The 2024 presidential election season has ended, and Donald Trump will begin a second term as president of the United States in January. While many people looked forward to the possibility of electing Kamala Harris as our first woman and first Black and South Asian woman president, that is not our reality. With many issues in the balance, including but not limited to reproductive freedom, women’s rights, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights and environmental protections, we can find strength in each other.
This fall, in the weeks leading up to the election, I reached out to speak with a diverse group of influential thought leaders who shared their views and insights during this pivotal time for a series of articles and podcast episodes.
Although my interviews with these leaders took place when we did not yet know if Vice President Kamala Harris would be sitting in the White House next year, their words still speak to the importance of supporting and cultivating women and diversity in leadership, as well as staying engaged on the issues we care about as we imagine the future we want for our country and the world. For all its disappointments, the election brought with it a few bright spots and small steps toward parity, including the election of another female governor, Kelly Ayotte, increasing the number of women governors to a record 13; Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester becoming the first two Black women to serve in the Senate at the same time; Sarah McBride becoming the first openly transgender woman to serve in Congress; and other incremental gains.
As we near the end of 2024 and look to 2025, let’s keep in mind the advice and wisdom from the leaders featured below, whose diverse perspectives serve as a helpful guide. In a world where it’s easy to lose heart in the hope of progress, let’s look to their inspiring words to remind us why we must keep working toward change.
Featuring: Ted Bunch, Glynda Carr, Jasmine Crockett, Anita Hill, Carol Jenkins, María Teresa Kumar, Barbara Lee, Kimberly Peeler-Allen, Nancy Pelosi, Ai-jen Poo, Reshma Saujani, Gloria Steinem, Mini Timmaraju, Erin Vilardi and Gretchen Whitmer.
We need to keep striving for diversity in leadership.
“The beauty is in the mix. You have to have diversity of opinion at the table, whether it’s men and women, people of color, young people, LGBTQ+—it’s absolutely essential. It’s what our founders had in mind. When they said, ‘E pluribus unum: from many, one,’ they couldn’t possibly imagine how many we would be or how different we would be from each other, but they knew we had to strive for unity, and for that unity we have to all be at the table.”
—Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Representative, former speaker of the House
We can never leave women and people of color out of the conversation.
“Up to now, we’ve been ignoring the talents of half the country. Now, I hope we’ve begun to learn that we have not been living in a democracy. Democracy is only realized when all adults are able to express our opinions and use our talents. Half this country is female, and half is composed of people of color. Until those exclusions are gone, we are not living in a true democracy. Whenever we see a decision-making body, it should represent the experience of the people who are affected by those decisions. That should be common sense, but from corporate boards to state legislatures, it’s still far from common.”
—Gloria Steinem, founding editor at Ms., author and activist
We need to invest in and support Black women.
“If you invest in Black women, it’s not just Black women that benefit: the whole nation benefits. We have had some really stellar Black women in elected office: Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Lottie Shackelford—they’re trailblazers and have been extremely vocal. So, it feels like Black women have this outsized presence, but when you actually count up how many we have had and how long they’ve served in total versus the number of Black women in the population, they’re grossly underrepresented… We’ve got to change the narrative and we’ve got to really drive home what is at stake, and also the importance of mobilizing and empowering Black women to really claim their seat because it is rightfully theirs.”
—Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights
We must keep working toward increasing the political power of women.
“I think the country and the world really know the untapped political power of women, the untapped political potential of asking women to run for public office, to serve on advisory boards, to get appointments. We literally make government better. We see it not only in this country and in our local offices, but we see it globally. From 2016 to now, we have all the research, we understand the political power of women. We tend to out-hustle our male counterparts: we’re signing more bills, we’re putting more bills into law, we’re co-sponsoring more bills. At a congressional level, we’re often bringing more money home to our districts. You also find that things like budgets pass more on time, so [women bring] the sort of efficiencies and operations for healthy democracy, for healthy government. And then we’ve long seen this from when women first get into public office, that they put the issues of women and families on the agenda.”
—Erin Vilardi, founder and CEO of VoteRunLead
We need to let our voices on reproductive rights be heard.
“Research shows that the most powerful and trusted messenger you have in reaching your community is you. So, we need you out in your community talking about the stakes of our fight for reproductive freedom. Urge your family and friends to get involved. We need each and every one of you by our side in this fight. Our lives and our freedoms depend on it.”
—Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All
We must work toward being a country that invests in care jobs.
“Economists will tell you that investing in making a childcare job or a direct-care job a better job is such a great return on investment because you turn a poverty-wage job into a living-wage job; it benefits that worker, her family and community. But then, it also enables all the people who rely on her care services to get to work. It makes sure that our children are getting the right care and early education, our older adults and people with disabilities are getting dignified care, quality of life and the potential to actually live a full life at different stages; this actually beneficial because you might save the healthcare system a whole lot of waste from unnecessary hospitalizations or institutionalizations. And, in general, healthcare outcomes are much better when people have good care. So, when you understand that human beings power the economy, then it becomes very obvious how this is important.”
—Ai-jen Poo, co-founder of Care in Action, president of the National Domestic Workers Alliance
We need to push for accessible, affordable childcare solutions for families and working moms.
“Women can’t work without childcare. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, 50 percent of prime age women who are not in the workforce are not working because of caregiving challenges. And 59 percent of parents with young kids have had to cut back on work hours or even leave their jobs because they couldn’t find reliable, affordable childcare. At the same time, employers are losing $23 billion a year because of childcare-related complications, causing a $122 billion hit to our economy… Childcare has finally been elevated into the national conversation. Now we have to keep up the pressure to ensure it stays at the top of the priority list.”
—Reshma Saujani, founder of Moms First
We have to stay engaged and challenge biases.
“I’d encourage people to stay involved, stay engaged, educate yourself, and have conversations with your friends and family around these very important issues. Challenge biases that come up, as difficult as that may be. It’s up to us to create the kind of world that we want to see. And for A Call to Men, that’s a world where all men and boys are loving and respectful and all women, girls and those in the margins are valued and safe.”
—Ted Bunch, co-founder and chief development officer of A Call to Men
We can’t give up. We have to keep voting. The next generations need us.
“The way we change systems is not by resisting, it’s not by sitting out, but it’s literally by occupying that voting booth and voting our values. … If we could all agree that what nurtures our democracy is our vote, the fact that someone sits it out is actually suffocating the ability for our democracy to breathe and thrive and live. … What’s going to happen to a generation when they look at us and say, ‘You guys did have it better, and you left us behind? You closed the upward mobility of women, you closed the upward mobility of transgender people. You closed the upward mobility just because you were too tired or it was too messy or it was too hard.’”
—María Teresa Kumar, CEO Voto Latino
We can’t be idle in the work.
“Keep it moving. That’s the only way. When you take things personally or let the bullies get you down, it’s a distraction from the work. Even with the attacks I’ve received, I’ve never had regrets about getting involved in politics.”
—Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan
We have to mentor and support others on paths to leadership.
“We lift as we climb. For example, myself—there’s no way I would’ve taken a risk running for the Senate, wanting to win, I did everything I could do to win—I didn’t, but I made sure that there would be a Black woman, and there were many who were ready to run for my seat. So, I think it’s important to continue to build that by mentoring, by encouraging, by supporting… My responsibility was to make sure I wasn’t the only and last, but to do everything I could do to prepare other women of color to run for public office. That’s the responsibility that we all have. And it’s a heavy duty responsibility because while you’re constantly fighting to have a seat at the table yourself, you’re fighting for people who’ve been marginalized and you’re fighting to make sure other people have the opportunities that you’ve had.”
—U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)
We should keep advocating for policies that benefit us all.
“That’s what diversity does for us: It maximizes our strength. So, it is important that we have people of color who come from different backgrounds. It is important that we have women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. It is just important that we have people with different experiences coming together collectively to be a voice for the entirety of the country. Because when we look at the country and the types of policies that we should have, they should be policies that are reflective of who we are. We are not a monolith; we come from all walks of life and we are incredibly diverse. We are the most diverse in the world, and our leadership should be reflective of that.”
—U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas)
We must keep working toward inclusivity.
“If you’re going to use the word democracy, that’s what it means. You cannot have a democracy when you have excluded women, people of color and different sexual orientations. So many people are still excluded. … We have to have that inclusion and in much greater numbers.”
—Carol Jenkins, activist, journalist and board chair of ERA Coalition
We should keep having important conversations and volunteer for causes and candidates.
“It is all about our circle of influence; people listen to us when we speak, so use those times that we’re gathering around food to actually have conversations with your network. And volunteer for organizations that you’re inspired by, volunteer for candidates up and down the ballot that you’re inspired by.”
—Glynda Carr, co-founder, president and CEO of Higher Heights
We can all be leaders in our own authentic way.
“One of the pieces of advice that I give to young leaders is that there is no one size and there’s no one model for leadership. Anyone can lead, especially on the issues that they care about. So, if you want to be a leader, I always use the example of, ‘Don’t think that you have to speak like Martin Luther King, Jr., but think about what really drives you, what you really care about and what your vision for making it happen is. And then use the particular skills and talents that you have to pursue it. It’s not going to be the same for everyone who’s even pursuing the same issue, but you can always bring something unique to your experiences, to your learnings, to your thinking, to a topic, and you can be a leader in that way.’”
—Anita Hill, law professor at Brandeis University
