On July 21, when President Joe Biden stepped down from the 2024 presidential race, eyes across the country — including mine — immediately turned toward Vice President Kamala Harris. After months of uncertainty about Biden’s lack of relevance with young voters, cognitive abilities, and poor debate and other public speaking performances, many progressive voters were thrilled to find out Harris would be taking up Biden’s mantle and running for president. Especially for a lot of Gen Zers who have been feeling nervous about — or even dreading — the election, Harris’ candidacy has sparked a glimmer of hope for the first time in a long time.
As a young female voter who was not excited about having to vote for either Biden or Trump in the upcoming election, the thought of seeing a strong, experienced woman and leader on the ticket has reignited my excitement for the coming election. But unsurprisingly, Harris has already begun receiving harsh criticism from opposition, with Republican pundits latching onto everything from the way she laughs, to her memeification, to her dating history. Criticism of candidates from opposing political parties is expected, especially during election season, but one talking point about Harris that I find particularly frustrating is the fact she has no biological children.
In a recently resurfaced 2022 Fox News interview, J.D. Vance — former President Donald Trump’s current running mate on the 2024 ticket — referred to Democratic leaders such as Harris (as well as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg) as “childless cat ladies,” saying they are “miserable about their own lives and the choices they’ve made, so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” As Vance’s statements recirculate given their newfound relevance, Harris’ critics are latching on to the discourse.
To many Gen Z voters, this may seem like a ridiculous reason to criticize a presidential candidate. That’s because it is.
Yes, Gen Z is the youngest group of voters who are finding our own way in the world for the first time. But by virtue of being old enough to vote, we’re adults. I don’t need a mother in the White House, nor do I want one. Simply put, Gen Zers need a president who will advocate for, and take action on, the issues that are most important to us — regardless of what their family life looks like.
Harris doesn’t need to be a biological mother to be a capable, effective president, because no one does. First of all, if having given birth was a prerequisite for the U.S. presidency, not a single one of our previous 46 presidents would have qualified for the job. Even simply being a biological parent (birth-giver or not) has never been a requirement. Five U.S. presidents in history — including the OG, George Washington himself — did not have children. And even if having children was, for some bizarre reason, required to be president, Harris has been stepmother to Ella and Cole Emhoff — biological children of Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, and his ex-wife, Kerstin Emhoff — since 2014. If that arbitrary box needed to be ticked, Harris has checked it off.
But again, this *isn’t* a requirement, and the fact that it’s such a common talking point when discussing Harris’ campaign is indicative of a much larger issue: In U.S. politics, misogyny runs deep. According to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center, 67% of Americans said it’s generally easier for men to get elected to high political offices than it is for women. Similarly, in the same survey, 61% said women are underrepresented in high political offices because they have to do more to prove themselves than men.
In this particular case, it seems like there’s really no way for women to win. I mean, if Harris did have biological children, wouldn’t people just criticize her for that? I can hear it now: Accusations of her caring more about her children than the country, jabs about hormones and homemaking, discussions about how being too nurturing can be seen as being weak on a global stage.
This trend of finding any reason to criticize and limit powerful women has been plaguing society for generations, but for myself and many of my fellow Gen Zers, the buck stops with us. We grew up watching the media crucify Taylor Swift for writing songs about boys, and listening to former president Donald Trump call Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman.” We came of age as people across the country suddenly had their reproductive rights ripped away from them with the rollback of Roe v. Wade. And now, in what is the first presidential election that many of Gen Zers are able to vote in, the candidate who is emerging as a progressive favorite is being criticized for exercising her right to decide what her family looks like. It pretty much goes without saying: This generation isn’t going to stand for that.
In a culture where women are called pushy and calculated, but men are called ambitious and strategic, it’s no surprise critics are grasping at something completely unrelated to Harris’ career to try and discredit her — not only because women still have to fight the stereotype that motherhood is their ultimate life purpose, but also because Harris’ actual credentials are incredibly strong.
Gen Z is an issue-driven generation, and Harris aligns with young progressives on many of the topics that matter most to them, including reproductive rights, gun violence, and climate change — the top three issues most important to Gen Z, according to a 2023 Her Campus survey. For the first time in years, Harris is a candidate many Gen Zers are excited about. And *that* is why so many young voters have rallied behind her so quickly: Because Kamala Harris is mother. But a mom? That is, quite simply, irrelevant.