No matter your politics, we must recognize that we have the first female presidential nominee of a large national party. Please get excited. Please realize that this is monumental.
I am definitely not saying you should be voting for Clinton because she is a woman, but you have to have some sort of appreciation of all of the ridiculous work that has been put in for 200+ years by so many women all over the country and world.
Though this list of women is not anywhere near a compilation of all of the efforts that deserve to be acknowledged, I wanted to address these specific women for a number of reasons.
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Recognition is important. Most of these women aren’t as well known to the American public
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They represent a variety of participation in the feminist movement
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(I like them personally)
First, I want to discuss Victoria Woodhull
Here’s the woman who couldn’t vote but still ran for POTUS:
“Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1872) – The first woman to run for United States President, Woodhull was the candidate of the Equal Rights Party. She fought for women’s rights and founded her own newspaper. She became the first woman to own a Wall Street investment firm.” Woodhull fought for an array of social, economic, and labor issues, including “…women’s suffrage, regulation of monopolies, nationalization of railroads, an eight-hour workday, direct taxation, abolition of the death penalty and welfare for the poor,” says Jesee Greenspan.
Greenspan also mentions that she ended up in jail, however, on Election Day because her and her sister accused “…a Wall Street trader of getting two teenage girls drunk and seducing them.” The girls were later found innocent.
Woodhull also pushed the boundaries of traditional “family values” of the day, “…at one point living with her ex-husband, her husband and her lover in the same apartment,” states Greenspan.
Woodhull was ostracized by the feminist narrative of the time, especially “…when Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage published a comprehensive history of the women’s suffrage movement in the 1880s, they essentially left out Woodhull entirely.”
We aren’t in White Feminism anymore, Dorothy Pitman Hughes
As a young girl, Hughes experienced her father’s horrific death by the KKK. From then on, she promoted race equality and worked hand-in-hand with Gloria Steinem to promote intersectionality in feminism. The women pioneered the Women’s Action Alliance which helped to open the first battered women’s shelters and inspired the creation of Ms. Magazine, a liberal publication that focused on feminist issues. The most recognized and well-known act of Hughes, however, was her raised fist pose picture with Steinem. This picture embodied the concept of intersectionality and how it was shaping modern feminism at the time. The two women stood together in a large skirt to quite literally stand together against injustices.
Chelsea Handler
Chelsea has been more of an icon among older audiences, but since she debuted her Netflix show, it seems as though I see her rock t-shirts on every fifth laptop screen I see.
Look, I know her rhetoric, lifestyle choices, and comments are controversial, but one has to recognize that she is extremely pertinent in the movement of inspiring women to put their feet down and stand firmly for what they believe in. Handler has proudly shown her breasts on her show/social media countless times, has never been to college but tries to expand her knowledge through her comedy profession, and constantly invites people on her show to teach her new activities, perspectives, or trends. She is truly embracing how women should be able to act in this culture: freely and unapologetically.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
As President of Liberia, Johnson Sirleaf is “…Africa’s first elected female head of state…” states The LA Times. Because she has taken such a powerful stance on “tackling corruption, rebuilding the country’s infrastructure… and reducing the staggering unemployment rate,” the president “… is nicknamed the Iron Lady.” “In 2011, she was one of three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to promote and support the rights of women” says The LA Times.
Park Geun-hye
If you ask me, (which I realize you’re probably not, but I’m going to give you my opinion anyway), Geun-hye is the most heartwarming story on this page.
While running for president for South Korea, “…she promised to be ‘president for the people’… while ensuring national security in face of an often aggressive North Korea” states The LA Times. This idea of government for the people reminds me of a wonderful 6-foot American president. “Never wed, Park has often said that she is “married” to her nation.”
Kimberle Crenshaw
Crenshaw is an important historical figure because she defined intersectional feminism in an essay in 1989. It was groundbreaking. She had solidified the idea that Hughes had been developing not long ago. She took it upon herself to attach a metaphor to it: “… if a Black woman is harmed because she is in an intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination” says the International Socialist Review.
The women behind this movement now had a warcry. They had something to utilize and repeat and explain and present.
As I said, please celebrate the fact that we have made it this far. Maybe in four years we can have both parties with female candidates.
(If you liked this article, please check out Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Netflix. Super feminist. Super fun. And it’s a musical.)