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To She Who Still Persists


She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
– A small, scared man named Mitch McConnell, referencing Senator Elizabeth Warren in 2017

Elizabeth Warren was not the first woman to stand where she stood on this day.

She was simply yet another, in the near infinite chain of strong, intelligent, capable women, speaking clearly despite the hissing, frantic noise of an insecure, less qualified man in her midst, so desperate to silence her.

She was both making history and yet sadly repeating it. 

Warren was doing something heroic and extraordinary, and yet quite unremarkable too, as billions of women make such defiant stands each day. They may not do it in the blinding glare of the entire watching world, but their courage is no less breathtaking, their resilience no less planet-altering.

It happens in the unadorned beauty of their ordinary days, without fanfare or bombast or applause. It happens in the quiet and the laborious and the unremarkable. It happens in cubicles and classrooms and churches and board rooms: women persisting—and gloriously so.

Most of them will never be trending or have their signal boosted by the world or be known by name or be seen shutting down sitting presidents, but their lives are sending powerful seismic waves into the world in these very moments. As the father of a young daughter, just beginning to discover who she is and who she can be, I am grateful.

Thankfully, my life has been filled with women who have persisted despite warning and explanation; leaders and pastors and friends and co-workers who chose to define themselves, rather than be defined by the media or the world or by a chorus of small, scared men, not unlike the coward positioned across from Elizabeth Warren. These women have taught me and challenged me and shaped me—and one of the most persistent of them, raised me. I have had the great blessing to be married to a beautifully persisting woman for the past two decades. This front row seat to such strength has made me a better human being, I’m sure of it.

The irony of a woman pushing back the scowling, petulant man-child in front of her, who neither earned nor deserved the lofty place he’s found himself in, is not lost on me. Since the 2016 Presidential Elections, I have grieved over the nation we could be working toward, and the lessons my daughter could be learning under the leadership of Hillary Clinton. However, this week Elizabeth Warren reminded me that women have been pushing back and pulling us forward ever since then, and for a long time now—and they haven’t needed permission or blessing. And they are still there for my daughter to witness and learn from. Maybe that is the real lesson.

Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Marie Curie, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Emily Dickinson, Hellen Keller, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Katharine Hepburn, Frida Kahlo, Billie Holiday, Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, Billie Jean King, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oprah Winfrey, J.K. Rowling, Bree Newsome, Malala Yousafzai, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Sally Yates, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Klobuchar, your sister, your daughter’s third grade teacher, my mother…

The glorious parade of persisters marches on.

They persist in marriages where their true voices are not yet fully embraced.
They persist in dusty churches still reluctant to make proper space for their gifts.
They persists in careers still woefully undercompensated compared to their male counterparts.

They persist in workplaces still overpopulated by men threatened by their very presence.
They persist in places on the planet where they are seen and treated as less-than.
They persist despite a million reasons not to; after being given a warning and an explanation—and knowing these things are not good enough reason to stop.

After watching Elizabeth Warren make her confident stand in front of that scared, intellectually outmatched bully, I walked into my daughter’s room and looked at her engulfed in a swirling pile of blankets and stuffed animals. I pushed her hair back from her face and smiled. I pray that she will grow to be such a woman; a woman who will not be shouted down or defined by anyone. I pray that she will find her voice, and that she will use it in whatever way her furiously wild heart compels her to.

And I know that when she does, she too will face the cowards and the bullies and the choruses of insecure men (and sometimes even a voice inside her head), telling her she needs to be quiet and go away and not cause trouble.

And I hope when that happens, she will stand defiantly undeterred and with dignity; warning and explanation be damned, and like so many women who have walked ahead of her—she too will persist.

 

Get John’s book, ‘HOPE AND OTHER SUPERPOWERS’ here!

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