TIME honours women who spoke up against sexual harassment as ‘Person of the Year’

TIME honours women who spoke up against ,sexual harassment as ‘Person of the Year’

Washington: Time magazine has named the worldwide movement against sexual harassment and assault, epitomized by the #MeToo social media hashtag, as the most influential "person" in 2017, the publication announced on Wednesday.

"This is the fastest moving social change we've seen in decades, and it began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women - and some men, too - who came forward to tell their own stories," Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal told NBC's "Today" program, referring to them as "the silence breakers."

"The roots of TIME’s annual franchise—singling out the person or persons who most influenced the events of the year—lie in the so-called great man theory of history, a phrasing that sounds particularly anachronistic at this moment. But the idea that influential, inspirational individuals shape the world could not be more apt this year," Felsenthal wrote, on why The Silence Breakers are the Person Of The Year.

"For giving voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing us all to stop accepting the unacceptable, the Silence Breakers are the 2017 Person of the Year," he added.