The 2020 presidential election was the first opportunity for many college students to create action within the political sphere. Sure, you can observe and have an opinion before reaching voting age, but delving into that conflict with the knowledge that you are limited in how you can enact change is often painful, particularly when your rights as a woman, or as a member of another marginalized community, are at risk.
Nevertheless, it became more apparent than ever that we must educate ourselves as we approached elections with the combined chaos of the political climate, a global pandemic, relentless California fires, the persisting Black Lives Matter movement and immoral immigration conflicts. For months, this election has been all consuming. The pure hope that we wrote onto our ballots, the desire to break into a new chapter of American history, was overwhelming. Then, when I was at work on the day of the announcement and the entire store froze, when all of the customers craned their necks to get a good look at the television, and when I saw the blue that was Pennsylvania, I finally felt some of the tension leave my body.
I vividly remember the 2016 election, waking up and getting onto the school bus without bothering to check my phone. I remember sitting on that rubber seat on a cold November morning and my friends having to convince me that Trump won. I remember not believing them, and I remember finally looking at the daily headlines and feeling as if the ground had fallen out from under me. I remember questioning how we could allow this man to represent our country. This man who was caught on video saying “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ‘em by the —.” I could not understand.
For the majority of Trump’s presidency, I was constantly on edge. I noticed the misogynists, racists, and bigots coming out of the woodwork and becoming braver. Obviously it was due to my privilege and growing awareness of the world around me that I was just now becoming more aware of these issues, but there is no denying that when our first Black president stepped out of the oval office, his replacement prioritized the economy over human rights.
It is painfully obvious to the little girls who idolized Michelle Obama in elementary school, that something was taken from us. Whether it was a role model or the ability to go to bed at night knowing that someone in the White House wanted to help you, the election of a man who, in 2013 tweeted, “26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” was not for us.
During my junior year of high school, Brett Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court. I sat and listened to people call him a “nice Christian man,” while his high school calendar was accepted as valid evidence that he was innocent. I was forced to slowly accept the fact that sometimes the bravery of a survivor seeking justice was not enough.
In 2016, during a presidential debate when asked about overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to protect women’s right to abortion, Trump said, “That will happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court. I will say this: It will go back to the states, and the states will then make a determination.” Later, I watched as he appointed a justice who would push the courts further right in the place of a feminist icon: the woman who gave me the right to my own bank account and the person who I will be able to thank when I can sign a mortgage without a male co-signer.
In 2020, I knew that I could not stand to watch the man who degraded Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who insulted Vice President Elect Kamala Harris, and was still idolized for his policy win another election. In the past year, I have gone to Black Lives Matter protests, knowing that I had friends who were afraid to attend due to potential violence. I stood by as the Supreme Court rejected the interpretation of the Civil Rights Act that protects employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. I have seen children on the news be ripped away from their families and kept in cages and I have listened to classmates depict a Californian sky filled with smoke.
The election of President Biden was a win for everyone, but more than anything it was a win for women. It meant that American women would not live in a country represented by a man who, in New York Magazine on November 9th 1992, on the topic of his relationships and women told the magazine, “You have to treat ’em like sh#t.” The election of President Biden meant having a leader who understood the importance of having the point of view of marginalized communities within his inner circle.
The election of Vice President Kamala Harris is the election of a woman who little girls everywhere can look up to and know that someone is rooting for them. It is the election of the first female vice president in the history of our country, the first African American, Asian American, and Caribbean American to hold this position.
It is the election of a woman who was one of the first senators to support Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill. She is the co-pioneer of the Green New Deal, a bill created in response to the extreme sufferings caused by climate change. She supports the ban on assault weapons and more regulation on gun manufacturers. She is committed to closing the wage gap for women and improving the treatment of immigrants within our borders.
The criticism of Vice President Harris stems from her harsh criminal justice policies against the use of marijuana and other minor crimes, but as a woman of color in a position of power, it should be taken into consideration that she needed to assert her authority in order to gain respect. Had Harris been more lenient, she would be criticized for letting criminals get off easy and be considered too unprofessional or too under prepared to take on the role of vice president. She is a woman of color in modern America, there will always be critics.
As voters and as women, we must consider who is going to represent our rights on a local, state and national scale. Trump made it clear that he was against the preservation of women’s rights to an abortion, he consistently disrespected his female coworkers and maintained a significant bias against people of various marginalized communities within his everchanging administration. President Biden, while his term has yet to begin, has shown the American people that he and Vice President Kamala Harris do not intend to continue to suppress the fundamental rights of women and the disenfranchised.
Regardless of the action that the pair takes in the future (which I currently believe will be beneficial to our country), women can finally stop and take a breath. Knowing that the people we elected to represent our country have not written, “Women are really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive,” in their memoir is life changing (Trump: The Art of the Comeback, Trump and Bohner). For the women of the United States, knowing that the Biden and Harris administration does not intend to turn our country into Gilead is more than a win; it is a gift.