11 Powerful Women We Met Around the World in 2017
By Kyle Crichton LONDON — Since its inception in 2002, the Saturday Profile has aimed to bring to readers of The New York Times people around the world they probably have never heard of,
but who have led interesting lives and done extraordinary things, or perhaps recently gone through a remarkable experience.
Perhaps my favorite profile this year was Kiki Zhao’s stirring depiction of the remarkable Yu Xiuhua, now one of China’s
most read poets, a woman with cerebral palsy who lived most of her 41 years on a farm, writing at a low table.
She is now a literary sensation whose vivid, erotic poems are "stained with blood." Alice Schwarzer, who has battled for women’s rights for years, is stunned
that "an old-school sexist" like Donald J. Trump could win the United States presidency.
Carlotta Gall told the story of Henda Ayari, a French citizen of North African heritage
and anti-Salafist activist who accused a prominent Oxford professor of raping her.
Sweden’s foreign minister, Margot Wallstrom, a proponent of a "feminist foreign policy," opened up to Ellen Barry about
her abuse at the hands of an old boyfriend when she was a young woman, something she had never said publicly before.
She never finished high school, and says she "could write before she could read." Now, she is
invited to places like Stanford University and fends off comparisons to Emily Dickinson.
Born to royalty in Burma, Olive Yang, who died on July 31, rejected her birthright to become a cross-dressing warlord and opium trafficker.
