On Tuesday evening, June 8, 2016, I was able to watch Hillary Clinton give her speech from Brooklyn, New York. Although I was scheduled to work, I was able to leave early and see the speech as she gave it rather than having to watch bits and pieces later in the evening. Before she said a word, before she even appeared on the stage, actually as soon as the video began, I was standing in my living room, clapping, with tears forming in my eyes. That was such an emotional moment for me. In my lifetime, a woman has finally received enough votes and delegates to be named the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties in our country. In my lifetime, in a little less than five months, a woman could be elected President for the first time in our history.
In my lifetime, girls were not allowed paper routes when I was younger. Girls were not allowed to play on little league baseball teams. Girls were not allowed to be altar servers in the Roman Catholic Church. And in my lifetime, those restrictions disappeared. In my lifetime, women like Margaret Chase Smith and Shirley Chisholm announced their candidacies for President and were met with laughter, as Rachel Maddow showed with a video compilation on her show Wednesday, June 9. The laughter was not derisive or jeering. But nonetheless, the idea of a woman running for President of the United States was seen as humorous to many people. Most of the people interviewed in the clips did not believe a woman could or should be President.
In my lifetime, the fight for women’s equality and for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment was met with opposition not just from men, but from women as well. Some women did not think women deserved the same pay for doing the same job as men. Or that women deserved the same opportunities as men. After all, women were never supposed to be the primary “breadwinners” in the family, men were. But as Mary Tyler Moore’s ground-breaking show demonstrated in the 1970s, single career women also needed to make a living. So did women with children who did not have a husband. Those women deserved to be paid the same wages as men for doing the same job. But in my lifetime, those fights still continue.
In my lifetime, I campaigned for Sharon Pollard who, in the previous election, had become the first woman elected to the Massachusetts State Senate from her district. Although I did not campaign for Patricia McGovern, she became the first woman elected to the Massachusetts State Senate from my district. They stood on the shoulders of the women who had gone before them and paved the way for the acceptance of women in the political arena. Sharon and Patricia joined with women of their time to provide the shoulders for others who came after them to stand on and continue reaching higher.
In my lifetime, women continued to make strides in achieving equality and rights that had been denied then just because of their sex. In the past, women couldn’t own or inherit property or even get credit in their own names. They had been, in may ways, treated like children who needed to be protected and cared for rather than adults capable of making decisions for themselves.
In my lifetime, in the 1990s, a t-shirt with words SOMEDAY A WOMAN WILL BE PRESIDENT, was considered offensive and one retailer stopped selling the t-shirts. Now, in my lifetime, that SOMEDAY could very well be January 20, 2017, when the next President of the United states is inaugurated if Hillary Clinton is elected.
photo credit: Hillary Clinton speaking at the Apollo Theater today via photopin (license)
Moderately liberal, liberally moderate, American flag waving Democrat! Bachelor of Arts in History with concentration in Early American History and Abraham Lincoln
Graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts Degree online in American History at Southern New Hampshire University