It’s been a year.
It may be a challenge to wrap our heads around this endless year, but you can lay your eyes on these interesting, illuminating photos. Find 12 images below, one from each month, either taken by a female photographer or capturing the lives of women (or both), during moments big and small.
Hang in there. 2020 is nearly behind us.
January
A large percentage of millennials have turned away from religion (or perhaps never embraced it at all). Still, for the last decade, roughly 100 women have professed final vows each year, which is part of the process of becoming a nun or sister, writes Rachael Allen in The Lily. With college degrees and work experience, newly vowed women of today are more diverse than generations prior. Here’s a look at the lives of millennial nuns.
February
One might argue that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knows the power of an image (and body language) better than most politicians, Amber Phillips writes in The Washington Post. The Post put together a piece highlighting Pelosi’s most iconic power moves, including the moment when she tore apart a copy of President Trump’s State of the Union speech.
March
Remember the early days of the pandemic, when Zoom offered a new way to have happy hours and game nights with old friends you hadn’t seen since middle school? The Lily’s Caroline Kitchener spoke with women on how to host the perfect virtual get-together. In these early days, we were blissfully unaware of the impending “Zoom fatigue.”
April
As the reality of self-quarantining for the long haul set in, By The Way, The Post’s travel initiative, asked three of their City Guide photographers to show readers what life was like for them during the pandemic. Erica Canepa in Buenos Aires noticed her neighbors taking advantage of any small outdoor space they had. She even formed a new friendship with a woman a few apartments over.
May
Photographer Yan Cong and her partner, comic artist Krish Raghav, spent two weeks quarantining in separate hotel rooms after returning to Beijing, where they live, after traveling. They documented the bizarre experience for By The Way.
June
The pandemic forced Sergine Lucien, Dave Marecheau and their two children out of their home. After a story about Lucien and her family was published in The Post, the chief executive of Camping World donated a new RV for them to live in. Photographer Eve Edelheit followed the family’s story.
July
When pregnancy is treated as a heterosexual or cisgender experience, lesbian, gay, transgender, nonbinary and queer families can be left feeling othered, excluded or diminished, writes Madeleine Thomas in The Lily. At Rainbow Doula DC, which its founder says is the only queer-specific doula collective in the Washington, D.C., area, parenthood is far from binary.
August
Before Breonna Taylor’s name became a rallying cry chanted in protests and scrawled on signs, she was Ju’Niyah Palmer’s sister — her companion, role model and confidante. Palmer talked to Post reporter Caitlin Gibson about the weight of losing her sister. “She was my person. I was her shadow,” she said.
September
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court, died Sept. 18 at age 87. For a story in The Lily, previous clerks and colleagues of the justice remembered her profound impact.
October
Ahead of the election, Lily staff writer Caroline Kitchener profiled six women around the country who were attempting to flip their congressional districts. Candace Valenzuela, shown here, narrowly lost in Texas’s 24th Congressional District.
November
A record number of Americans tracked down ballot boxes and stood in long lines to vote in this year’s election; volunteers all over the country worked to ensure their votes were counted. The Lily shadowed two women working at polling sites in Washington, D.C., to see what their days looked like.
December
Closing out a year like no other, mall Santas still greeted children — behind face shields. Photographer Amy Lombard highlighted the surreal interactions.
