I would like to write this as a woman, sensitive to the fact that there are many, many people hurting more than me right now.
I am 18 years old. Many days, I feel confident and I love myself. Some days, I don’t know what I am capable of or what opportunities I will have. And rarely—though it happens—I’m not sure how I will go on. Watching Hillary run for President of the United States and believing she would win was inspiring. Every day in a million tiny ways, people tell me and women all around me that I don’t have a voice—when men talk over me constantly in class, when men harass me in the elevator up to my room, when women lose opportunities because they are afraid to step up, when we are afraid to speak up because we feel that someone will inevitably shut us down, as has happened to many times, when we see statistical reports of unequal pay and women leaving the workforce…when we see a qualified, intelligent, responsible, well-dressed woman run for President and lose. To me, as a legal adult and a confident young woman, November 8, 2016 stung.
Just now as I scrolled through Instagram I came across my younger cousin’s account. A while back, before we knew the results of this election, she posted a cartoon of Trump yelling and Hillary sitting by, smiling. Her caption: “I love how Hillary is just smiling.” Just smiling, cool as a cucumber, unperturbed by the inanity around. But also aware, keenly aware, that she must keep her cool, or people will accuse her of being wildly emotional and unpredictable; maybe blame her period, even though she’s 70.
I can’t help but think about my fourteen-year-old sister, my younger cousins, my friends and their younger sisters, young girls everywhere who watched this election with bated breath, as inspired and hopeful as I was that we would see a woman elected. My heart goes out to all of you who are heartbroken. I am too.
I am aware of Hillary’s faults, qualms about her policies…despite my own views on these issues, I refuse to say that the fact that she is an intelligent, competent woman wasn’t part of the reason I voted for her. It was part. A significant part. After I voted for Bernie in the primaries and he lost the nomination, I shifted gears and put my weight behind Hillary. “Even if I don’t agree with everything she says,” I told my dad in those early days, “electing her would be a huge victory for women and girls everywhere. Imagine how it would feel for me to see a woman in the white house.” And as the presidential debates progressed, I realized a small amount of internalized sexism had tainted my admiration of Hillary Clinton. As the election got closer, I was more and more on board with Hillary. Imagine how it would feel for me to see a woman in the white house.
I cried on Tuesday because it didn’t happen. I didn’t get to see it. But I cried also for all the younger girls who had hoped with me, and all the little girls who could have grown up under a Hillary Clinton presidency. When I was in second, third, fourth grade, a female president was something that I knew was “technically allowed” but wouldn’t happen for a while. It would happen, I assumed and trusted, but it would be a long time. That just seemed obvious to me, because every major leader I saw in my life was a man. Every US president was a man. In this election cycle, that distance was nearly closed. It was incredible to watch, and I hoped all along that all the future second graders in America would grow up knowing that women and men belong in the oval office governing our country.
It didn’t happen, and life will go on, and as I said earlier, there are many who hurt much more than I do knowing Trump is in office. I know the world will not end and I can’t become bitter. There is time, still, and we are determined. In fact, because there is time, and because we are determined, I say to women everywhere: do not lose hope. Do not let this loss dampen your spirits. We are still strong and we have a voice, however difficult it is to speak sometimes. To my sister, my cousins, my friends and family, now more than ever, we stand together. We are still stronger together—Michelle Obama was right. Together we stand and together we will triumph. We are women. We will not be silenced.
