“Everyone watches women’s sports.” You probably saw that slogan—the brainchild of athletes Chloe Kim, Simone Manuel, Sue Bird, and former Wave FC captain Alex Morgan—plastered on tees in every crowd shot at the Paris Olympics this summer. And the Olympians proved it.
San Diegan Ilona Maher led the US women’s rugby team to their first medal and landed a turn on Dancing with the Stars in the process. Swimmer Katie Ledecky clinched her place as the most decorated woman in Olympic history. Oceanside’s own Sky Brown nabbed team Great Britain a bronze medal for skateboarding… with a dislocated shoulder. And then there’s the staggering stat that, if American women were their own country, they would rank third for overall number of medals. In Paris, women ran the show.
That kind of visibility is a powerful currency. This issue is about exactly that, featuring women who we saw and said, “Damn, you’re doing the thing.” Like Danielle Boyer, the 23-year-old Indigenous engineer who saved for two years to join her high school robotics club. Now she’s at the forefront of using technology to preserve cultural heritage.
Or Meg Ferrigno, the entrepreneur who runs a B Corp that distributes free compostable period products to underserved communities. Or our cover star, Ann Najjar, who took a male-dominated position and made it her own.
Women make up 52 percent of San Diego’s population. They run or own 33 percent of all the city’s businesses. They head 70 percent of its households with children. Women are the list makers, the appointment schedulers, the budget balancers, the food shoppers. They are caregivers, financial planners, healthcare experts, therapists, personal assistants, teenager punching bags. And, with 59 percent of women over the age of 16 working for a paycheck, many of them are carrying the weight of two full-time jobs—at home and at work.
I offer these stats as perspective. The challenges women face aren’t universal, but there are commonalities in their stories. The women we feature in this issue didn’t walk a straight line to success. It took hard work, risky decisions, and the determination to overcome social and economic obstacles to get to where they are. This issue is as much about celebrating them as it is about naming the challenges and adversities women continue to face.
My hope is that you’ll see some aspect of your own path reflected in this journey. For every incredible story we discover, there are thousands more we haven’t seen whose accomplishments deserve to be told. Every year, San Diego Magazine lauds the women of San Diego at our annual Celebrating Women event, honoring the industry pioneers and rising stars that you, our readers, nominated and voted for. In 2024, we received a record-breaking 350 nominations, proof of the power of community. I personally can’t wait for the event on November 6 at UCSD’s Park & Market. I always leave feeling humbled and inspired.
This is why we do what we do, and why San Diego Magazine remains committed to telling the stories of all San Diegans. This month, these pages are dedicated to the women of this city who are doing the damn thing.
Here’s to you.
