout Monday’s ceremony, many of the women honored credited their mothers, expounding to the audience that they owe a lot to their mothers for believing in them. My own mother passed away when I was 11 years old. I know I would not have been sitting in that limousine on Sunday afternoon chatting with Tum in Spanish about her accomplishments if it weren’t for my own mother. She hasn’t been able to see how hard I’ve worked to get here-but I am absolutely certain that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her.

Tum is one of only 12 women who have received the Nobel Peace Prize throughout its 107-year existence. She and with five of the seven living female laureates have joined together to create the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which works to empower women to fight to end violence and injustice against women and advance gender equality. Tum has specifically fought for the rights of indigenous people in her native Guatemala. The seventh living laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, remains under house arrest in Burma, and those behind the Nobel Women’s Initiative will not rest until she joins them.

One of the evening’s most powerful moments which moved me to tears was the honoring of Nujood Ali and Shada Nasser of Yemen, which is known for being one of the worst examples of gender inequality in the world. Poverty isn’t simply prevalent there-for most Yemeni children, it’s all they know. TEN-year-old Ali is Yemen’s first child bride to legally end her marriage with the help of Nasser, a human rights lawyer. Ali sought Nasser’s help after enduring two months of horrifying abuse by her 30-year-old husband. She has ignited a revolution of young girls demanding divorces, as nearly 50 percent of Yemeni girls are forced into marriage by age 18-some even as young as eight. Ali credits Nasser with helping her to get her childhood and freedom back; she hopes to eventually become a lawyer as well and help girls just like her.

This year’s Lifetime Achievement Award went to Goodall, a powerful advocate for a greener planet. Described as having a “soft voice with a loud message,” Goodall’s research has helped push science to rework the line that separates humans and animals and has inspired a new generation of environmental awareness through her Roots and Shoots program for young people.

WOTY is not complete without the magazine’s token celebrity with a cause (who also serves as the December issue’s cover star), actress Nicole Kidman. As a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Kidman has visited shelters for abused women throughout the world, from Switzerland to Kosovo. Kidman pointed out that while one in three girls and women will face abuse in her lifetime, violence against women is not inevitable and we can stop it.

The last, but most certainly not least, honoree of the evening was Sen. Clinton. Described by the magazine as “having won while losing” during her quest for the presidency, Clinton noted that her own mother was born before women had the right to vote and her daughter, Chelsea, got to vote for her mother for president. Clinton pointed out that although it might seem obvious, women’s rights are human rights and vice versa, and everyone honored on Monday needs to continue their hard work and stand up for women and girls everywhere.

Other honorees included Chanel CEO Maureen Chiquet, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and artist Kara Walker. Another key aspect of the ceremony is the Glamour Women of the Year Fund, which was initiated in 2007 as a cause designed to ensure readers that any donations they contribute go directly to the winners’ respective causes. This year, in honor of Ali and Nasser, Glamour has chosen the Girls World Communication Center, one of the only schools in Yemen that poor girls are permitted to attend, as the recipient. During Monday’s ceremony, 1990 WOTY honoree Ling Chai’s computer software company, Jenzabar, donated $100,000 to this cause, which will help child brides and girls at risk of early marriage finish school. If you’re feeling inspired to make a gift to the next generation of unstoppable females (to quote Leive), visit www.glamour.com/woty. As Leive wrote in her December Editor’s Note, “There are few problems in the world that a committed woman can’t resolve.”

Emilia Benton is a senior print journalism student. You may e-mail her at [email protected].