As a young girl living in the New Jersey suburbs in the 1990s, I ran for student council president at my public high school. But a week before the debate with my white male opponent, the coach advisor, without any discussion of our qualifications, canceled the debate and pronounced him the winner. I suppose she may have felt like she was saving me from certain public humiliation, and I did not feel I had any standing to protest.
I was reminded of this last month when I saw how a female presidential candidate had her next debate cancelled by her white male opponent. As a bold response, she went on camera to reach across the aisle to a white male reporter. He tried to thwart her every attempt at connection by constantly speaking over her and literally censoring her voice. She responded by relying on her training as a public speaker, choosing to keep her pace and not give her power away.
Rewind to 2016, two days before the presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, NBC obtains a hot mic Access Hollywood recording of Trump bragging about trying to “f-“ a married woman and how you can do anything to women. And yet the demographic of white women still chose Trump over Clinton to be the most powerful leader in the world.
These are just three of many stories that represent real barriers and lost opportunities to half our population. While women have made significant progress in political representation since the Suffragists won the right to vote in 1920, the glass ceiling on a female U.S. president is still strong. So how do we respond when we feel like our voice is being diminished?
First, we can still do the work of improving our world with or without an office, by doing things like organizing community gatherings and supporting neighborhood organizations. In my high school, instead of joining student council, I organized an interfaith prayer group to integrate our vulnerable, yet-to-be-formed selves and our various religious values of loving our neighbors, with our detached “don’t mess with me” school personas. I realized that other students also felt fragmented and wanted to bring a sense of belonging to our environment. Giving people a place and time to connect is a form of leadership.
Second, we should focus on the long-term effort regardless of the short-term result. I think of the bravery of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Professor Anita Hill, the women journalists who helped convict Harvey Weinstein, and the writer Elizabeth Jean Carroll, who gave voice to some of the other 25 women who also spoke up about Trump’s sexual assaults. They are changing the culture of what’s okay to talk about and ask for. In my high school, my act of signing up to run for office was itself important to changing expectations, and people noticed that I wasn’t given a fair chance. Social impact is difficult to measure, but the idea that a non-popular kid should feel empowered to run broke the social norm. And while Hillary Clinton lost the election in 2016, the fact that a woman was on the ballot and won the popular vote set a precedence and is now part of American history.
Lastly, empowerment means not voting based solely on gender or race or any other external factor. It is about getting people to not dismiss someone based on their gender or race. It is also about supporting people who work with integrity to better the lives of the collective “us.” During my years teaching at a university, I had to win the trust of a male majority department. Not everyone on my committee was comfortable with taking directions from someone who looked like me, but I had many allies who celebrated my success in bringing bigger audiences to our concert series, and improving the quality of student performances.
Not all women are allies, while plenty of men are. The dividing line is not between candidates who are female or not; it is between leaders who will unify and integrate for the whole versus those who will destroy and disrupt and even turn to violence when they don’t win an election. One of the most striking differences between our current presidential candidates is how one equates loyalty to himself as patriotism while the other defines democracy as a system where we hold the freedom to dissent while engaging.
If we believe women’s political equality is central to the concept of democracy, then we have to keep voting for leaders who share this belief. We can also amplify how women are proven leaders in often unrecognized arenas such as school PTAs and social services. Younger democracies worldwide are watching us carefully to see how our women will continue to speak up under the pressure and noise of power-hungry forces that want to shut our voices down.
While I never got that chance to have a public debate, my high school later created a “Spirit Award” to celebrate how I created belonging through my club and followed a vision for changing my piece of the world. Later that same year, President Bill and First Lady Hillary Clinton greeted me at the White House as a U.S. Presidential Scholar of the Arts. Many classmates and teachers told me how thrilled they were to have our school represented because of my accomplishments. It was proof to me that there are many ways to lead a community forward. Whatever milestones will or will not be reached this November 5, the work needs to continue to empower women leaders, one at a time.
