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Why female rage won't deliver a female president

Editorial / Opinion Piece / Blog Post

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June 3, 2019

Why female rage won't deliver a female president

Source: The Week

BIf we believed the print headlines and TV chyrons, 2019 was going to be another "year of the woman." The afterglow of the midterm elections was a nuclear wash of "women's anger" — a deep-seated sense of fear, grief, and, of course, rage at the boorishness of a groper-in-chief and a GOP majority that made Fury Road's War Boys seem like paragons of chivalry. This rage pushed out of the hard earth and, with it, brought record numbers of women into office, made a woman the speaker of the House, and sparked talk that maybe, just maybe, this country could finally be ready for a woman president. Sure enough, some of the first major announcements of the 2020 electoral cycle came from women — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) — and for a moment, it seemed as if the future might, in fact, be female. But that moment has proven to be fleeting.

The nurturing spotlight that helps to grow a frontrunner now shines in abundance on the men — especially "the Bs" of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg — who are ballyhooed as being, respectively, more stately and "electable;" more prescient in their policy; more charismatic; and more wonkish, but, like, in a sexy appealing way. The truths about each of these men's merits and accomplishments — especially in relation to the women they're running against (all of whom haven't yet lost a major election) — remains eminently debatable. The more pressing — and distressing — question is how the "year of the woman" became a calendar spread of ever-increasing, ever-indistinguishable white dudes. The great blooming of "women's anger" — though it is the root of the organizing and advocacy of #TheResistance and yielded big fruit in the midterms — seems to be withering on the stem.

Click here to read the full article published by The Week on 30 May 2019.

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BIf we believed the print headlines and TV chyrons, 2019 was going to be another "year of the woman." The afterglow of the midterm elections was a nuclear wash of "women's anger" — a deep-seated sense of fear, grief, and, of course, rage at the boorishness of a groper-in-chief and a GOP majority that made Fury Road's War Boys seem like paragons of chivalry. This rage pushed out of the hard earth and, with it, brought record numbers of women into office, made a woman the speaker of the House, and sparked talk that maybe, just maybe, this country could finally be ready for a woman president. Sure enough, some of the first major announcements of the 2020 electoral cycle came from women — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) — and for a moment, it seemed as if the future might, in fact, be female. But that moment has proven to be fleeting.

The nurturing spotlight that helps to grow a frontrunner now shines in abundance on the men — especially "the Bs" of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg — who are ballyhooed as being, respectively, more stately and "electable;" more prescient in their policy; more charismatic; and more wonkish, but, like, in a sexy appealing way. The truths about each of these men's merits and accomplishments — especially in relation to the women they're running against (all of whom haven't yet lost a major election) — remains eminently debatable. The more pressing — and distressing — question is how the "year of the woman" became a calendar spread of ever-increasing, ever-indistinguishable white dudes. The great blooming of "women's anger" — though it is the root of the organizing and advocacy of #TheResistance and yielded big fruit in the midterms — seems to be withering on the stem.

Click here to read the full article published by The Week on 30 May 2019.

Focus areas