"The image you see partially on the cover is of a woman we talked to, a hospital worker from the middle of the country, who doesn't feel that she can come forward without threatening her livelihood," Time editor in chief Edward Felsenthal said in an interview.
People have started noticing the "anonymous elbow" on the cover and are hailing it as the most symbolic and important part of the photo.
The elbow can be seen as representative of all the people who cannot show their face or who are too scared to speak up in public as they feel their life or livelihood could be threatened.
According to Time's Kira Pollack, the cover image, shot by photographer team Billy & Hells, was actually a composite of two photo shoots from Los Angeles and San Francisco.
"Beyond the cover image, Billy & Hells created a series of 24 photographs in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles over a 10-day period," Pollack said.
The anonymous woman on the cover is "a young hospital worker who had flown in from Texas".
"She too is a victim of sexual harassment but was there anonymously, she said, as an act of solidarity to represent all those who could not speak out," Time wrote in the piece about the #MeToo movement.
"From a distance, these women could not have looked more different. Their ages, their families, their religions and their ethnicities were all a world apart ... But on that November morning, what separated them was less important than what brought them together: a shared experience."
