When The Glass Floor is Strong Enough to Hold a Force: The Phenomenon that is Kamla Harris
Kamala Harris | Photo from Kamala Harris/Instagram
Clare Hutchinson is the former Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security at NATO. She the founder of RedHed Consultancy, and as a Canadian she gives her perspective on why Kamala Harris should be the next President of the United States
We, the women of the world, often look out of our windows veiled by the patriarchal curtain and long for days of change. And now, just maybe!
As President Joe Biden took a courageous bow and signaled for the orchestra to continue playing, the work at large held its breath. The courageous act of stepping aside was selfless and patriotic – but not hopefully his final act. It is most certainly the beginning act for the now and rightfully so nominated Vice President Harris.
As a Canadian woman, like so many other global women, I watch the ebb and flow of US politics. It may be drama material for many, but for Canadians the politics of the US is of direct impact. We can either celebrate the trade agreements that help our fisheries and timber or grieve over the reduction in our relationship and decrease in our dollar. For Canadians the US political environment is more than just watching the twists and turns. It impacts us greatly, economically, politically and culturally.
And in that cultural space we have been saddened as our relationship suffered under the Trump regime. As Canadians we have felt the swings and arrows of attack on values and women’s rights both of which are important to Canadians. We pride ourselves on being at the forefront of defending human rights and hold dear the essence of gender equality. The push-back against reproductive rights has damaged not only women in the US but our trust and faith in the US under Trump.
The slow and reprehensible attack on women’s reproductive rights in the US and countries receiving aid was the opening salvo to pushback on more general equality. The withdrawal of funds from Planned Parenthood and other NGOS paved a way for larger more nefarious policies that silently but stealthily attack women’s right to choose. We, along with our sisters, watch and wait, always with interest, sometimes in horror at the downward spiral of women’s disempowerment. The election of Presidential Trump allowed him to do unpresidential activities – it was like releasing the Kracken.
In 2016, I was living in New York and I also donned the pink hat and marched on Washington at the inauguration of President Trump. Like my many sisters, I realized that we were seeing the wanton destruction of women’s rights. While patriarchy has always been king; under a Trump administration, destruction of the rights of women had become the norm; violence against women was trivialized; equity gaps enlarged, and equality belittled.
Once upon a time we thought we were moving, we thought we would see the light at the end of the gender post. Hilary Clinton was our yardstick. But the US was not ready. The patriarchy was still hanging on. The climate was too fragile. The best person for the job, didn’t get it, because I believe that best person was a woman.
But at that march on Washington, I heard a phenomenal woman speak. She took the stand and let force a voice of passion and strength. She had many critics, maybe because she is a woman of strength or maybe because she is a woman of mixed race. But no one who heard her could not be impressed by the force.
It is that force within Kamala Harris, the speaker on that day, that will guide her to the end post. I believe she can win. I believe she needs to win. Not because she is a woman, but because she is the best person who happens to be a woman. There is a big difference.
As a woman from Canada, I closely watch my sister - she may be a woman from a different nation, a different ethnicity, different age and different background - but she is a sister, from the world of sisters, from the land of feminism. We are sisters in the knowledge that misogyny has often pushed us down, but we have the courage to get back up. We still feel those moments when strength has failed and the patriarchal midnight has tried to unravel us, but we have crawled back to that place of resistance; we have been silenced and subjected to that constant narrative of not good enough, too loud, too abrasive, too pushy, too nasty, too many cats . We know all that. And we keep going. Because for Kamala to win, is for all her sisters to win. And when her global sisters win, everyone wins, men, women, girls, and boys.
The glass ceiling has been shattered, let’s hope the glass floor will remain strong, for Kamala, her sisters and those damned cats.
Clare Hutchinson is the former Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security at NATO. She the founder of RedHed Consultancy, and as a Canadian she gives her perspective on why Kamala Harris should be the next President of the United States.