There have been some great moments this year, but for every great moment, there's been a terrible one. The news has been full of villains all year, but who has been bad enough for us to declare them Villain of the Year at the 2019 Female First Awards?
Nominee: The Media vs Meghan Markle
The reactions of the British tabloids towards literally anything Meghan Markle has done this year - whether it's wearing jeans to Wimbledon or wearing black nail polish - has been possibly the worse case of mass bullying we've ever seen. She's been shamed for avoiding the public eye during her pregnancy as if marrying the man she loves has forfeited any right she has to privacy, and attacked for continual problems within her family life.
Frankly the media has been furious that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have expressed a desire to be treated like human beings rather than jesters put in their position solely for the entertainment of the public, and the pure underlying racism within that acrimony has made us ashamed of our fellow journalists.
Nominee: Politics
It's been one of the most divisive years of the decade for politics as Brits got through another year without Brexit happening, Boris Johnson was elected and the future of the NHS became terrifyingly unclear. The rift between those voting for Labour and those voting for Conservative has been colossal, and few of us have managed to get through the last few months without falling out with someone over their political affiliation.
Not only that but over in the US Donald Trump has become the third president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. That hardly means a victory for those wanting him out of office, however; he faces a trial in the Senate but since Republicans control the Senate and all of them voted against his impeachment, he's likely to be exonerated.
Nominee: Jeffrey Epstein
In July this year, American financier Jeffrey Epstein was arrested under sex trafficking charges more than ten years after his child prostitution conviction. He died a month later in his jail cell from apparent suicide, though this cause of death has been disputed by his lawyers. Following that, the judge was forced to dismiss the charges, meaning that the 16 women who accused him of trafficking - some as young as 14 at the time these crimes were allegedly committed - will now never face justice. Perhaps the worst part of this is that some of his high-status friends could have known about it, and still never reported him.
Nominee: Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun
Taylor Swift slammed both record executives for their conduct after Borchetta sold Taylor Swift's back catalogue to Braun, despite knowing the singer's feelings about him and having "pleaded" to be able to own her work for a long time. She made her feelings known on her official Tumblr in June, revealing that she only found out about Borchetta selling her masters when it came out in the press.
"All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years", she said of Scotter Braun, who she went on to say bullied her about an "illegally recorded" phone call she had with Kanye West. "Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words 'Scooter Braun' escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to."
Nominee: Anti-vaxxers
Spreading dangerous medical propaganda across the world literally since vaccines were invented is, of course, the anti-vax movement. Despite their being no peer-reviewed, accepted studies on the dangers of vaccinations, anti-vaxxers are still determined to convince people that they cause the disease they are preventing, as well as autism, and other illnesses resulting from the "chemicals" within them.
We're sorry to disappoint you, anti-vaxxers, but "chemicals" are in everything, even ones that you consider to be poisonous; tuna has a mercury content, for example, and even apple seeds contain cyanide. In fact, it is actually the anti-vaxxers that are causing the measles outbreak to get wildly out of control. Not vaccinating your children means that those who are immunocompromised (such as the elderly, babies and the cancer-stricken) are catching the virus from them and subsequently being hospitalised or even dying.
And the winner is...
Politics - because nothing is more damaging and divisive than incompetent world leaders.
Tagged in Taylor Swift Meghan Markle Boris Johnson