Kamala Harris was more equipped than many nominees who preceded her.
Presidential historians will be parsing Vice President Kamala Harris’ definitive Nov. 5 defeat for years to come. Was it her message? What was her message? Was she not likable? Why wasn’t she more effective as vice president? Why hadn’t she had biological children? What was up with her laugh? Why couldn’t she connect with working Americans?
But I’ve already learned one troubling lesson from this election that needs no analysis: Our country remains deeply, pervasively misogynistic. And many of these misogynists are women themselves.
Take the oft-heard criticism that Harris simply wasn’t “ready” for the job. Yet Harris had more experience than almost every presidential candidate of my lifetime. Without hesitation, we’ve elected a movie star turned governor to the office; a ne’er-do-well son of a former president with limited government experience; two young governors of small Southern states; and a young law professor, community organizer, and one-term U.S. Senator. And then, of course, a bankrupt real estate developer who resorted to a reality TV gig to pay off his debts. His government experience: zero. Yet Trump’s many critics in 2016, including nearly every one of his 14 opponents in the Republican primary, saw him as “unfit” rather than “unready.”
Harris, though, was ready. Unlike Trump, she did not inherit a family business — rather worked her way through college, law school, and up the ladder: Prosecutor in two California district attorney offices; Attorney General of San Francisco; Attorney General of the fifth largest economy in the world, the state of California; U.S. Senator; and then Vice President of the United States. At 60, she’s spent decades in consistent, successful government service at the highest level. But, hey – apparently, still not ready.
Contrast the Harris ticket with the Trump ticket, and the issue can be seen in high relief. Voters seemed to admire Trump’s government service deficit rather than criticize it. He was a bankrupt who inflicted financial pain on business partners and creditors. He was charged with discriminatory real estate practices. He was a tax scofflaw and the subject of numerous lawsuits and convictions. He was thrice married, a proud adulterer, and a sexual predator. He was complicit in hundreds of thousands of deaths and the loss of 4 million jobs through his chaotic management of the Covid pandemic. His promise to restore millions of factory jobs never materialized, and the federal debt leaped by $8 trillion during his term in office. Yet, for a majority of Americans, he was more “ready” than Harris to lead our nation.
What our American electorate appears to have just told us is that it’s literally impossible for a woman to be “ready” for the nation’s highest office. Ready is now code for distrust of women, dislike of women, and even jealousy of women.
A child of the Midwest, I remember my mother exulting about meeting Tipper Gore when she stumped in Topeka during the 1993 presidential campaign. What did my mother like most about Gore’s appearance at her League of Women Voters luncheon? That Gore was “adorable, so friendly, one of us.” “And honey,” reported my mom, “Tipper’s slip was showing the whole time. I really wanted to fix it for her.”
I’ve often mused about that remark. Though my lovely and politically active mother had switched parties after the dark years of Vietnam, the social revolutions of the late ‘60s, and the Nixon presidencies, she remained a 1950s gal, more attracted to Gore’s “ordinariness” than to her talent and accomplishments.
Both the 2016 and the 2024 elections prove that this sensibility lingers to this very day. Women can strive all they want, but so many Americans are not ready to like them, to admire their talent and expertise, to trust them, to view them as strong, to assess them as “ready.” They still prefer women with their slips showing — attractive, charming, vulnerable, and ambition-free.
When we members of the second wave of feminism entered the workforce, we took any jobs we could find — many secretarial, to get our feet in the door. We endured sexual harassment and often were back-benched in our professions. But we kept trying, hoping that the gains we made would ensure that our daughters and granddaughters wouldn’t endure the same discrimination.
American voters have just told us, “no such luck.” Women may never be “ready” enough to hold our country’s highest office. Voters have told us that we may never join such diverse nations as the United Kingdom, Mexico, Barbados, Germany, Italy, and Thailand in embracing women at the highest level of leadership.
But, America — listen up: By marginalizing 50.4 percent of the U.S. population, we will not be making our country great again. Rather, we will be going back.
