--- description: We likely won't have to wait so long for the next one title: Why It's Been 29 Years Since a Woman Was Person of the Year image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt973026e8993f9aae/6988747f5f570f2370b1eba8/time-person-of-the-year-women-covers2.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Here's Why It's Been 29 Years Since a Woman Was Person of the Year ## Video: Person of The Year 2015: Watch Angela Merkel's Year in Review [Watch (HLS stream): Person of The Year 2015: Watch Angela Merkel's Year in Review](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CG7O6dnC.m3u8) (3:47)  _Published 2015-12-09. Person of the year 2015: Watch Angela Merkel's Year in Review_  by [Radhika Jones](/author/radhika-jones/)  ## Radhika Jones Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 9, 2015 11:31 AM CUT  TIME (4); Photo Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME  by [Radhika Jones](/author/radhika-jones/)  ## Radhika Jones Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Dec 9, 2015 11:31 AM CUT The cover of TIME’s year-end issue of 1986 shows a confident woman in a red jacket, her gaze steady, her chin resting on her hand. It is [Corazon Aquino](http://time.com/4141663/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-fourth-woman "undefined"), the first woman President of the Philippines, a political outsider who upended a dictator by, as Pico Iyer wrote in his [cover story](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,963185,00.html "undefined"), “leading a democratic revolution that captured the world’s imagination.” If you look up the table of contents of that issue in the Time archive, you’ll find a line that reads “Woman of the Year.” Immediately following is a parenthetical: (Man of the Year). “Woman of the Year (Man of the Year)” — that’s how they did it back then. Like Wallis Simpson and Queen Elizabeth before her, Corazon Aquino was a woman in a man’s franchise. In 1999, TIME changed the title to Person of the Year. But not since [President Aquino](http://time.com/4141663/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-fourth-woman/ "undefined") has the Person of the Year been an individual woman. Not, at least, until 2015. Why the long wait? [As I wrote](http://poy.time.com/2013/12/11/where-are-women-of-the-year/ "undefined") a few years ago, the label of Person of the Year tends to favor people with institutional power. The choice reflects TIME’s view of who affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill. Since 1986 there’ve been four U.S. Presidents in the mix — three of them two-termers, all of them men. Plus a handful of leaders of the Soviet Union (and Russia), also all men. The Pope keeps being a man. And it’s a lot easier to make news from an address like the White House, the Kremlin or the Vatican. Or the Chancellery. In naming Angela Merkel this year’s Person, we’re not actually breaking with tradition. The Chancellor of Germany is the de facto leader of a continent and steward of the world’s fourth biggest economy. Merkel has been in office for a decade, emerging as a principled manager and a resolute diplomat. And as my colleagues [Nancy Gibbs](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel-choice/ "undefined"), [Karl Vick and Simon Shuster](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel/ "undefined") write, she faced significant global challenges in the past 12 months, challenges with consequences far beyond Germany. It’s easy to take the peace and prosperity of Europe for granted, until you remember that this is the continent that spent centuries at war with itself, then dragged the rest of the world into devastating conflicts, twice. When you add that it was Merkel’s own country that started the Second World War, her quest for stability and openness in a borderless Europe is all the more compelling. But ultimately, Merkel is doing her job — her very influential job. And it seems likely that, as more women assume roles of power around the world, from Christine Lagarde to Janet Yellen to Sheryl Sandberg to Aung San Suu Kyi, we will have more female candidates in the Person of the Year pipeline. I don’t think a woman is going to be Pope anytime soon, or take over from Putin. But I doubt it will be another 30 years before the Person of the Year is a woman. It might only be one. **_Read More:_** [_TIME’s 2015 Person of the Year_ _Is Angela Merkel_](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-angela-merkel/ "undefined") ### See All the Past Women Named TIME’s Person of the Year  1936: Wallis Simpson TIME  1937: Chiang Kai-shek and Soong May-ling TIME  1952: Queen Elizabeth II TIME  1966: Men and Women 25 and Under TIME  1969: The Middle Americans TIME  1975: American Women TIME  1986: Corazon Aquino TIME  2002: The Whistleblowers: Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley and Sherron Watkins TIME  2005: The Good Samaritans: Bill Gates, Bono, Melinda Gates TIME  2006: You TIME  2011: The Protester TIME  2014: The Ebola Fighters (left: Salome Karwah; right: Ella Watson-Stryker) TIME ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/"},"headline":"Here's Why It's Been 29 Years Since a Woman Was Person of the Year","datePublished":"2015-12-09T11:31:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:47.382Z","description":"We likely won't have to wait so long for the next one","url":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/","keywords":["Person of the Year topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt973026e8993f9aae/6988747f5f570f2370b1eba8/time-person-of-the-year-women-covers2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Radhika Jones","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/radhika-jones/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt973026e8993f9aae/6988747f5f570f2370b1eba8/time-person-of-the-year-women-covers2.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME person of the year women","caption":"TIME person of the year women","creditText":"TIME (4); Photo Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/","name":"Here's Why It's Been 29 Years Since a Woman Was Person of the Year"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Person of The Year 2015: Watch Angela Merkel's Year in Review","description":"Person of the year 2015: Watch Angela Merkel's Year in Review","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/CG7O6dnC/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2015-12-09T12:08:54.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/CG7O6dnC.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/","duration":"PT3M47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4141766/time-person-of-the-year-angela-merkel-women/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```