Special Episode: The Last ‘Year of the Woman’

There’s been a record number of women running for office this year. The likelihood, based on what we’ve seen so far, is that we won’t see a huge wave of women winning. But what a lot of people who’ve watched women candidates over the years are looking for is just a shift in the way women are allowed to express themselves as candidates and a shift in the way women can campaign. The traditional advice to female candidates has been, if you want to boil it down, to sort of put a pantsuit on, recite your résumé, remember to smile, keep the kids out of the way. That’s really shifting this year. “And that’s me, MJ Hegar.” This ad for MJ Hegar is probably the most viral ad of the season: “An Air Force combat veteran and a mom.” I think what’s grabbing people is this thumping music, the fact that she’s flying a helicopter in Afghanistan. But what’s really interesting about it is she’s also talking about her kids. You see her playing with her kids, you see her as a young girl — “One of my first memories was of a door, but it was my dad throwing my mom through a glass one.” — this very vulnerable young girl of a mother who’s being abused by her father. And the other thing is, she’s showing a tattoo. That’s really unusual in a campaign ad. “I remember what it was like to come home from school and not be able to get into the house.” What’s striking about this ad from Tammy Baldwin is the way it opens and how very frank and honest she is: “My mother had a drug abuse problem.” You think of her as a little girl, someone who’s probably very vulnerable. That’s not something that women have been typically used to talking about on the campaign trail. “That’s me at the State House fighting for working families like mine.” Past advice has been to hide the children. But even more than that, to hide your vulnerability. This year Abby Finkenauer, in her ads, walks right into prime vulnerability, talking about how she owes student loans. “They said the State House would be too tough for a young lady. Then they said that a girl still paying off her student loans wasn’t tough enough to beat a millionaire for Congress.” “Every day gets harder for working families like mine to get by.” Ocasio-Cortez really came out of nowhere. And I think this video is one of the things that got people so excited about her. And if you look at it, she’s really telling an incredibly personal story about what it’s like to live in New York City at this time and how difficult it is. And she’s living her day-to-day life. So she gets up in the morning and she’s in this cramped bathroom putting on mascara. She’s on a subway platform changing from commuter shoes into her high heels, like so many women commuters like her do. We’re seeing this beyond the ads, too. In an interview with Seth Meyers, Stacey Abrams of Georgia talked about some incredibly personal issues. “My brother who faces mental health challenges and drug addiction challenges.” The truth is, the old way of campaigning didn’t work. Right now, studies show us that when you ask someone to imagine a leader, they’re inclined to draw a picture of a man in a suit. For female candidates, this shift in the way women are allowed to express themselves as candidates and a shift in the way women can campaign, really means ultimately a shift in the way we view our leaders.