Tears of Joy

I just want to say that listening to the announcement of the vote electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House brought me to tears–big, sobbing, crocodile tears. Seeing her take the gavel didn’t do it for me–it was listening to the announcement of the vote and the voice of the clerk announcing the vote.  Don’t just listen, watch the announement of the vote 1:30 minutes into the Democracy Now Headlines.  I didn’t think it would be that moving to me, but here she is, in my lifetime, a woman so powerful in the U.S. government.

I was young enough when Sandra Day O’Connor joined the Supreme Court that I didn’t pay a lot of attention or feel the weight of the occasional, but I imagine it might have been a similar moment.

As a child, I wasn’t aware of the lack. It wasn’t until my mother and her friends, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, talked about what they had to deal with in their professional lives from men who didn’t want to see women in power. I sat quietly listening to their whispered conversations, and I absorbed their truths.

I may not be a second-wave feminist, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart for what they’ve done to bring choices to women’s lives that seemed out of reach in previous generations. I believe I will continue to see big changes in my life and my daughter will see bigger changes in hers. She will live in interesting times.

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