When Being A Woman Became Cool

I’ve always thought being a woman was pretty rad. I grew up the daughter of an immigrant, single mom, who managed my godfather’s check cashing store and bail bonding office.

I went to work with my mom starting at 2 years old. She would take me and my brother to school in the morning, pick us up from school in the afternoon and every day we would go to work with her. I watched my mom manage her employees, deal with convicts and drunks, balance the books.

My mother is a bad ass. A small, filipino bad ass.

And she has raised a (also small) bad ass. One that thinks all women are bad asses. One who went on to work for a female-led company in the cannabis industry, the only booming industry in America that isn’t dominated by white men. One who has seen, throughout her entire life, that a woman on staff is an addition to any company — whether it’s bail bonding, check cashing, marijuana data & analytics analyzing, and everything in between. One that knows all women deserve equal pay, equal opportunity, and equal respect.

So Tuesday, July 26th, 2016, was the ultimate vindication. The first female to ever become a major-party nominee for President of the United States of America walked across the DNC stage. I felt the hope of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Florence Kelley, and Susan B. Anthony come alive inside of me.

It was, for the first time in our country’s history, women’s first taste of REAL hope since we got the right to vote. Knowing that women were capable of running this country was never the issue, us women have always known that. But we have never actually seen it come this far.

So please, no matter who you vote for this year…just vote. Because 100 years ago, women were thrown in jail for demanding that our generations be allowed to do just that.

And if you are talking to someone who tries to downplay the significance of this moment based on the candidate’s name — ignore them. Because this is fucking history. And it, like all women, is beautiful.

-T