The 2016 election crushed the girls. Now women, they’re revenge voting.
October 7, 2024 3:32 PM Subscribe
The 2016 election crushed the girls. Now women, they’re revenge voting.
2016: They existed in a girls-can-do-anything world. Then Donald Trump won the White House.
The hatred seen on that 2016 campaign trail had worked. The kind of bullying that would get a kid at their middle school suspended got Trump the Oval Office. The promises that they could be anything, do anything, dream anything felt suspended.
They believed the rancor and division of 2016 would calm after the election, that the United States would settle down and live by the same rules that applied to students of Washington Irving Middle School in Springfield, Va.The Washington Post's Petula Dvorak checks in with young women she watched the 2016 election with, and checked up on in 2020.
Instead, they had a tumultuous four years in high school marred by a global pandemic and tattered by a fractured nation.
2016: They existed in a girls-can-do-anything world. Then Donald Trump won the White House.
In four hours, their girls had learned about centuries of sexism. Of brick walls, glass ceilings, of being the smartest person in the room, the most qualified person for the job and still being rejected.2020: These girls were crushed when Hillary lost in 2016. Four years later, they’ve created their own strong female future.
They had to wake up for school the next day. And when they did, everything in their world had changed.
Though they may not have understood where their anger was coming from, none of the girls was going to tolerate having their dreams, their rules for behavior, the flag they pledged their allegiance to at assemblies hijacked.
Each one, as I checked back in with them in the days before this election, has grown fiercer, more emboldened, more determined to make a difference.
I'll never forget election night 2016, my ex and I and our daughters (7 and 4) with the Hillary signs and high spirits, how it ended up with us explaining to them in tears what happened.
posted by gottabefunky at 4:45 PM on October 7
posted by gottabefunky at 4:45 PM on October 7
🙏 please please please 🙏
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:53 PM on October 7
posted by tiny frying pan at 4:53 PM on October 7
They should all be gift links.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:01 PM on October 7
posted by kirkaracha at 5:01 PM on October 7
I'm a high school teacher, and the day after the 2016 election was parent-teacher conferences, all of us teachers meeting the parents and kids in the gym. There was grief in that room. Girls -- and their moms -- were traumatized. It was painful.
And now those girls -- my students -- have fewer rights than their mothers did at their age.
posted by kikaider01 at 5:22 PM on October 7
And now those girls -- my students -- have fewer rights than their mothers did at their age.
posted by kikaider01 at 5:22 PM on October 7
They should all be gift links.
They are indeed, BUT, WaPo is now making you sign in to read your free article. #bullshit.
posted by ApathyGirl at 5:24 PM on October 7
They are indeed, BUT, WaPo is now making you sign in to read your free article. #bullshit.
posted by ApathyGirl at 5:24 PM on October 7
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posted by kirkaracha at 3:34 PM on October 7 [2 favorites]