How The Leaders On The Forbes’ Power Women List Prevailed In The Face Of A Rough 2025

In a year marked by setbacks for female employment and advancement opportunities, the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women managed to exert their power — on philanthropy, AI, finance and entertainment.

By Maggie McGrath, Forbes Staff.
Originally Published by Forbes | December 10, 2025

There was a moment towards the beginning of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s $400 million-grossing Cowboy Carter Tour this summer when the Grammy-winning artist wrapped up her rendition of the Star-Spangled banner with lyrics from the Paul McCartney’s civil rights anthem “Blackbird”— “You were only waiting for this moment to be free”—to transition to “Freedom,” her certified-platinum collaboration with Kendrick Lamar. As she sang, the megascreen behind Knowles-Carter flashed the words: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.”

It was a statement about ownership in country music, civil rights and women reclaiming power (as another graphic showed in that set), all in just a few minutes. But coming from someone who has appeared on the Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women 15 times since its inception, it serves as a message for those feeling disempowered in light of the setbacks women faced throughout 2025.

This last year was, by many metrics, a tough one for women: In the United States, nearly half a million women left the labor force between January and October, one of the largest drops in American history. Just 54% of companies, according to McKinsey and Lean In, are currently placing a high priority on helping female employees advance to higher positions (down from 90% who called this a priority just four years ago). Meanwhile, UN Women is sounding the alarm on the rise of online misogyny, reporting in June that the worsening toxicity of the “manosphere” is seeping into broader culture and has severe implications for how women are treated—a warning that bore out in November when President Trump snapped at a female journalist, telling her to be “quiet, piggy.”

And yet, there are plenty of signs that women are not staying quiet—and in fact are setting records, from the highest number of women in the U.S Senate (a record first set in 2020 but reclaimed in the most recent election) to the unprecedented number of women set to be governors at the same time (14 starting in January) and the record number of self-made women billionaires (114 across the globe).

The 100 Most Powerful Women in the world are boldly embracing their roles. Sanae Takaichi, who makes her Power Women debut at No. 3, was elected as prime minister of Japan, becoming the first woman in history to helm the $4 trillion (GDP) nation. Already she’s rushed ahead with bold statements like this recent, controversial one, referring to a hit anime and manga franchise: “Today I would like to conclude my speech with a famous line from Attack on Titan: ‘Just shut your mouths. And invest everything in me!!’”

Billionaire philanthropists MacKenzie Scott (No. 11) gave nearly $900 million to higher education including more than $700 million to historically Black colleges while Melinda French Gates (No. 13) gave a quarter of a billion dollars to 80-plus nonprofits, including more than $100 million to advance research in women’s health. Taylor Swift (No. 21) paid a reported $300 million to reassert ownership over her master recordings from her first six albums, and AMD CEO Lisa Su (No. 10) struck an agreement with OpenAI to build six gigawatts of AI chips over the next several years—in a deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars and transform the AI ecosystem.

Powering massive change is something we look for when compiling the annual list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. The 2025 Power List was, like its predecessors, determined by four main metrics: money, media, impact and spheres of influence. For political leaders, we considered gross domestic products and populations; for corporate chiefs, revenues, valuations and employee counts were critical. Media mentions and social reach were analyzed for all.

The result: 100 women who command a collective…[MORE]

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