A wise woman once said, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” And while I agree with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg down to my very core, it turns out many Americans just aren’t there yet. We belong in all places, except the Oval Office, apparently.
It’s taken me a few days to gather my thoughts about the democratic primary election in the wake of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s departure from the presidential race last week.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that my candidate of choice to become the next President of the United States was Liz Warren. I was so confident in her ability to lead this country, and so excited to see her do it, that for the first time in my life, I got out from behind the safety of social media and volunteered for a campaign. I made phone calls to voters in my home state of New Hampshire, then canvassed local Sacramento neighborhoods in the weeks leading up to the California primary. It turned out to be a Not-So-Super Tuesday for those of us in the Warren camp.
I’ve spent the last few days wading through a think fog of disappointment. On Wednesday, I sat at my desk at work, seething, sick to my stomach, wishing I had the ability to hulk out of my own skin, because my body couldn’t possibly contain the emotions raging below its surface. Anger. Disappointment. Defiance. Sadness. Denial. Fear. Pride. Determination. Bewilderment. Conviction. Heartbreak. And that masochistic little turd – Hope.
Then Thursday came. I was on the bus, on my way to work, when the news hit Twitter that Warren would suspend her campaign. It took absolutely everything I had not to burst into tears. I fought them back again, when she made her announcement to the press, and again, when she spoke to her supporters directly on a conference call that afternoon. I wasn’t surprised that she had to end her campaign, but I was surprised at how much it hurt. How visceral my anger and sadness felt. How much it felt like 2016 all over again…but somehow even worse.
On Friday morning, I sat down for my weekly appointment with my therapist. She asked me how my week had been, how I was doing. And I finally broke down, sobbing. I told her about the past few days and how upset I was. As she waited for me to dry my eyes, she observed, “You’re absolutely right to be upset. A lot of women are. But it seems like this is really personal for you.”
She was right. It took the better part of our session and a lot more tears to nail it down, but it boils down to this: I have spent my whole life fighting a battle between being the woman that I am and the woman other people think I should be. And in Elizabeth Warren, I saw the same struggle -another woman presenting her true self to the world, and being told it wasn’t good enough.
I think what I took so personally – and found so demoralizing – is the realization that despite all the progress we have made, we still live in a country where people believe women can be anyone or achieve anything, but only within the confines of womanhood as that person defines it.
As a little girl, I remember being teased for my clothes. For being a teacher’s pet. For being loud. For being “obnoxious.” For taking up more space than a little girl should. As I got older, the expectations intensified. Be skinny. Be athletic. Be the smartest. Cross your legs. Wear some makeup. Don’t swear. Ladies don’t ever swear. Tone it down. Don’t talk so much. Don’t post this on social media – it makes people uncomfortable. Don’t say that, it’s unladylike. You’ll make a great mom someday. What do you mean you don’t want kids? Don’t worry, you’ll change your mind – you still have time.
This video, which recently went viral, perfectly illustrates my point.
For my whole life, people have been telling me how to be a lady – my family, my peers, the media – everyone has a box they think I need to fit in. That their idea of how a woman should act/speak/look/be is the only acceptable option. And it feels like I have been stuck in this never-ending struggle to break out of those boxes so I can just be myself.
I saw this in Elizabeth Warren. She is an incredibly smart, driven, strong, passionate, articulate, energetic, experienced, compassionate woman. Yes, she has flaws, but who doesn’t? I still believe she would make an exceptional President. But voters made it very clear – she’s not the kind of lady they want.
“She’s obnoxious.”
“She needs to tone it down.”
“Her voice is just so shrill.”
These are just a few of the more common complaints I heard from voters, many of them Democrats who claim to espouse ideals like feminism and equality. Here’s the thing: feminism doesn’t come with an asterisk. It’s the fight for equality for all women, not just the ones who fit in your box. You would never tell your daughter, “Reach for the stars…just not that one.” Yet so many people were willing to say, “we need a woman in the White House…just not that woman.”
The other thing I heard over and over from undecided Democrats leading up to the primary was this: “I like Warren a lot! But I’m not sure she can beat Trump.” Let’s be real for a minute – we all know she could beat Trump. She’d be washing the White House floors with his hairpiece before the first debate question was even over. So stop parroting this misogynistic rhetoric that implies a woman could never win.
The thing she couldn’t beat was hundreds of years of sexism that have become so deeply ingrained in American culture that we don’t even notice it. What she couldn’t beat was a generation of Americans who think they have some god-given right to tell her how to be a woman. What she couldn’t beat was fear, which drove millions of people to vote for what was considered “safe” (by the standards of the aforementioned generation), rather than what they felt was best.
Don’t get me wrong – I know plenty of people are voting for other candidates because they truly believe in them. And I respect that. I’m not naive or arrogant enough to assume everyone would have voted for Warren if circumstances were different. But I do know a lot of people wrote her off for the wrong reasons. And I wonder if we’d be looking at a very different race right now, if more people had been brave enough to chose hope over fear.
Despite the unfair expectations and blatant sexism she faced, Elizabeth Warren has handled the ending of her campaign with a strength and graciousness that I truly admire. In her interview with Rachel Maddow on Thursday night, Senator Warren – clearly exhausted from an emotional day – said something I’ll never forget:
Through all of this, I keep thinking about one thing. One person. My best friend’s daughter. Evelyn will be 16 months old next week. I think about what life will be like for her as she gets older. I wonder what boxes she’ll have to break out of, what expectations she’ll defy, and what obstacles we’ll actually be able to remove from her path before she has to find a way around them.
I won’t lose hope. And I will persist. Because Evelyn and millions of other young girls need to hear us say, “You can be anything you want to be,” and know it’s true. I dream of a generation of women who don’t grow up thinking or living “outside the box” because we haven’t tried to force them into one.
So I leave you with this one final request: Only tell girls to reach for the stars if you’re willing to build them a rocket ship to get there. Because as a wise man once said, “If you build it, they will come” run.
Amy Mac in Sac 