Eleanor Roosevelt, a forceful leader in her own right, once said “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
In the last few months, three prominent women in our country have definitely come under hot water. They’ve been maligned, bullied and targeted because they are strong women who hold strong beliefs or who have forged fierce business strategies that many people envy.
Three women I’m talking about are Elizabeth (Liz) Cheney, Nikki Haley and Taylor Swift.
Cheney is the daughter of a former vice president. She is an attorney and had worked in Washington in a number of roles before being elected to Congress from Wyoming. She was hailed as a staunch conservative and was a leader for the Republican caucus.
However, that all changed after the presidential election of 2020 when former President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election to President Joe Biden. We all know about the swirl of accusations of stolen elections, and we also know of the attempts by Trump and his team to do everything they could to overturn the election.
Cheney had a front-row seat to the craziness. After weeks of court challenges that found no credible evidence that the election had been stolen or that Trump had won, she knew it was time to call the game and begin moving toward that traditional peaceful transition of administrations.
As we all know, that didn’t happen. Cheney captures in her new book the events of those post-election days, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the following impeachment and hearings with chilling detail.
As Cheney became more visible and vocal in her determination to follow the rule of law and uphold the Constitution, she became persona non-grata within the Republican Party, which voted in 2021 to no longer recognize Rep. Liz Cheney as one of their own. She eventually lost her bid for re-election.
Many threats and intimidation tactics came her way for taking a principled leadership stand. Many of her colleagues actually agreed with her, but were too afraid to be public about it. She was not and still is not afraid, and her book “Oath and Honor” clinched the No. 1 spot on the New York Times bestselling book lists in December.
Nikki Haley is the former ambassador to the United Nations under Trump and former governor of South Carolina. She is the only other Republican credibly in the race for the GOP presidential primary other than frontrunner Trump.
She has been working hard to cast herself as a changing point for the Republican Party to move past Trump and into the future. She’s been fierce and articulate during the debates with the other male GOP candidates. Her shot at the nomination is a long one; however, she’s turning away from pressure from Trump and others to “just go away” and bow out of the race.
Trump has tried to disparage her Indian heritage, calling her by her birth name, which is Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. He tried a birther argument against her saying she’s not a citizen because her parents weren’t citizens when she was born in South Carolina. Her birth in the U.S. makes her a U.S. citizen.
She’s pushing back, giving Trump a bit of his own medicine. She’s infuriated him by calling him out on his his tantrums, saying “I know that’s what he does when he is threatened, and he should feel threatened, without a doubt.”
In response to the former president’s threat that anyone who donates to Haley would be “be permanently barred from the MAGA camp,” the Haley campaign began selling T-shirts that stated “BARRED. PERMANENTLY.”
While it would seem her political achievements, conservative chops and the fact she is a woman of color would make her an attractive candidate for a Republican Party that used to seek out such diversity in candidates, that’s no longer a given. The base of the Republican Party engaged in the primaries has become more male and more far-right since Trump became the party standard bearer
Haley is forthright in her intention to stay in the race, saying, “Americans deserve better than what they have in these two options” between Trump and Biden.
And, then, there’s Taylor Swift, who’s not a politician, but an entertainer and probably the most famous women in the United States, if not the world. However, Trump and many conservatives see her as a threat because of her immense popularity.
An element of the online right has decided that the pop star’s famous romance with Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce is a plot to get President Joe Biden re-elected. If the two do not seem naturally connected, well then, you’re probably just being taken in by this “psyop,” according to reporting by Politico.
And goofball former candidate Vivek Ramaswamy dropped hints of what’s to come, claiming a “major presidential endorsement” may be coming from this “propped-up couple.”
“Nevertheless, she persisted.”
This famous remark by Sen. Mitch McConnell during a contentious debate in 2017 to require Sen. Elizabeth Warren to stop speaking during the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General became a rallying cry for the power and resilience of women.
The varying degrees to which each of these women have been attacked just shows the kind of sexism and bias women in power typically face throughout their careers. Strong and accomplished women can combat this through several effective strategies.
Maintaining resilience in the face of adversity is important. By not allowing these attacks to deter them from their goals, Cheney, Haley and Swift serve as role models for other women facing similar challenges. Through their perseverance, they are inspiring positive change and contributing to dismantling the deeply ingrained structures of bias and sexism in their respective fields.
Cindy Allen 