25 Years Later, Annie Leibovitz Raises the ‘Question of Women’ Again

In 1988, Annie Leibovitz met Susan Sontag during a shoot to support Sontag’s upcoming work of critical theory, AIDS and Its Metaphors. A dinner followed, for which the photographer anxiously prepared, reading Sontag’s writing, taking notes. It would be the start of a relationship that lasted 15 years, with Sontag catalyzing Leibovitz’s momentous volume of portraits Women (first published in 1999). “A book of photographs of women must, whether it intends to or not, raise the question of women,” Sontag wrote in the introduction. “There is no equivalent ‘question of men.’ Men, unlike women, are not a work in progress.”

The question of women —it’s a ridiculously large query. But Sontag’s argument was for capaciousness: “The point is that all the images are valid,” she asserted. “A