This may have been the best year for women since the dawn of time

Think about it. Frozen, a sister-love story, became the highest-grossing animated film of all time. While performing songs from her 2013 surprise album, Beyonce quoted Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie’s thoughts on feminism in front of a live audience at this year’s VMAs. For the first time ever, a woman (Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford professor) won the prestigious Fields Medal for Mathematics, widely considered the “Nobel Prize” of math. Janet Yellen became the first female chair of the Federal Reserve, GM and American Apparel both got female CEOS, and Apple and Facebook offered to cover elective egg-freezing for their employees. A 17 year-old girl became the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

But those are just the victories, and 2014 wasn’t necessarily so important because of all the “firsts” or “bests.” Instead, 2014 was characterized by loud, frustrating, and often unresolved discussions about justice for women that reached an unprecedented volume. We didn’t necessarily “win” any of these battles– and when it comes to debates over sexual assaults, domestic violence, and contraceptive coverage, it’s hard to know what “winning” looks like– but we fought them harder and louder than ever before.

Take, for example, the ever-thorny issue of sexual assault on college campuses. These assaults have been happening for years, rarely acknowledged and barely addressed. But this year, we’ve gone from whispering about sexual assault to shouting about it. In January, President Obama established a White House Task Force to protect students from sexual assault, and the spearheaded campaigns like 1 is 2 Many and Not Alone to raise awareness about campus assault. In May, the Department of Education released a list of universities under investigation for mishandling sexual assault cases. And in late July, Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) led a bipartisan coalition to introduce the Campus Safety and Accountability Act to reform the way colleges investigate and punish sexual assaults.