If Not Now, When?

Guest Opinion

By Karen Mulvahill | Oct. 26, 2024

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony worked their entire lives for women’s suffrage. In 1920, 144 years after the founding of our nation, the government finally acknowledged a woman’s right to vote. Stanton had been dead for 18 years; Anthony, 14. I, too, may be ash and bone if it takes much longer before a dream of mine is realized—that the United States elects a woman president.

In 2024, 248 years after the founding of our nation, women still make up just 25 percent of the nation’s senators and 29 percent of representatives in the House.

When Hillary Clinton was running for president, it was obvious to me that she’d crush a man who’d said he had “the right to do anything he wanted” with women, including grabbing them by their private parts. At last, I would see a woman become president! Eight years on, I’ve learned to temper my hopes.

Of course my dream is not to see just any woman elected president. There are lots I could name who I’d rather see eating worms on Survivor. Kamala Harris is extremely qualified and stands on her own merits regardless of race, creed, color, religion, pet ownership, etc. We find ourselves at a unique junction in time to land a trifecta of history-making firsts: elect the first woman, the first Black woman, the first South Asian woman.

This column was meant to delve into Harris’s qualifications in order to persuade anyone still on the fence to vote for her. But I find I can’t ignore the glaring, number one reason that overrides all of her qualities—she must win because Trump must lose. So I’m going to pivot here, while sticking with the theme of women.

At least 25 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. A New York jury ruled him liable for sexual abuse, battery, and defamation against a woman he attacked in a department store. Whether he’d like to have sex with a woman or not is the criterion by which he judges her. He especially seems to hate smart and outspoken women, especially if they disagree with him.

“You will be protected and I will be your protector,” he said recently to female voters at a Pennsylvania event. Putting a fox in the hen house is usually considered a bad idea.

Project 2025, a “governing agenda” for the “next conservative administration,” was created by the Heritage Foundation with input from more than 100 Trump associates. It states, “Our Constitution grants each of us the liberty to do not what we want, but what we ought. This pursuit of the good life is found primarily in family — marriage, children, Thanksgiving dinners, and the like.” And who, according to this tome, will decide “what we ought” do? Why the Supreme Court, of course, with its Trump-appointed and like-minded political toadies.

Trump running mate J. D. Vance (who could very well become president, should his 79-year-old boss win the election and expire in office) has made many disparaging comments about women, most memorably his reference to “childless cat ladies.” He also said, “Our country is basically run by childless Democrats who are miserable in their own lives and want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” And Vance recently agreed with an interviewer who said that the main function of post-menopausal women was to take care of their grandkids.

Harris leads in the polls with women by (only!) 16 percentage points, while men favor Trump by 11. It’s truly shocking to hear the things people—including women—still say about women’s capacity for leadership. We’re too hormonal/emotional/menstrual. We’re not strong enough—but if we’re too strong, we’re aggressive and unlikeable. (No one seems to notice how many wars have been caused by the male ego.) If you don’t think a woman has what it takes to be president, look around you. Governors, senators, CEOs, lawyers, doctors—women are successful in all walks of life.

Women deserve the right to make their own decisions about their lives and their bodies. Recent restrictions on abortion in Republican-led states threaten women’s health. Fear of arrest and conviction is causing doctors to delay or refrain from treating complications due to pregnancy. Women have already died as a result, and more are sure to follow. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, “The regressive position taken by the US Supreme Court in June 2022 … puts millions of women and girls at serious risk.”

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other early feminists, including many men, devoted their lives to gaining the right to vote for women. So I will respect their sacrifices and vote for the only candidate who will protect the rights of women, men, immigrants, the working and middle classes, our LGBTQ+ community, people of color, people who believe in democracy, and people who love our country.

Karen Mulvahill is a writer living in northern Michigan.