A letter to my daughter as Elizabeth Warren drops out the presidential race

I wanted to tell you that a woman can do anything, but today I find myself asking, 'I don’t know — can a woman be president?'

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Listen, kid, I don’t know what to tell you. This is not an inspiring letter.

In the 2016 presidential election, I stood at the voting booth with you strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn and voted for a woman. You were only two weeks old, and I could still barely walk, but I eagerly hobbled to those polls. It meant so much to finally be voting for a woman president. Hell, yes!

“I can’t wait until you grow up,” I thought optimistically, “and I get to tell you that you were with me as I voted for the first female president.”

The results came in: hell, no! Daughter, I wept in the kitchen late on election night. The following day was one of the gloomiest in my life.

I was heartbroken that my hopes were trashed in 2016 — I was heartbroken because now my hopes are your hopes. As your mother, it’s my duty to tell to you that you can do anything you want with your life, whether that means becoming a teacher or a pilot or, indeed, the President of the United States. But 2016 felt so fraught — a lot was going on in that election. We all know that Hillary Clinton faced whopping amounts of sexism, but could sexism be blamed entirely for her loss? I held out hope for 2020. For me, for you.

Fast-forward to today, when the eminently qualified female candidate Elizabeth Warren has dropped out of the presidential race. I’m not a professional political strategist, but I imagine she dropped out because she calculated that it was impossible to win. Let me say that again slightly differently: a more-qualified woman who ran a great campaign with dignity and respect, who sincerely apologized and owned her missteps, found it “impossible” to win the primary.

I wanted to tell you that a woman can do anything, but today I find myself asking, “I don’t know — can a woman be president?” Of course a woman is able to be president, but will our country vote for a woman president? Is this question walking down the same treacherous road as the awful “electability” question? It’s a chicken-or-the-egg question, right? Women are only “electable” if you vote to elect them — but how can we vote to elect a female president when nobody believes a female president is electable?

Daughter, I am slamming my head on my desk.

What I can tell you for sure is this: as a woman, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. You can be head and shoulders above all your male opponents and watch them get the job, again and again and again. I expect it’ll take a few years before you’re old enough to read this, and when you do — I hope it feels quaint. I hope it feels like ancient history, and we're up to our ears in female leaders. I don’t know if it will be.

As I said at the beginning, this is not an inspiring letter. I'm sorry, daughter.