The Big Women's March On American Politics | Rebecca Traister Digs Deep Into The Women Running

There's another Women's March brewing, writes Rebecca Traister for New York Magazine. As marchers all over America celebrated the one year anniversary of The Women's March, the largest activist march in American history, on Saturday and Sunday, Traister writes an in-depth look about the unprecedented number of women running for political office across America. 

To date, 390 women are planning to run for the House of Representatives, a figure that’s higher than at any point in American history. Twenty-two of them are non-incumbent black women — for scale, there are only 18 black women in the House right now. Meanwhile, 49 women are likely to be running for the Senate, about 68 percent higher than the number who’d announced at the same point in 2014. 

Of the 49 women currently planning to run for the Senate (including incumbents, challengers, and those running for open spots), 31 are Democrats. Well over half of the 79 women slated to campaign for governor are Dems, as are 80 percent of the women setting their sights on the House.

These women candidates are eying political offices at every level of local, state and national government. But make no mistake: 29-year-old Republican Lindsay Brown calls herself a "qualified millennial woman running a progressive campaign" for a US House seat in New Jersey. Democratic women would be thrilled to see more 70's style Republicans be elected to political office. In fact the very best event that could happen to Republicans is forward-looking, moderate, millennial women winning political office.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, a new girl gang seeks restorative justice and are determined to lift America out of its position of #90-100 worldwide, depending on the survey criteria, of electing women to political office. 

“When something bad happens,” says Stephanie Schriock, the president of EMILY’s List,  the PAC that has supported Democratic pro-choice women since 1985 and has become one of the most powerful institutions in American politics, “women want to take action.”

The Women’s Campaign School at Yale, founded in 1994, reports that 25 years later, the median age for women attending the school has dropped from mid-40s to around 30.  Women no longer wait for the kids to be grown.  Being young and single is no longer a deal-killer, nor is being the mother of little children. Also different now, says Patricia Russo, who now runs the school, the majority of those who enroll in the school are women of color.

The critical bottom-line stat in Traister's article is the reality that the current capacity to train women candidates can't meet the demand. Erin Vilardi, who runs VoteRunLead, which trains female candidates specifically for local and state-level offices, says “I think there’s a disgust when women find themselves running against a guy who hasn’t changed the photo on his website since the 1990s — these men have been in office for so long.” Then there’s another kind of disgust, increasingly articulated by at least some of the rookie politicians: “There’s disgust very much about the abuse that men in power have systematically been engaging in unchecked, and disgust with the people who continue to keep those men in power.”

Traister's article is a big-brain, inspiring read. Take the time: The Other Women's March on Washington New York Magazine