The Subtle But Powerful Detail Many Missed On TIME’s ‘Person Of The Year’ Cover

Taylor Swift and Ashley Judd are part of the ‘The Silence Breakers’, the group that graces the cover of TIME magazine’s 2017 ‘Person of The Year’ issue. What many might not have noticed is that the cover also features the elbow of another woman whose identity is not revealed.

“The image you see partially on the cover is of a woman we talked to, a hospital worker from the middle of the country, who doesn’t feel that she can come forward without threatening her livelihood,” TIME editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal said on Today.

The woman who was cropped out of the cover is a young hospital worker from Texas who told her story anonymously to protect her family’s livelihood.

She decided to share her experience with sexual harassment “as an act of solidarity to represent all those who could not speak out.” Her inclusion on the cover as an undisclosed identity represents the many voices who are afraid to come forward with their own stories.

Charlotte Alter, TIME’s national correspondent, also told BuzzFeed that the inclusion of the elbow was “very intentional.”