The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, October 28, 2020 — 9
statement

I

n 2016, just four years shy of the hun-

dred-year anniversary of the ratifica-

tion of the 19th amendment, Ameri-

cans witnessed history as the first woman ever 

was nominated as a presidential candidate by 

a major political party.

 America also saw her lose, and for many, 

it was all hell breaking loose. Never mind the 

apparent misogynist who was her opponent, 

many Americans were heartbroken and hope-

less seeing a woman rise so high, reaching a 

place where no woman had been allowed to 

ascend before, only to be rebuffed so brazenly 

and with such hostility. On top of the heart-

break of coming so close to making history 

and breaking one of the last intact glass ceil-

ings, many were fearful of what the next four 

years would look like — and rightfully so. 

On election night 2016, I tried my best to 

stay awake, even as moods darkened when 

supposedly blue-leaning swing states swung 

red. Even then, as I drifted off to sleep, there 

was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I 

was finally going to see a woman elected as 

the president of the United States, and thank-

fully, one who was guided by feminist prin-

ciples and advocated for progressive policies. 

When I woke up the next morning, my heart 

sank into my stomach and my throat felt like 

it was closing; like so many women and oth-

er marginalized people, I knew exactly how 

high the stakes really were. 

It was devastating, soul-crushing and 

deeply distressing. 

Now, nearly four years later, there is once 

again a woman making history at the top of 

the ballot. On Aug. 11, former vice president 

Joe Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris, D-

Calif., as his running mate. Introducing her 

at their first press conference together as his 

ticket’s vice president, Biden said, “One of the 

reasons that I chose Kamala is that we both 

believe that we can define America simply in 

one word: possibilities.” 

Even before any vote is cast, Harris’s nomi-

nation is historic: She is the both the first 

Black woman and the first Indian woman to 

be nominated for vice president by a major 

political party. If Biden is elected president, 

she will be the first woman to serve in one of 

the highest roles in our nation as the first fe-

male vice president. 

Nodding toward this legacy, Biden also 

said, “This morning, all across the nation, 

little girls woke up, especially little Black and 

brown girls, who so often feel overlooked and 

undervalued in their communities. But today 

just maybe they’re seeing themselves for the 

first time in a new way: as the stuff of presi-

dents and vice presidents.” 

In an effort to understand the impact of 

Harris’s nomination, I spoke to several Uni-

versity of Michigan students about their 

thoughts on Biden choosing Harris to be his 

running mate and what her vice presidency 

might mean. 

In an email to The Michigan Daily, Jake 

Riegel, an LSA sophomore studying American 

Culture and a member of Students for Biden 

on campus, wrote about what Biden’s selec-

tion shows. 

“... The Democratic Party is proving itself 

to be the party of diversity and inclusion,” Rie-

gel wrote. “I do feel more excited (to vote for 

Joe Biden), because Senator Harris was my 

preferred vice presidential candidate.” 

Riegel also commented on the historic na-

ture of her candidacy.

“It is significant that Joe Biden picked Ka-

mala Harris, both because she is Black and 

South Asian, as well as a woman, but I am 

more excited because of her qualifications. 

She is ultimately qualified for both the posi-

tion as vice president and president.” 

While many are excited about the progress 

Harris’s nomination means for women in poli-

tics, others are a bit more cautious. LSA fresh-

man Eva Hale, also a member of Students for 

Biden, touched on this idea in an interview. 

“A woman still hasn’t been elected (as pres-

ident), and if Joe and Kamala win, she still 

wouldn’t have been elected,” Hale said. “The 

fact that a lot of women were competitive for 

the presidential nomination this year is great 

— I guess it shows we’re getting there, but we 

can’t say we’re there yet.”

While Harris’s nomination makes her a 

trailblazer for women’s political representa-

tion, she is not, however, the first woman to 

be nominated as a vice presidential running 

mate. In fact, there have been two women be-

fore her who were selected to be on a major 

party ticket. The stories of these two women’s 

nominations could not be more different, but 

the country’s reaction to them provides im-

portant context for Harris’s nomination and 

potential election. 

In 1984, then-Congresswoman Geraldine 

Ferraro, a Democrat from New York, was se-

lected by Walter Mondale to be his running 

mate. Before this selection, Ferraro, a former 

schoolteacher and sex crimes prosecutor, 

quickly rose in the Democratic party’s lead-

ership, becoming the Secretary of the House 

Democratic Caucus. 

It was not long before she faced misog-

yny on the campaign trail. On top of sex-

ist coverage about her clothes and her hair, 

she was asked by a voter if she could bake a 

blueberry muffin because “down here in Mis-

sissippi the men don’t cook.” On Meet the 

Press, one moderator questioned whether she 

could push the nuclear button and if Mondale 

would have chosen her if she weren’t a wom-

an. Articles were written asking if America 

was “ready” for a female vice president, some-

thing pundits continue to ask to this day, just 

as they asked if America was ready for a Black 

president when then-Senator Obama ran in 

2008. 

The sexism didn’t only come from the 

press; it also came from her opponent’s cam-

paign: Vice President Bush’s spokesperson, 

Peter Teeley, said, “She’s too bitchy. She’s 

very arrogant. Humility isn’t one of her strong 

points, and I think that comes through.” 

Ambitious women frequently receive these 

sorts of remarks from men like Teeley — men 

who view women who dare to step out of their 

socially-constructed place with contempt and 

vitriol. 

Indicative of the tightrope she was forced 

to walk as a woman vying for one of the high-

est offices in the land, Ferrero often referred 

to herself as “a housewife from Queens.” She 

could not be too openly ambitious. She need-

ed to be careful not to be perceived as threat-

ening the status quo of men holding almost 

all political power. She could not even defend 

herself against sexist attacks; in 2008, she re-

flected on the experience saying, “In 1984, I 

couldn’t say, ‘Stop it,” because I couldn’t look 

like I was whining or upset about it.” 

On top of the criticism she faced solely as 

a result of being a woman, Ferraro’s nomina-

tion, while historic, was essentially doomed 

from the beginning. Trailing Reagan, Mondale 

decided he needed to shake up the race by 

picking a female running mate, an effort to 

clinch the excitement of Democratic voters. 

The effort failed, though, in part due to Mon-

dale’s own strategic blunders, resulting in the 

Mondale-Ferraro ticket only winning 13 elec-

toral votes in the Electoral College.

While Mondale’s own candidacy was ill-

fated from the beginning due to the country 

experiencing short-term economic growth 

from the Reagan-era tax cuts, picking a wom-

an to be your running mate as a last-ditch ef-

fort to save your candidacy is nothing to be 

applauded. It is objectifying and indicates a 

level of contempt for women voters by think-

ing that they will rush to your side for picking 

a lady to be on the ticket. 

And yet, 24 years later, another woman was 

selected as a vice presidential running mate 

for the same reason: Sarah Palin.

In 2008, then-Senator and candidate John 

McCain selected Palin to be his running mate, 

though his first-choice pick was Joe Lieber-

man, a centrist from Connecticut. He ulti-

mately picked then-Governor of Alaska Sarah 

Palin because, as one GOP strategist said, he 

“clearly felt like (the campaign) needed to 

shake this race up and go for broke.” Picking a 

woman to be his running mate as a Republican 

nominee certainly raised eyebrows, but also 

initially elicited positive feedback, with Mc-

Cain’s campaign receiving a bit of a boost in 

the aftermath of this selection. 

Again, though, Palin was set up to fail. At 

the time of the pick, McCain was consistently 

trailing behind Obama in polling, dragged 

down for his party association with Bush as 

the economy barreled toward collapse in the 

fall of 2008. McCain needed a splashy pick to 

try to bring some enthusiasm and new inter-

est to his campaign. 

On top of tasking her with saving his de-

clining candidacy, McCain thrust Palin into 

the spotlight with relatively little vetting and 

preparedness. Of course, as a governor, there 

was little excuse as to why Palin could not 

name a single newspaper or magazine she 

regularly read in a now-famous interview 

with Katie Couric, where she said she read 

“all of them, any of them.” 

Still, the McCain campaign famous-

ly failed to fully vet Palin as they had scram-

bled to find a pick after several other candi-

dates fell through, using her as less of an equal 

partner or colleague and more as a shiny new 

toy to dazzle voters and the press. 

Despite the time between Ferraro’s histo-

ry-making nomination and Palin joining Mc-

Cain’s ticket, female candidates were still sub-

ject to similar instances of sexism by the media 

and voters on the campaign trail. In reflection 

on the 2008 campaign, which also included 

Hillary Clinton’s first presidential run, Fer-

raro said, “Even when (the media was) so sex-

ist to Hillary, and we said something about it, 

they still thought we were whining or acting 

like sore losers ... But I never thought we’d 

have the opportunity to see another woman 

go through it, this same election cycle, after 

the press had been put on notice,” referencing 

when Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Pal-

in how somebody could manage a family of 

seven and the vice presidency. 

It is true that one’s political party rarely 

protects female candidates from sexist cov-

erage or attacks, but a female candidate’s 

political party, particularly due to the policy 

preferences she holds, are decisive in de-

termining whether her election is a victory 

for women and for feminism. Though some 

who are not particularly well-read on femi-

nist scholarship will claim the election of a 

woman — any woman — automatically means 

progress for women’s rights, this assertion is 

deeply misguided and factually wrong. The 

election of Sarah Palin, an anti-choice, far-

right Republican, would not have been a win 

for women. As vice president, she would 

have advocated for positions in the McCain 

administration that would have systemati-

cally stripped women, as well as other mar-

ginalized groups, of their rights and liberties, 

particularly on issues of reproductive justice, 

voting rights, environmental justice and eco-

nomic justice. 

Women’s political interests are only ben-

efitted when women who will work toward 

gender equality and autonomy are elected. 

statement

On Kamala Harris: 
A moment of 
redress for women

BY MARISA WRIGHT,

STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

Read more at 
MichiganDaily.com

