Taking Control, Leading the Way
On January 11th, just days after successfully regaining her position as speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi posed for the cover of ROlling StOne with three resilient members of the congressional freshman class: Jahana Hayes, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Despite chatter that incoming liberals would clash with the old guard, they all voted for her in the end and became strong supporters. “There was no sense that these were women who didn’t get along,” says Catriona Ni Aolain, ROlling StOne’s director of creative content, who produced the shoot with photographer Zoey Grossman. “I felt no tension or weird energy. The whole thing was very convivial.”
Now that Pelosi wields the speaker’s gavel, the House can launch serious investigations into the Trump administration and hold hearings on climate change and gun control, making the speaker the most powerful woman in the history of the country. She’s also the perfect cover subject for ROlling StOne’s Women Shaping the Future issue, which features interviews with leaders and visionaries across politics, music, TV, film, science, tech and more. Within these pages, Stevie Nicks reflects on becoming the first woman inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (22 men have received the honor), and folk-rock star Brandi Carlile, who booked her own all-women Girls Just Wanna Weekend festival in Mexico, talks about motherhood and “radical forgiveness.” There’s also an interview with new Planned Parenthood president Leana Wen, in which she breaks down her determination to overcome systemic obstacles to health care. And Stacey Abrams tells us what’s next after her game-changing gubernatorial campaign in Georgia. “I learned I can do this, we can do this,” Abrams says. “We need to be thinking about what else do we want? What else can we have?”
Despite the political and cultural upheaval in our country right now, the message we took away from these interviews is one of hope and promise. As Tessa Stuart says about interviewing Pelosi, “There was something deeply reassuring about sitting in the speaker’s office, the House of Representatives’ center of power, across from Nancy Pelosi. You got the sense — for the first time in years — that there was someone in control, and things were going to be OK.”