Even though Juanita Perez Williams didn’t win Syracuse’s mayoral race, she still smashed the gender and racial biases that have kept women of color out of government for too long. And her loss brings up a bigger issue: The lasting need for more women in government positions.

With the Trump administration rolling back guaranteed employee birth control coverage and slashing Obama-era protocol for sexual assault reporting on college campuses, women need a seat at the table like never before. The time for niceties is long past, and the reparations start when we get more politicians who are women in office.

Cara Luddy, an illustrator and campaign organizer for Syracuse’s Ladyfest, said intersectionality is the key ingredient in making politics accessible and beneficial to constituents. In an email, she said representatives must both represent and resemble the demographics they’ve been elected to serve.

“We can’t have a majority of old, white men making decisions for everyone. We need multiracial, multigender representation in our government,” Luddy said. “Women and other marginalized groups have been underserved for far too long and desperately need to have a government that will protect their interests.”

After last year’s presidential election that left many American women reeling, this year’s local elections and the 2018 midterm elections could be the catalyst for proactive change. At the recent Women’s Convention in Detroit, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) made it clear women need to get “off the sidelines” and into office. And some are already leading the way.

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Perez Williams lost an election that would’ve made her the first Latina mayor in New York state, a fact that still showcases the power of proactive women speaking up, standing out and demanding representation. If women participate in the political process as both candidates and voters, Luddy said the result could be extraordinary. But that process needs to begin from the ground up.

“To get women engaged in politics, they need a platform to voice their opinions, and community groups are a great place to start,” she said. “If we can make room for women at the table, we also need to make an effort to make room for LGBTQ+ voices and for POC.”

More political representation by women, whether they’re in the Capitol Building or in Syracuse City Hall, means women will have greater control over issues that directly affect them personally and their demographics. When women have to compete with politicians who are men over reproductive issues or workplace discrimination, the conversation quickly becomes an instance of mansplaining instead of fertile ground for change.

And the mansplaining rhetoric cannot be tolerated any longer.

“Men, intending to protect and champion women end up speaking on their behalf, instead of letting them speak for themselves,” Luddy said. “The results are patronizing and counterproductive.”

If men truly want to defend women, they must allow women to defend themselves. And women have shown they’re more than capable of doing such. Women are no strangers to adversity in general, and especially not to the struggle of making our voices heard over men’s protests. American women’s resilience and grit is the result of years of clawing our way to the top of a ladder that should’ve been accessible from the get go.

We’ve become complacent with the asterisk stuck next to the promise of “We the people,” signifying that our representation is symbolic at best. Government is derived from the consent of the governed, so women deserve to use their voices and votes to consent to a government that sees us as individuals, not as gendered statistics.

The glass ceiling is still firmly in place. But the cracks are growing from the pressure of millions of women with dreams, ambition and the votes to make change a reality.

Kelsey Thompson is a junior magazine journalism major. Her column appears biweekly. She can be reached at katho101@syr.edu.

Published on November 7, 2017 at 11:12 pm