A second ‘year of the woman’
New wave of female leaders combat growing misogyny from Trump and allies
On Jan. 3, when Nancy Pelosi reclaimed her gavel to become Speaker of the House, American women could be proud.
Not only did Pelosi once again become the first female to take on that role, she became the first person in 63 years to reclaim it, and second in line to the presidency. Feats that speak to her intelligence, fearlessness and strength as a leader.
Just over two years after the election of Donald Trump, women need strong voices in government to challenge a president who has made his misogyny evident. In 2016, when Trump was elected, women’s rights appeared to be at a crossroads. One day after his inauguration, pinkhatted protesters marched in record numbers. Since then a gradual erosion, a backlash, has seen American women struggle to maintain access to the rights and privileges they have fought hard to achieve and maintain: the undermining of Title IX, threats to the Violence Against Women Act, and access to reproductive health care, just to name a few.
This backlash isn’t surprising. With Republicans leading each branch of government until recently, and few women in higher positions of power, maintaining or passing meaningful legislation that impacts women in a positive manner has been difficult. Make no mistake, this president appointing women in cabinet or cabinet-level positions (only five out of 22 positions) or surrounding himself with female family members is not a sign of respect for women. Rather, it’s an allegiance to those he trusts most, a list that is slowly dwindling.
Neither is Trump’s insistence that a wall is necessary to “protect” the women who are supposedly being kidnapped, bound and trafficked across the border. This improvised scenario amounts to nothing more than a fear-mongering attempt to use the protection of women as an excuse to obtain a long-promised border wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for. After all, what society wouldn’t want to protect its women?
We’ve seen the extent to which this president’s words and actions trickle down to the general populace. This backlash has resulted in the legitimization of the way women are treated, and the double standards they experience. Following testimony reminiscent of the 1992 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings, Brett Kavanaugh, like Thomas, was confirmed to the Supreme Court. The president made it seem as if no other candidate was as qualified. Besides that, Kavanaugh had seemingly been groomed for the job, and the testimony of a single woman regarding an event that happened among teenagers 35 years ago, however credible, should not destroy his career trajectory. Christine Blasey-Ford went on to receive scrutiny and death threats. Her testimony was deemed irrelevant.
History, however, will suggest otherwise. 2018 had striking parallels to 1992, known as the “year of the woman.” 2018 saw a record number of women, 102, elected to the House. 89 are Democrats, and 13 are Republicans. They include, for the first time, Native American and Muslim women.
As the 2019 began and these women, led by a fierce female speaker, took over the House, change descended upon us. The women’s rights movement has traditionally been characterized by “waves,” a first,
“What one can learn from periods of backlash is that the fight for equal rights is never over.”
second and third. These waves, and their resulting gains have emerged after periods of backlash from the opposition. A second wave occurred in the 1960s after the conformist postwar period where women were thrust back into the home. A third wave occurred in the 1990s after the Reagan era saw the rise of a powerful conservative movement that roll backed women’s gains.
This is one of those moments in history that calls for another wave that acts in response to this most recent backlash, a Trump backlash. There will always be detractors, from those who see women’s rights as a threat to their own, those who believe women have already achieved all of their rights, or from those who are indifferent. But what one can learn from periods of backlash is that the fight for equal rights is never over.
As the race for 2020 looms large, and the long world of election-year politics awaits us, we must remember that history is on the side of women. An historically diverse field of U.S. presidential candidates, including a record number of women, have declared their candidacies. It has become clear that the status quo is no longer acceptable, and changes are in sight. The second iteration of the “year of the woman,” and of Pelosi’s leadership, are just the beginning.
Hamilton-born Diana Cucuz is an instructor at Ryerson University and the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in history