Kamala Harris Inspires Girls, But Knowledge Makes Them Leaders

ACROSS AMERICA — “You cannot be what you cannot see.”

As a young girl growing up in Atlanta, Kimberly Mitchem-Rasmussen often heard that quote, by Marian Wright Edelman. This week, as the United States prepares for a historic Inauguration Day, the words came to mind again, carrying an especially profound resonance for the founder of the Girls In Politics initiative.

On Jan. 20, when Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is sworn into office, millions of young girls will see exactly who and what it is they can be.

Harris was the second Black woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate. On Wednesday, she will write several firsts in the history books. She will be the first woman to hold the office. The first Black woman. The first South Asian woman.

Mitchem-Rasmussen said that watching Harris take her vice-presidential oath will be “a win” for all girls — and particularly girls of color — who one day might want to run for office.

“So many girls of color can hold on to this and see their potential and opportunity in her,” Mitchem-Rasmussen told Patch. “It’s important because it makes this a reality for them.”

But is the symbolism of Harris’ oath enough to propel girls beyond hope and one day launch a full-fledged campaign for office?

The importance of more women in elected office cannot be overstated. But first, girls must overcome the key barriers that stop them from running in the first place. And the key, those doing the work told Patch, is to smash those barriers when they’re young.

A Century In The Making

On Jan. 3, Kamala Harris was joined by dozens more women determined to shatter glass ceilings on Capitol Hill.

When members of the 117th Congress took their oath of office, 144 women were sworn to the House and the Senate, surpassing the previous record of 127 women set in 2019, according to the Center for American Women And Politics at Rutgers University. Fifty-two were women of color, beating the previous record of 48, also set in 2019.

While not every woman won her respective race, a record number capitalized on the momentum of the 2018 election and showed up en masse two years later to demand a seat at the political table.

RELATED: GOP Women Elected To U.S. Congress Hits Record Number

According to data tracked by the Center for American Women and Politics, 298 women were nominated to run for a seat in the U.S. House in 2020, compared with the record of 234 set in 2018. For the Senate, a record 60 women filed to run in 2020, though only 20 secured nominations, three short of the previous record set in 2018.

Women of color were also well-represented: On Election Day, the names of at least 115 women of color — including a historic 61 Black women, 32 Latinas, and six Native Americans — appeared on ballots across the country.

Women are also recording firsts within President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico will be the first Native American to head the Department of the Interior. Janet Yellen will be the first woman to head the U.S. Treasury.

These firsts are remarkable, though some may argue they’re long overdue.

The 2020 election happened amid the momentous 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. And despite a century of equal voting rights and a record-shattering election year, the United States still ranks 84th in the world for the number of women holding federal office.

Meanwhile, the path to federal office for women has been illustrated by a slow, non-linear timeline of baby steps.

• In 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross, a Wyoming Democrat, became the nation's first woman governor.

• In 1938, Crystal Dreda Bird Fauset of Pennsylvania became the first Black woman elected to a state legislature.

• In 1966, Constance Baker Motley became the first woman of color appointed as a federal judge.

• In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court.

• In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to secure a major party's vice-presidential nomination.

• In 2008, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the first Republican woman to run for vice president.

• In 2016, Kamala Harris was only the second Black woman to be elected to the Senate following her 2016 win. That same year, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada became the first Latina elected to the Senate.

• Also in 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first woman to secure a major party’s presidential nomination.

Here’s the bottom line: Great strides have been made electing women and women of color to federal office in recent years; however, they still remain vastly underrepresented. Women hold just under 27 percent of seats in Congress. For women of color, the chasm is greater — 48 women, only 9 percent, hold seats in the House of Representatives, and only four hold Senate seats.

So, what’s still holding women back?

It’s less about getting elected and more about making the decision to run.

The Barriers Girls Face

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York first decided she wanted to be a senator when she was 7 or 8. Two decades later, she attended a Hillary Clinton speech and heard her personal call to public service.

It took another 10 years, but Gillibrand eventually ran for Congress.

“It took 10 years volunteering to have the actual self-confidence to say, ‘I can run for office,’” she told The New York Times. “Women are the biggest self-doubters.”

A variety of research has found that women are just as likely as men to win an election, and that voters more often cast their ballots based on a candidate’s party rather than gender. Regardless, women still tend not to run.

Every woman’s story is different, yet similar themes exist.

The 100 million Americans who didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election were much more likely to be women and people of color, according to the Knight Foundation’s 100 Million Project. Common reasons for not voting, the report concluded, were lack of faith in the election system and believing their vote had little effect on actual policy.

This is true in the Black community, according to Mitchem-Rasmussen, where politics are often associated with a sense of hopelessness and a feeling that “engaging politically won’t matter.”

The lack of involvement can in some cases be traced back to a lack of political socialization among girls, according to Sara Guillermo, executive director of IGNITE National, an organization that works with girls and young women to develop and build political ambition.

Political socialization happens by exposing girls to the people who make decisions and by teaching them how those decisions affect their lives, Guillermo said. This is done by taking girls to a city council meeting or a court hearing or to the ballot box.

There’s also a fundamental lack of understanding among girls on how the political system works and what rights democracy affords them.

“It’s getting them to understand how they can make a difference at every single level, and to understand that democracy is more than just a single vote,” Guillermo told Patch. “They have a stake in it, in the way that the government hears them, even if they are too young to vote.”

U.S. public schools also lack a consistent, uniform approach to civics education. According to a 2016 survey led by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, only 25 percent of Americans can name the three branches of government. There’s also a lack of engagement in civic behaviors.

In some cases, girls aren’t learning how the government works until 10th or 11th grade, Mitchem-Rasmussen said, adding that girls need civics education as early as possible.

“If we want her to become secretary of state, she needs to know what that is,” she said. “We need to expose them to these opportunities as soon as possible.”

Confidence is also a factor.

Research shows that until the age of 12, there’s virtually no difference in confidence between boys and girls. But, because of an increase in self-doubt experienced by girls during puberty, the average girl by age 14 is far less confident than the average boy.

“If children across the board have that experience,” Mitchem-Rasmussen said, “that’s all the more reason to expose them early and intentionally.”

Breaking Those Barriers

It isn’t until political socialization is paired with education, Guillermo said, that political ambition is born.

And empowerment only comes once girls understand the roles of government and know how they can benefit by making their voices heard, Mitchem-Rasmussen added.

One voice demanding to be heard is freshman U.S. representative Cori Bush.

In 2014, Bush was living six minutes from Ferguson, Missouri, working as a registered nurse and pastor, when 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. was shot and killed by a white police officer. She joined the tear-gas-filled protests on the second night.

Bush kept showing up, she told The Washington Post. After six years, she became a standout grassroots organizer among her fellow protesters.

Eventually, Bush grew tired of asking public officials to make sweeping changes, so she ran to represent Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, winning on her third try and beating an incumbent whose family had held the seat for decades.

Both IGNITE and Girls In Politics work to tear down the barriers facing young girls. The goal is to give them a roadmap to public office, while fostering the ambition and empowerment it will take to get them there.

Guillermo, who came to the United States from the Philippines when she was 2 years old, won her first election in first grade. Her teacher told her parents she “loved to talk and tell people what to do,” so she put her skills to good use as a classroom organizer.

Today, as a 35-year-old breast cancer survivor, Guillermo has held several elected positions in school and continues to serve in civic roles today.

Like Bush, Guillermo emphasizes how “lived experiences can truly be the service in which we do the work in our communities.”

IGNITE was started to reach girls in their “developmental stages” in order to shift their thinking, so participating in democracy becomes as normal as “brushing their teeth,” Guillermo said. Today, the organization trains more than 10,000 girls and young women nationwide through conferences, K-12 programming, college programming and online courses.

About 70 percent of IGNITE participants identify as girls and women of color, Guillermo said.

Meanwhile, the Girls In Politics initiative was born out of a challenge many women face — finding summer child care for their kids. As Mitchem-Rasmussen sought out summer activities for hers, she realized there were several summer camp options for her son but very few for her daughter.

“I had a candidate's campaign strategy on my desk, and I thought maybe we could have something where we teach girls how to run for office,” Mitchem-Rasmussen said, mentioning the campaign work she did for friends who sought elected office. “We could form a congress and pass a bill. We could have an election and elect a president. So, my daughter and I pulled it together.”

Originally called Camp Congress for Girls, the first class was held in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church, the birthplace of Spelman College, an Atlanta-based private university for Black women.

“Educating women is who we are,” Mitchem-Rasmussen said of her church.

At the request of Mitchem-Rasmussen’s friends, the camp quickly moved to Florida and North Carolina. But her idea never really stopped evolving.

Today, the Girls In Politics initiative holds annual workshops in 58 U.S. cities and also has a presence in Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. In the 10 months since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States, the initiative has launched online workshops that tackle topics such as community organizing and advocacy.

While IGNITE and Girls In Politics will continue pursuing their mission, whose responsibility is it to teach girls in the United States? In an ideal scenario, civics participation would become a required part of every U.S. student’s curriculum, Guillermo said.

“Once it becomes the cultural norm, we won’t be spending all our energy getting people to register to vote and get to the polls,” she added.

It could also become an education-driven partnership between schools, communities and local organizations. But, like most important topics, the first conversation should start at home, Mitchem-Rasmussen said.

While the number of women in federal office still remains low, hope for the future is high, as the November 2020 election marked a palpable shift in voter demographics.

In the weeks before the election, about 63 percent of Black voters and 73 percent of white voters told Pew Research Center pollsters that they were "extremely motivated to vote in the general election." About 54 percent of Latino and Asian voters said the same. During the Georgia primary season, many voters, particularly Black voters, waited eight hours or more to participate.

In fact, Black voters were key in securing the White House for Biden, forming a bulk of his support in key swing states including Georgia and Wisconsin.

Behind their mobilization in Georgia was Democrat Stacey Abrams, a former lawmaker who lost a close race for governor in 2018. Launching a grassroots effort aimed at educating voters, Abrams got to work with the help of the New Georgia Project, registering 800,000 new voters in the state, Many were first-time voters under the age of 30 and voters of color.

Mitchem-Rasmussen, who calls Abrams a friend, said “a fire has been lit” in the Black community.

And Black women are the spark.

Is there more work to do to engage future women political leaders?

It will take time to dismantle and address systemic issues that perpetuate sexism and racism, Guillermo said, but the country — and, more importantly, the girls who live in it — are seeing that young women can and should run for office.

But the most important first step, Mitchem-Rasmussen said, is running.

“If you don’t run, you can’t win, so let’s focus on the running,” she said. “If you don’t get in the damn race, you definitely can’t win.

Talking To Your Daughters

While groups such as IGNITE and Girls In Politics have made it their mission to foster civic engagement in girls, experts agree the first steps can and should be taken at home.

IGNITE offers several online infographics, discussion guides and toolkits for mothers to engage their daughters in elections and political activities.

Here are some other tips for parents, provided by Girls In Politics:

• Learn the names of the elected officials that represent your community. If there is an elected official you want to meet, ask if you can visit the official’s office or shadow her for a day.

• Attend a town council or county commission meeting in your community. Request a personal meeting with a councilperson or commissioner.

• Visit your state legislature during the legislative session. Visitors can sit in the legislative chambers during a session and can request a meeting with their state representatives.

• Subscribe to local and regional news sources to stay informed about what is happening in your community. Subscribe to nonpartisan sources to receive fact-based, unbiased information.

• Attend a community forum with your child.

• Help your child form an advocacy group or civics club at their school.

• Volunteer with an advocacy organization or volunteer to work on a political campaign.

• Volunteer to register voters and encourage everyone you know to vote in the next election.

This article originally appeared on the Across America Patch