How many times have the young men in the room interrupted me, their senior by decades, their professor and scholar? The unbelievable cheek. And no surprise: over the young women of the classroom. How many times do young women not speak when I know that they know?
I am speaking.
Kamala Harris enunciated these three perfect words, piercing me, shooting an arrow into the fleshy politeness, the WASP-customs I’ve accrued. I don’t have her language, and I need that language. Singing and writing gave me that language, but speaking? Hardly. Too often, I’ve lacked spine in the moment on a pulpit, a stage — I too was the quiet young woman in the classroom. Too often, I become the martyr or the victim, the feminine options I was taught by my Swedish mother to be considered ladylike.
Women aren’t given the pulpit, the presidency, with open arms — we aren’t given the floor, the listening, unless we adopt a prosecutor’s words and a queen’s carriage.
I am speaking.
How many times have I stopped speaking when others roll their tongues out like smelly old carpets …“others” — Let’s just call it: usually, men. How many times have I faded out my volume, my confidence, taking a passive role to listen? How many times have I — professor, scholar, lauded winner of shiny awards — ironically, for my voice and words — been steamrolled by blurting and thoughtlessness?
Countless times. It’s time to rip out the old carpeting.
I am speaking.
A perfect sentence. One the world needs to hear from its female counterparts. Half of the Earth population is still on unequal footing economically, in employment, education, societal standing. Now, we women in the United States watch, state by state, the agency of our own bodies dissolve like red acid tabs — a disintegrating, patchwork quilt of the American map. Women in red states are becoming second-class citizens, their bodies legislated to be enforced incubators, female persons enslaved into pregnancy — even in cases of incest and rape. Many women will die from lack of proper health care.
I am speaking.
I was asked to write an article about my thoughts, as a mother to a daughter of color, about Kamala Harris and the presidential election. And the first subconscious thought to bubble up was, “How dare I?”
And that is how Trump will win. And that is how women will lose.
And so I adopt a prosecutor’s words and a queen’s carriage.
I am speaking.
It is an outrageous reality that we are labeled and organized by gender and/or race, essentially commodified, used so those in power will benefit from our disenfranchisement. It must stop. Silence must stop. Women must speak and be heard.
“I am speaking” is a new mantra for women. Nancy Pelosi spoke to Biden, changing the course for Democrats, giving them an opportunity to protect this fractured country from a disordered man’s quest for autocracy. I try not to speak his name, for it feels like excrement in my mouth, but Trump is attempting to minimize the vice president, a female person, portraying her on her knees, sexualizing her, racializing and discriminating against her. He is threatened. He is accustomed to women, blonde and obsequious, catering to his fragile ego.
It is outrageous that we are here, polarized. That our country cannot see what is so obvious on one hand: a sexual predator, a felon, a kleptocrat, a habitual liar with fantastic television charm — or the very decent Vice President Kamala Harris. The divide is so explosive, I can’t speak politics in my purple town.
I have lost friends at my daughter’s former schools. Don’t they see that my child is biracial? Don’t they hear it in my music? Don’t they know who I am? How can so many Caucasian women parrot their Republican husbands’ views and votes, allowing the overturn of Roe v. Wade, removing rights from their daughters?
My daughter is now in her early 20s, out of NYU Film School, beginning her professional life in New York City. She wants to direct films, write screenplays, create children’s television, and write books. She is brilliant. She will be a voice for women, for women of color. Will she inherit a society who listens to a female leader? Sometimes, I hear her fade the volume of her sentences as louder male-dominant voices interrupt.
I want my daughter to be listened to. She will direct a team. I want the largely male crews to become more gender-balanced, I want them to listen to their director, regardless of gender or race.
Can we imagine a country where women are equal in pay, status, agency, and voice? We are perilously close to hurtling back to the 1950s should we vote in the Republican. Flo Kennedy, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Shirley Chisholm did not do all that intersectional feminist work for us to throw it away now.
We are speaking.
Kamala Harris must be our next president. She must defeat the coward, the bully, with a prosecutor’s words and a queen’s carriage. She must be the first female president of a sullied nation slumping under sordid history.
We must heal — we must change this story of America. It’s time for men and women to back the female candidate, together. The alternative is catastrophic. Will our feminism save this country or will machismo carpet over women’s voices and rights yet again?
We need to listen to women, young and old. We need to listen to Kamala Harris. We must protect our daughters — the next generation. We must protect diversity, prevent division.
It is not just a decision of moral versus immoral. Voting for Kamala Harris for president is a potent step toward forging intersectionality of race, gender, class, religion, ability, identity; our Caribbean, our South East Asian; our red, white, blue, beige, Black and Brown; healing the patchwork that makes America truly the Beautiful.
Paula Cole is the first woman in history to be nominated solely for the Best Producer Grammy. She is a Grammy-winning, multi-platinum artist, former professor, visiting scholar at Berklee College of Music (2013–24), wife, activist, and mom. She is presently on tour for her newest album, “Lo.”
HELLO , I’M BACKING HARRIS 4 PRESIDENT OF AMERICA .