"There's something about Bono's 'Woman of the Year' award we're all missing."

I know, I get it.

You’re mad.

Glamour magazine creates a ‘Woman Of The Year’ award, and then goes and gives it to a MAN. A man! Can we not have anything of our own?

When I first read that Bono was the recipient of this year’s newly-created ‘Man Of The Year’ award – over nominees Simone Biles, Nadia Murad and Zendaya – I was equally outraged.

Just a week earlier I had been reading how a man won the International Olympic Committee’s ‘Women And Sport’ award. Seriously. First we miss out on a female president, and now this. What the hell was going on?

But as the internet’s hotlines lit up with disgruntled women across the globe having a go at Bono, I realised something.

He deserved that award.

Introducing Glamour’s first-ever Man of the Year, Bono! Fun fact about the @u2 front man: Bono cofounded the organization @onecampaign, which has helped get lifesaving AIDS drugs to millions of people in Africa. Through ONE, Bono helped launched the Poverty Is Sexist campaign aimed toward helping women who survive on less than $2 a day. In his eyes, powerful men can, and should, take on more deep-rooted issues. “We can do much more than we think we can. Leaders are accountable to all of us. If they don’t support women and girls, vote them out of office.” #GlamourWOTY #shattertheceiling (????: @samjonespictures)

A photo posted by Glamour Magazine (@glamourmag) on Nov 1, 2016 at 7:39am PDT

OK, let’s take a look at what the Glamour awards are actually all about.

Glamour, of course, is a magazine owned by Condé Nast. A big one. It’s one of the world’s longest running publications, having being around since 1939.

In 1980, Glamour decided it was high time to celebrate extraordinary and inspirational women, and so created the ‘Women Of The Year’ awards.

Over the years, winners have come from all walks of life, from entertainment and music, business, sports, science, medicine, education, and even politics. Previous winners have included singer Cher, author Gloria Feldt, and TV host Ellen DeGeneres.

The qualifying criteria is simple: be someone who lifts women up, gives them a voice, and inspires them to greater things.

@gabby3shabby, @freidapinto, and Amber Heard performed a reading of Stanford sexual assault victim Emily Doe’s court statement and an essay she penned for Glamour’s December issue. #GlamourWOTY

A photo posted by Glamour Magazine (@glamourmag) on Nov 14, 2016 at 9:49pm PST

Right, so. Bono.

Best known as the man of transition lenses and consistently sheer t-shirts. The rock star of U2. The husband to powerhouse Ali Hewson. The dude who sung ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’. A man, by any definition, and most definitely not a woman.

So what the heck is he doing crashing the Glamour awards? Because Bono, my dear reader, is one of the great modern feminists.

Among a slew of other charitable deeds over the years (including Amnesty International, Live Aid, Chernobyl, AIDS, Live 8 and more), Bono has been a lifelong campaigner for equality between the sexes.

In recent years, Bono has been particularly vocal about why the battle for gender equality must be fought by both women and men. His own mother passed away at the age of 14, and he has been with wife Ali ever since. He is the family of two girls, and describes them as a ‘family of activists’.

Daughter Eve notes that before heading off on charity tours, Bono would say to them, “I’m leaving you, so other fathers don’t have to leave their daughters.”

His ONE campaign to end extreme poverty has seen countless women vaccinated, educated, inspired, and given a chance at life otherwise denied by their circumstances. His ‘Poverty Is Sexist’ campaign has in particular shone the light on women in developing countries.

In his words: “We have pledged our life to fighting this battle.”

A photo of Bono from his recent trip visiting refugee camps in Dadaab

A photo posted by onecampaign (@onecampaign) on Apr 15, 2016 at 2:21pm PDT

What does sexism mean to you?

Maybe it was a missed job opportunity, or a slur from a male colleague. Maybe it was realising your pay was significantly less than your male counterpart. Maybe it was dodging fertility questions once passing the age of 30.

Look, whatever it was, it’s serious. Any shade of sexism is serious. Equality is a battle that’s fought on an infinite number of battlefields from the office to the home and back again.

But what is so exciting about Glamour‘s selection this year is finding someone who bringing our attention from our first-world feminist journey to somewhere that needs it maybe a little bit more – that is, developing nations.

“Poverty is sexist. Poverty is worse for women and girls,” said Bono is his acceptance speech.

“It denies them the essentials like human rights and health, but it also denies them a way out through education and opportunity. They can work the land, but they can’t own it. They can earn the money, but they can’t bank it.”

This kind of sexism is the type that doesn’t offend women, or slow them down… but kills them.

Bono is a tireless campaigner for this cause, for women in underprivileged circumstances. And for that, he deserves to be recognised.

Not because there’s a ‘shortage of females’.

Because he deserves it.

I, for one, am extremely happy that Glamour have got with the times and created a ‘Man Of The Year’ award. Because there ARE good men out there fighting for women’s rights.

I have a younger brother, and many of you will have sons. They need men like Bono to look up to, to use as a yardstick of what is good and right in the world. Women fighting for women deserve a Glamour award, bloody oath, but so do men who are fighting for women.

It is basic human psychology that we respond in a more lasting and powerful way to positive reinforcement than we do to negativity.

I am always conscious to avoid battering the entire male population for inequality (#NotAllMen) but more than ever we should focus not on shaming those few who let men down, but lifting up and celebrating those who don’t.

Women of the year (awards) with the women of my life – Bono @Glamourmag @ONECampaign #povertyissexist

A photo posted by U2 Official (@u2) on Nov 15, 2016 at 5:37pm PST

Give Bono the award, I say.

Give Dagim Zinabu Tekle, the Ethiopian journalist who won the IOC’s ‘Woman And Sport Award’ all the recognition in the world. (He did, after all, set up a radio programme designed to encourage women and girls to become more involved in sport and “…pursue their goals and dreams.”)

These are great men.

Feminism is not a woman’s club: it is a movement for women AND men, for everyone who believes in equality for the sexes.

Let’s stop being outraged for Bono crashing our girl’s brigade, and starting wishing, hoping, asking, and encouraging more to do so.