25 Outstanding Women Our Editors Admire This International Women’s Day

Any piece of writing by Shon Faye—a breakout British novelist—is an exhibition of vulnerability and humor, and points you wish you were smart enough to think of first. Faye’s pop culture prowess is unmatched, but it’s her part-memoir, part-polemics that have fought their way up the Sunday Times best-seller lists.

Her first nonfiction book, The Transgender Issue, uses identity as a mere jumping-off point to look at wider society, arguing that liberty for any much-maligned minority is liberation for all. She spent years honing in on how to use hot-button issues as a trojan horse for unashamed left wing politics (the agility required to crowbar a critique of “the machinations of late capitalism” into a review of Cher and only Cher in Mamma Mia 2 is, quite frankly, inspiring). And just as All About Love by bell hooks did before it, Faye’s Love in Exile shows how the personal is political. Going beyond superficial “heteropessimism”—a very fancy way of saying that straights are in crisis—it examines how other factors, such as capitalism, misogyny, and our own delusions, impact love.

Faye is one of those once-in-a-generation writers whose words effortlessly cut through the noise and manage to entertain while enlightening you. She’s one to watch and one to read. —Kemi Alemoru, head of editorial content, Glamour UK

Arvida Byström

As an artist, Arvida Byström breaks conventions, which is something I admire. With her mixture of cute (AI) selfies, too much pink, glitter, and provocative pornography aesthetics, she implements her own definition of feminism on her social media channels and in her exhibitions: a modern, digital feminism that not only fights against society, but also has fun playing with her “chick” associations.

Byström takes the hyper-girl aesthetic that’s so often criticized and turns it into a tool of political provocation—especially in the context of issues such as sexuality and body politics. It’s fascinating to see how she leans into commercialism and exaggerated sexiness as an artistic strategy and openly finances her art with work in the erotic field. She poses the question: Why is it okay to make a living from art but not from lust? Her cyber-feminism feels playful, uncompromising, free of moral panic, and entirely original. —Madeline Dangmann, senior fashion editor, Glamour Germany