Celebrating the Feminist Victories of the 2018 Midterm Elections

Celebrating the Feminist Victories of the 2018 Midterm Elections


Exhausted, but exhilarated. That pretty much sums up how I (and probably most Ms. readers!) feel about last week’s midterm elections.


At the 2017 Women’s March in Iowa City, more than 1,000 feminists protested the politics of Donald Trump. Two years later, women will make history—and be inaugurated—in Congress and across the country after last week’s midterm elections. (Phil Roeder / Creative Commons)

Victories by feminist candidates in Congressional races led to a shift in the balance of power in the House, accounting for fully 60 percent of Democrats’ gains. Many of them defeated long-entrenched Republican incumbents—and overcame massively gerrymandered districts and voter suppression in order to win and flip the House from red to blue. In the Senate, Jacky Rosen decisively beat incumbent Dean Heller in Nevada. In Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema has just been declared the winner of an open seat long held by Republicans. Among the ranks of the new women headed to Washington are social workers, teachers, veterans, judges, lawyers, refugees, a doctor and a nurse. Some of these new feminist legislators are experts on the homeless crisis, early childhood education and human trafficking; one is a mother who lost her teenaged son to gun violence.

And there were historic breakthroughs, too. Last week, voters elected Muslim and Native American women who will be the first from their communities to ever serve in Congress, the first Latinas to ever represent Texas, the first women to ever represent Pennsylvania, and the first Black woman to represent Massachusetts in the House and the first-ever woman of color to represent New England. We are still awaiting a possible victory in Georgia by Stacey Abrams, who would become the first African-American woman governor in U.S. history. Together, these feminists will bring much-needed new perspectives and ideas to the floor during battles over health care, an assault weapons ban, immigration, voting rights, military spending and foreign policy. And you can meet them in the next issue of Ms.

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It was women voters, led by women of color and young women, who delivered the victories everywhere to break the Republican stranglehold on Congress and many state legislatures. Since the day Donald Trump was declared president, women have been on the frontlines of the resistance—leading massive grassroots mobilizations across the country and stepping forward in record numbers to run for office.
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http://msmagazine.com/blog/2018/11/12/celebrating-feminist-victories-2018-midterm-elections/