When asked to describe the past year (2023) in one word, many would simply say MESS.  Bouncing prices, wars, and a disruptive political process fueled uncertainty. For me, however, both in Davis County and the nation, the year was defined by a different word:  WOMEN.

The “weaker sex” grew muscles in 2023. As a female friend told me, “While the guys were in the basement playing video games, the women took charge.”

Once again, the year saw more women college graduates than male graduates, both nationally and in Utah, a gap that will play out in the future with even more feminine power.

Then there is “Barbie,” which stomped all over the male-action super-hero movies. The film is closing in on $650 million in U.S. box office receipts, the highest grossing movie in North America. For nearly a month, movie theaters in Centerville, Layton, and Farmington were surrounded by a pink haze. Some men were puzzled by the cult-like interest; others chuckled along with their girlfriends and wives while watching Barbie and Ken figure out life in the “real world.” The director, of course: a woman.

Who would have thought in the mid-1900s that a toy doll would be catching waves in 2023? (According to Mattel, more than 100 Barbies are sold every minute in the world. As for “working” Barbies introduced 64 years ago, the top four careers were ballerina, pop star, doctor, and gymnast.)

For every person buying a “Barbie” ticket, there was one buying a bracelet and other merch to celebrate the Taylor Swift “Eras” concert tour, the biggest tour in history grossing over $1 billion. Many Davis County residents were fortunate enough to win the lottery for a chance to purchase tickets to “Eras” in Las Vegas while others flooded the local theaters to catch the concert film, another record-setter for musical theater release. Who finished behind Taylor for concert attendance? Another woman, Beyonce.

Much of Davis County is within the 2nd Congressional District where women took the top two spots in election balloting. The male candidate finished a distant third, far back from our new U.S. House Rep. Celeste Maloy. Locally, the two major Davis County cities (Layton and Bountiful) are headed by female mayors, Kaysville’s female mayor was spotlighted in TV endorsement ads for Sen. Mike Lee, and the majority of the county school board are women.

Even in sports, women took the headlines. Women-led gymnastics sparked again at the University of Utah, but even more impressive were the Lady Utes basketball team who came within a foul shot of making it to the NCAA Championship game (and are still ranked among the country’s best in 2024).

As 2023 ended, women also dominated the normally male-oriented non-fiction book list. Of the four biggest sellers, three were written by women (former Rep. Liz Cheney, Brittney Spears, and Barbra Streisand). Who was the top-selling fiction novelist? A woman, Colleen Hoover.

In death, we lost two great women, Sandra Day O’Conner and Roslyn Carter. In life, the year was all about women. And as a preview of 2024, which presidential candidate do pollsters show having the most total support among all voters? Hello, Nikki Haley! 

Bryan Gray, a longtime Davis County resident, is a former school teacher and has been a columnist for more than 26 years in newspapers along the Wasatch Front.