From Me to You
Women and Power :
What Happens Next ?
On the morning of November 8 , I got up , jogged to the gym , and cheerfully chatted with the woman working the earlybird shift at the front desk . I asked if she got time off to vote . “ Oh , I ’ m taking time off to vote today ,” she said — it was that important to her . It was important to me too . An hour later I proudly posted a picture of the various women who raised me , saying that I was casting my vote on behalf of all of them . I thought especially of my mother , who died when I was 19 , a pioneering woman who worked in the mostly male field of biochemistry ( and still managed to be home by 6:00 most nights — wish she were around for me to ask for tips on that ).
She would have loved casting her vote for a woman . Later , as I took my family — including my 14-year-old daughter — off to NYC ’ s Javits Center for the evening to watch what we thought would be a historic moment for women of all political stripes , I was wearing my suffragette T-shirt and my mother ’ s pearl earrings . We all know how that story ended . Now , I ’ m not breaking out the Kleenex over the fact that my candidate lost . Poli tics is big-girl-pants territory : If you ’ re not ready to lose , don ’ t get in the game . But to many young women ( who voted for Hillary Clinton 2 to 1 ), this was not a regular loss ; it was a surreal bad joke in which a woman who has worked her whole life for one goal gets close , is knocked down , works hard again , and finally , just as the movie-peak coronation scene is about to happen — as pollsters all agree it will this time — BAM ! The entire country gives her an epic head fake and goes for the other guy .
I will leave it to the thousands of history books sure to be written about this election to sort out how much of a factor gender ultimately was , or wasn ’ t , in the outcome . But on the morning of November 9 , it really looked like America just didn ’ t want to have a female president .
Just hours into processing that , I got a query from a news outlet looking for comment : “ Was there something women didn ’ t relate to about Hillary ? Why did they find her less likable than Donald Trump ?” The questions made me want to put my fist through the computer screen . First , for how simplistic they were ; the results of this election show deep divisions in how Americans see this country — profound rifts around issues of race , immigration , income . The idea that the results could have been swayed if Clinton had only worn more pink , or smiled more , or not made some random comment 25 years ago about not staying home to bake cookies , seems like wishful thinking at best , female-blaming at worst . ( It ’ s insulting to female Trump supporters too — most of whom I assume had more meaningful reasons for voting for their candidate than just “ Hilz doesn ’ t seem like someone I wanna get a beer with .”)
But beyond that , the questions stung
CLINTON : MELINA MARA / THE WASHINGTON POST / CONTRIBUTOR / GETTY IMAGES . WOMEN WALKING : MICHAEL WOOLLEY / THELICENSINGPROJECT . COM . LEIVE : LAURA CAVANAUGH / GETTY IMAGES
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