My daughter was 8 months old on November 9, 2016. In the blink of an eye, it felt like our country was overflowing with the potential for progress in the name of gender equality to sink to oppressive lows on how I thought about what a Trump administration would mean for women and girls. Now we’re finally looking beyond that, but we’re not forgetting it.
The Trump administration surprised no one and immediately unleashed dangerous, unprecedented measures that targeted women, deprived them of reproductive and economic autonomy, and most harmed and threatened black, Latin American, Indigenous, Asian Americans, young, disabled and LGBTQ women. These measures included denying women access to health care, including contraception and abortion, weakening protection from sexual assault, lifting equal pay reforms, eroding family economic security, undermining women’s leadership, the Breaking families apart at the border, threats to childcare, stalling paid families and medical leave, and cutting funding for after-school programs and nutritional support. And the list goes on.
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For the most part, raising my daughter as an activist in the Trump era looked like she was putting a sign around her neck, dropping her in the stroller, and participating in the day’s protest. Or it looked like I was sitting by my side as I called or wrote to elected officials to block the next malicious bill.
Yes, activism in my daughter’s early years was largely shaped by resistance. Now, at the dawn of a new political era, it is time to rethink what raising an activist’s daughter is like.
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To do this, we need to understand that activism is a lifestyle – a mindset, a conscious way of being and living as a parent. It’s not a word to add to a bio, check box, or individual moment. We need to model this understanding in our daily lives so that our children are raised with a natural, all-encompassing propensity for activism.
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Perhaps no one says it better than Bellhook: “The most basic activism we can have in our lives is to consciously live in a nation that lives in fantasies. Living consciously means living with a core of healthy self-esteem. You will look reality in the eye, you will not be fooled. “
It is more important now than ever to show our daughters that while representation and progress are both here and on the horizon, this is not the time to get complacent.
Trump’s harmful rhetoric against women didn’t start with him. And while he’s no longer in the Oval Office, harmful gender narratives and the need for gender equality haven’t stopped. Yes, the Biden-Harris administration appears to have a welcome “aggressive and comprehensive plan to promote the economic and physical security of women and ensure the full exercise of their civil rights by women,” according to its website. But if history teaches us anything, it is that cultural change is slow work and requires an intersectional analysis of race and class in addition to helpful gender analysis.
We must also remind our daughters of the unfortunate reality that the tentacles of patriarchy – largely underpinned and sustained by white supremacy – are ingrained even though the commander in chief is no longer president. This is a lesson that, if taught early, will serve our daughters well. The sooner in life they understand how ubiquitous toxic masculinity and white supremacy are, and how inseparable they are, the better prepared they will be to be the informed, resilient, and bad-tempered leaders we need.
For example, we must simultaneously celebrate the overdue portrayal of the victory of the first black, Indian, South Asian Vice President Kamala Harris and be aware of the systemic injustices that took so long to have a woman in the Oval Office first place. We must at the same time condemn the January 6 uprising and draw attention to the white women who are reported to have led the charges. We must at the same time celebrate advances that women are making and highlight the deep racial differences that still exist.
Although there is still a lot of work to do, I am confident that we are on the right track if we are to raise daughters who will both criticize and dream, mourn and build, challenge and listen, rest and play and organize with a cutting lens (perhaps for the first time) to create a just society. And I’m here for a generation of such activists!
Add these colored girls books to your children’s shelves.
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