I just wanted to make a point real quick. To those who say that the representation of women doesn't matter, check out Kamala Harris's victory speech from this last Saturday after she officially became the first woman to be elected Vice President of the United States. Pay attention in particular to the audience reactions when she talks about the historic nature thereof beginning about 7 minutes and 50 seconds in. When she says that "every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities", the camera turns to a mom who is there with her two young daughters. She turns to them and they exchange smiles. And right there you have it demonstrated in visual form that it means something to somebody.
It concentrates a reality that even this frankly low bar of representation really does mean something to millions of women in this country. I've observed that it seems to mean more to older women in particular who have lived their lives without any comparable validation of the equality of their sex. The young girls of today will simply take it for granted that this is how things are and how they are supposed to be, not ever knowing a different world.
It feels like something has been achieved here to me anyway. Nothing truly earth-shattering like what it might have meant to have elected say a female actual president, but...well let's put it this way, shortly before the election took place, CNN was running a special on the historical women in the White House. It was called First Ladies because that -- the post of professional wife -- is the highest-level "position" any woman has ever held in the government of this nation so far, after more than 240 years of its existence and a full century since women first won the right to vote nationwide. It was like the 20th such series I'd heard of or seen in my lifetime so far. That's what celebrations of women in the White House look like. There's not even a post called like "First Gentleman" or "First Husband" or whatever. Technically, the husband of a woman elected president would be called the First Lady because the founders just assumed all presidents would be male. So far they have been. But anyway, maybe now we can begin to retire "First Ladies" specials. Or at least they can begin to feel less currently pertinent.
