On Thursday (Feb. 20), TIME unveiled its highly coveted Women of the Year list, with 2025's edition focusing on the many women "working toward creating a better, more equitable world.” Among the 13 honorees were Aj’a Wilson and Jordan Chiles, both of whom competed in the Paris Olympics, along with Gambian activist Fatou Baldeh.
“This year, we honor women who have identified a problem and vowed to be part of the solution,” the publications editorial director Lucy Feldman penned in a press release. Wilson, Chiles and actress Nicole Kidman will also be honored at the forthcoming Women of the Year Gala on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles.
Take a look at some of the Black women highlighted in 2025’s Women of the Year list below.
A’ja Wilson
2024 was a massive year for Wilson, to say the very least. Though she and the Las Vegas Aces fell short of a third consecutive WNBA championship, the University of South Carolina alum was unanimously named Most Valuable Player. She also set an impressive single-season record with 1,021 total points and 451 rebounds. On top of that, Wilson released her book, “Dear Black Girls,” and debuted the Nike A’One — the first signature shoe from a Black WNBA player in over two decades — earlier in the month.
On the topic of equity between the WNBA and NBA, she told TIME, “It will take a shift of society to understand that we are all, both leagues, great at what we do.” Wilson added, “I would love for my bank account to look like an NBA player’s, but realistically, will it ever get there? I don't know. But what I do know is what I got now and how I can continue just to spread that out to young girls.”
Jordan Chiles
Meanwhile, Chiles made history at the Paris Olympics, where she and Simone Biles were a part of the first all-Black podium for the women’s floor competition. The Oregon native took home a bronze medal, though not without a fight after it was stripped away from her by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“Knowing there weren't a lot of women of color when I was younger and knowing that I can help that — and I've been helping that — is really cool,” Chiles said of how sports as a whole has changed since she first became a gymnast. “That all-Black podium was just the beginning of something that will hopefully continue, not just within our sport, but within sports in general.”
Fatou Baldeh
The West African nation of Gambia banned female genital mutilation in 2015, but a renewed push from conservative clerics in 2024 threatened to reverse the decision. Fortunately, Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL) founder Fatou Baldeh, a survivor herself, stepped up to help put an end to it for good. Her advocacy ultimately paid off when the country's parliament rejected the proposed repeal in July of that year.
“It’s 2025, and little girls are being pinned down and their genitals are being cut in the name of culture and tradition,” she detailed to the publication. “When this whole issue happened in Gambia, it really made people pay attention.”
Among other notable Black women honorees, the standout list saw author and transgender rights activist Raquel Willis and Claire L. Babineaux-Fontenot, CEO of Feeding America, a national nonprofit foodbank working to end hunger in the U.S. Check out the rest of the deserving Women of the Year.