The Women of the Year Lunch was co-founded in 1955 by
Tony Lothian, Georgina Coleridge (journalist and
Marquess of Tweeddale), and
Odette Hallowes (a British spy captured and tortured by the Nazis during World War II). Lothian, a freelance journalist, had the inspiration for the Lunch – the first such event for what she called 'career women of distinction' – when she was refused entry to a men-only event. She recruited her two co-founders and together they drew up a list of 40 categories of employment. They then approached a woman working in each of these fields, asking them to nominate colleagues worthy of inviting to the Lunch. As the founding president of the Women of the Year Lunch, Lothian was keen to invite and celebrate women whose achievements were not otherwise being acknowledged, rather than using the event to further congratulate the few who were already famous. However, many of her unknown invitees did go on to achieve fame. Armatrading's successor as president,
Helena Kennedy, described The Women of the Year Lunch as being about: "women who do amazing things for each other and other people. There was a time when the lunch was only for women in hats of a certain class. But now it's a real celebration of women of all backgrounds who have done incredible things. There are women who have been through terrible experiences of losing a child or having cancer. And instead of taking it lying down, they put their pain into doing good for others. Women are fabulous". Taking a more negative view in 2005, Groskop recalled: "I remember asking a (female) newspaper editor 10 years ago if it was necessary to have a
women's page in the paper. Isn't everything in the news of interest to everyone? She saw what I was getting at but replied: 'If those topics were not written about there, they would not be written about at all.' If this is true, then WOYLA is still a revolutionary thing: a women's hall of fame. But it does seem a shame that their refrain – 'If we don't celebrate ourselves, who else will?' – hasn't changed since the 1950s." ==Prizes==