Why female rage won't deliver a female president

The great blooming of "women's anger" seems to be withering on the stem

A Joe Biden supporter.
(Image credit: Illustrated | DOMINICK REUTER/AFP/Getty Images, JOSHUA LOTT/AFP/Getty Images, Aerial3/iStock)

If we believed the print headlines and TV chyrons, 2019 was going to be another "year of the woman." The afterglow of the midterm elections was a nuclear wash of "women's anger" — a deep-seated sense of fear, grief, and, of course, rage at the boorishness of a groper-in-chief and a GOP majority that made Fury Road's War Boys seem like paragons of chivalry. This rage pushed out of the hard earth and, with it, brought record numbers of women into office, made a woman the speaker of the House, and sparked talk that maybe, just maybe, this country could finally be ready for a woman president. Sure enough, some of the first major announcements of the 2020 electoral cycle came from women — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) — and for a moment, it seemed as if the future might, in fact, be female. But that moment has proven to be fleeting.

The nurturing spotlight that helps to grow a frontrunner now shines in abundance on the men — especially "the Bs" of Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg — who are ballyhooed as being, respectively, more stately and "electable;" more prescient in their policy; more charismatic; and more wonkish, but, like, in a sexy appealing way. The truths about each of these men's merits and accomplishments — especially in relation to the women they're running against (all of whom haven't yet lost a major election) — remains eminently debatable. The more pressing — and distressing — question is how the "year of the woman" became a calendar spread of ever-increasing, ever-indistinguishable white dudes. The great blooming of "women's anger" — though it is the root of the organizing and advocacy of #TheResistance and yielded big fruit in the midterms — seems to be withering on the stem.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Laura Bogart

Laura Bogart is a featured writer for Salon and a regular contributor to DAME magazine. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, CityLab, The Guardian, SPIN, Complex, IndieWire, GOOD, and Refinery29, among other publications. Her first novel, Don't You Know That I Love You?, is forthcoming from Dzanc.