As the daughter of one of the most notorious crime bosses, Victoria Gotti wants you to know there’s more to her family than you think. “We’re human,” she tells Glamour. “If people see that, that’s all they need to know.” They’ll get their chance this weekend with the latest Lifetime true crime movieVictoria Gotti: My Father’s Daughter.
Gotti executive produces and narrates the movie about her life, which does a deep dive into her childhood and teenage years. Chelsea Frei (YouTube’s Sideswiped) plays Gotti as an adult, and General Hospital Emmy-winner Maurice Benard plays her father, John Gotti. “I wanted to do justice to somebody who is alive and well,” Frei says. “I remember meeting Victoria and thinking, ‘This isn’t just the stories that I knew over the years. This is a really genuine person with a family.'”
Gotti credits Lifetime for giving her a say in the casting process, and she’s excited for people to see a different side of her family. Read more of our interview with her, Frei, and Benard, below.
Glamour: Maurice and Cheslea, how much did you know about the Gotti family before this film?
Chelsea Frei: I knew a bunch. I’m from Boston and everybody is obsessed with the Gottis there. I never saw Growing Up Gotti until I started auditioning for this film, but it’s so good.
Maurice Benard: I watched all of it, and it was a trip. I loved it. You didn’t know what was going to happen from one second to the next.
Victoria, how involved were you with Maurice and Chelsea’s casting?
Victoria Gotti: I was very much part of it, but I have to give [Lifetime] credit because I think, in the end, they wouldn’t make a decision without my final approval, which was nice. [With Maurice], I told them, ‘I think he’s the guy.’ And then Chelsea was right after that. They’re both brilliant. I thank Lifetime for [acknowledging I know] who is going to be better at playing the people that I know better than anybody else there does.
Chelsea and Maurice, how nerve-wracking was it to meet Victoria, especially given her hands-on involvement in the project?
Maurice: For Chelsea, it was difficult because Victoria’s right there [and she’s playing her]. It’s like if I had John Gotti in front of me; it’s a lot of pressure and would be very difficult. But for me, it’s a very difficult and very exhilarating role. The best advice was from Victoria when she said to play [John] like Michael Corleone in The Godfather and not Tony Soprano. And also, I had a great connection with Chelsea. It was like a father/daughter [relationship].
Lifetime
Chelsea: I’ll never forget when we met in the hotel the first day, and I was very excited because I grew up watching General Hospital. When I found out I was doing the movie, my mom was freaking out and then I was like, ‘And guess who’s playing John Gotti?!’ I mean, it was just crazy. I’m such a fan.
Victoria, you narrate the film and appear on camera. Was that your decision?
Victoria: I wish I could take the credit for that, but I can’t. The network called me…I was against it.
So why did you say yes?
Victoria: They threatened me. [Laughs] I’m kidding. They said if I didn’t like it when we finished, they’d take it out.
What was the most challenging scene?
Maurice: Everything kept me up at night. I truly wanted to be great for Victoria, because it’s her father. I wanted to be great for Chelsea, who I’m working with. Same for Catherine [Cyran], the director. And for Lifetime. So it was non-stop pressure. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve seen enough [clips] to know it looks amazing. Chelsea’s amazing. I’m pretty good. I think I’m actually good. [Laughs]
The season one finale of Netflix’s You was bonkers, to say the least. After nine episodes of stalking and murder, Beck finally became privy to Joe’s behavior and tried to GTFO. Of course, this didn’t happen: Joe managed to kidnap Beck and keep her locked in that weird glass box in the basement of his bookstore. She almost successfully escaped, but unfortunately evil and toxic masculinity prevailed: Joe murdered Beck, or so we think, and he framed her therapist, Dr. Nicky, for the crime. He then sent the manuscript Beck had been working on to a publisher, thus turning her into the bestselling author she always wanted to be—all posthumously, mind you.
But what if Beck isn’t really dead? After all, Joe’s ex-girlfriend Candace popped up unexpectedly in the season finale, and we were convinced she died too. Plus, we never actually saw Beck’s dead body, just a body placed inside one of those crime-scene bags. Is it possible that Joe completely staged Beck’s death and she’s still down in his God-awful cage?
That’s what a few fans seems to think. “For anyone who’s watched the #Netflix series You, my theory is that Beck isn’t dead and she’s still down stairs in Joe’s weird-ass box,” one fan wrote on Twitter. “Beck isn’t dead. Joe just has her in the cage, and he reads to her every night, feeds her and tells her how much of a successful writer she is,” posted another. (That’s a very…bleak image.)
“I am so convinced Beck isn’t actually dead and is just in that horrific glass box forever now,” tweeted someone else. Check out some more reactions from viewers who are also on this train:
There are a few issues with this theory, though. For one, the world thinks Beck is dead. For her to suddenly reappear would require an ironclad explanation from the show-runners, which might not be possible. Also, Elizabeth Lail, who plays Beck, told Vulture she knew Beck was going to die before she signed on to the project.
“I thought it was gonna be some heroic justice at the end, but it’s more true to life that she does die, unfortunately. It’s more likely that someone would die in that situation,” she said.
Looks like we’ll have to wait until the season two premiere to receive any definitive answers.
Rashida Tlaib has her new commute timed: It takes about an hour and a half to fly from Washington, D.C., to her hometown of Detroit.
The pomp and polished marble of the U.S. Capitol might seem a world away from Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, one of the poorest in the nation. Yet when Tlaib—who won her primary in August and had no Republican opponent in November, making her a lock to become the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress—explained to her two boys that she was going to start spending “three to four days a week in D.C. to change the world,” Adam, 13, erased any worries. “It’s OK, Mama, ’cause we can FaceTime,” he told her. Her younger son, Yousif, seven, was equally supportive: “He really does think I’m going to take care of Trump, like, give him a time-out. He’s like, ‘Mommy’s going to fix it,’” she says with a laugh. “I’ve always been the fixer in my family, and I think my kids see that in me as well.”
The “fixer” role dates back to the responsibilities she shouldered while growing up, when Tlaib, now 42, was like a “third parent” in a big working-class family—she was the eldest of 14 children of Palestinian immigrants. In 2008 she became the first Muslim woman elected to the Michigan legislature, serving three terms. But Tlaib says getting into politics back then, and running for Congress a decade later, wasn’t about making history. It was about making change and a sense of obligation she says is grounded in her Muslim heritage. “There’s a saying in Islam,” she says. “After you take care of your home, your family, you have a duty to take care of your community.”
That sense of duty now encompasses the 700,000 or so people of Tlaib’s House district—and in Washington she plans to fight for them to have access to quality health care, thriving schools, good jobs, and clean drinking water.
Part of a crop of new lawmakers who don’t want to wait to make themselves heard in D.C., Tlaib is used to using a bullhorn. Shortly after her primary win, while still working as the community outreach and development director at Detroit’s Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, Tlaib got arrested during a worker protest for better wages. Economic justice initiatives, like protecting home buyers from predatory lenders, are also priorities. “I want to transform people’s lives immediately,” she says.
“I told my chief of staff, ‘please make sure that if I ever get [jaded] like that, you’ll tell me it’s time to leave.”
But that may not be easy. Congress, by intent, wasn’t built for speed. It’s an ecosystem ruled by seniority and tradition, and its veteran members don’t often cede power easily to backbenchers, as more seasoned lawmakers call them. Tlaib has already felt the brushback from a few of her future colleagues. “Some were like, ‘You don’t know, little girl, just wait.’ No one has said that,” she emphasizes, “but that’s how it feels sometimes…. I’m like, ‘I’m hoping to do this, and I’m hoping to do that,’ and they’re like, ‘Mm-hmm….’ It’s increasingly frustrating to see that my kind of passion and this energy that I’m bringing is something they’re [reacting to] like, ‘Yeah, we’ve seen this before.’ ” When she saw lawmakers that jaded, she says, “I told my chief of staff, ‘Please make sure that if I ever get like that, you’ll tell me it’s time to leave.’”
But many House members are also prepping her to hit the ground running on day one. Representatives Debbie Dingell (D–Mich.), Karen Bass (D–Calif.), and Marcia Fudge (D–Ohio) have given early advice. She’s been in touch with Rep. Barbara Lee (D–Calif.) to work with her on battling poverty. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D–Wash.), whom Tlaib has known from back when they teamed up on post-9/11 civil rights work, has given her sound counsel. And her supporters also keep her charged up. She’s committed to coming home to her district every week in the first 100 days of her term. “To get that courage, that fuel that I need,” Tlaib says, “I need to be here in the community, on the ground level, [because] this reminds me why I ran in the first place.”
She wants to bring a local, and very personal, focus to big issues. When Tlaib talks about the environment, for example, it’s as someone who requested that petroleum waste stored alongside the Detroit River be tested for toxins to protect the air quality of her constituents. When she steps into the seat once held by fellow Democrat John Conyers, who left office under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations, it’s not just as a politician discussing the #MeToo movement but as woman who once confronted sexual harassment on the job. She sharply decries President Trump’s detention centers and travel bans not only as the daughter of immigrants but as a mom who says her own son has spoken fearfully of being a Muslim in America under this administration. (Expect her to be a vocal critic of the President: In 2016 she got hauled out of a speech he was giving in Detroit for shouting at him.)
In a year marked by a historic number of women running for office, Tlaib is constantly buoyed by the women cheering her on—the one who made her a cookie jar for her office; the one who presented her with a necklace with her name in Arabic script; the one who sent a small donation but asked Tlaib to skip the thank-you note because her husband, “you know, wouldn’t understand.”
Tlaib knows that women do understand. She’s confident the women of Congress, particularly mothers with younger children, can work together more effectively than their male peers. “Think about it: If we just put moms in a room, Republican and Democratic moms, we probably could fix the gun control issue in about two hours,” she says. “Our lens and focus wouldn’t be Republican or Democrat; it would be our kids. I’ve seen it so many times on different issues—moms do come from a different approach to issues because we have more at stake, to be honest. We just see things differently.”
Is she fired up? Yes, and she plans to stay that way. If she feels that purpose, that intensity, slipping away, she’ll know it’s time to move on. “My predecessor was there for 52 years. I can’t stay there for 52 years; I don’t think it’s emotionally healthy. But I think as long as I have this fire in my belly, as long as I have this desire to make a huge difference, as long as that’s there and it’s burning, I’ll stay,” Tlaib says. “And I’ll fight.”
Celeste Katz is Glamour’s senior politics reporter.
Hair and makeup: Robbin Kujus for Inglot; Location courtesy of The Alley Project; Mural: Lead Artist: Freddy Diaz, Assisting Artist: Dave Bequette
Maria Luisa Mendiola has always had an affinity for bold, striking swimsuits—in part because for years, she’d buy them in the hope that they’d take attention away from her feet. She was born with brachymetatarsia, a condition in which one of her toes is visibly shorter than the others. Growing up in Costa Rica, going to the beach was a constant source of anxiety, because it meant going barefoot.
“I was always so uncomfortable, because everything in my body looked ‘normal,’ but I think people were a lot quicker to ask me why my feet looked different,” she says. “Having that conversation was so difficult for me because there was always this taboo about being different.”
Brachymetatarsia is a hereditary condition, and Mendiola reasoned that, while she doesn’t have kids yet, she wants her hypothetical future offspring to feel accepted, no matter what they look like: “I think that, pardon my French, but lit a fire under my ass… I need to make sure that the society that my children live in is going to be much more embracing of differences and empathetic.”
Mendiola recognized that while her condition may be specific, the psychological and social burden of disfigurement—a catchall term that can describe everything from congenital conditions (like cleft lips and palates) to scarring caused by an accident or surgery to paralysis from a stroke or Bell’s Palsy—is something that many more people are familiar with. People with visible disfigurements, for instance, often face conscious and unconscious bias, staring, hostility, and discrimination in the workplace and in school, something that can be debilitating itself, hindering self-esteem and quality of life.
Mendiola decided to confront this issue head-on, quitting her job in finance to enroll in a master’s program at Central Saint Martins, the famed London design school. For her graduate project, she designed a line of swimsuits inspired by disfigurement. That turned into MIGA Swimwear.
PHOTO: Bruna Lacerda/Courtesy of MIGA
When she first started the project, Mendiola connected with several women through a U.K. organization called Changing Faces, which supports and advocates for the estimated 1.35 million people in the country with significant face or body disfigurement, to help develop what would become MIGA. (In the U.S., there is no single organization dedicated to disfigurement—rather, they tend to focus on a specific condition or group of conditions, such as craniofacial anomalies or eczema—so no such overall statistics exist.) Later on, she reached out to potential partners based in the U.S., and eventually found a collaborator in New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center’s burn support group.
Mendiola sat down with women in this group and interviewed about their experiences with swimwear and design preferences (Katuiscia DeJean, one of its members, says she would make her own protective swim layer from the sleeve of a surfing rash guard; another, Mio Acosta, recalls wearing board shorts or leggings and long sleeves to the beach—none of which were particularly comfortable on hot summer days.) They also participated in fittings, modeled, and ultimately walked away with a swimsuit tailored to their individual needs.
PHOTO: Bruna Lacerda/Courtesy of MIGA
Each MIGA suit comes in two versions: one specifically designed with a survivor’s needs in mind (with a detachable skirt, a matching glove, or an asymmetrical sleeve), and one more traditional one-piece or bikini style for or anyone who may not want as much coverage (whether you have a disfigurement or otherwise.) When you purchase one or pledge to the brand’s Kickstarter, you’ll receive a short narrative of someone’s experience living with disfigurement. Through this process and MIGA’s just-launched blog, Mendiola hopes to break the silence around this topic, as well as create a space to talk about what it means to look different—something most women can no doubt relate to.
Isabel Heine, one of Mendiola’s collaborators, who suffered burns on 35 percent of her body during an apartment fire in 2003, says she was particularly drawn to the project because of its focus on women. “Something that I’ve seen in working with different burn patients is that men and women handle scarring very differently,” she says, noting how, in her experience, female survivors tend to need more time adapting to the changes in their appearance. “That was certainly something that I remember dealing with a lot and finding to be the most difficult, because with women, society and ourselves, put so much value in our physical appearance. When that’s completely altered overnight, it’s shocking to your sense of identity.”
PHOTO: Bruna Lacerda/Courtesy of MIGA
Identity was something Mendiola also had to reckon with when choosing the language to use surrounding the line. Some of the consumers she hopes to reach might not necessarily identify with the term “disfigured,” preferring instead to use “visible difference” or the precise name of their condition. She settled on “disfigurement” because experts consider it to be the most neutral and precise term, and it can carry over to any group she works with in future collections.
Acosta says she’s okay with the word “disfigurement,” but there’s another she no longer identifies with: victim. “I feel like we’re more so survivors than we are victims,” she explains. “I know we were victims at one point, but you do survive it and you continue to live.” DeJean adds: “At the end of the day, my scars don’t define who I am. But they helped craft who I’ve become.”
PHOTO: Bruna Lacerda/Courtesy of MIGA Swimwear
The functional elements of a swimsuit designed for burn survivors, such as placing a seam in such a way that it doesn’t irritate a skin graft or adjusting the length of a sleeve so it covers a scar, are important, especially since it’s a group of people that historically hasn’t been catered to. But what might be as vital is the message that MIGA’s existence and mission conveys—one of equality, shattering of prejudices, and self-acceptance.
The end of 2013 government shutdown started with pizza, wine, and 20-ish frustrated female senators. It was Aaron Sorkin–esque, except zero men were present.
By the first week of October, the partisan battle had dragged Washington to a halt. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D–N.H.) invited the women to her office to discuss a plan to reopen the government that Senator Susan Collins (R–Maine) had put forth. “There were a lot of people—ahem, men—who would have liked to be the bullies on the playground and just cross their arms and see who had to back down first,” Senator Patty Murray (D–Wash.) recalls. “We didn’t want to wait to see who backed down.” She’s heard that women politicians are more polite and more patient than men, but that wasn’t their motivation: “What we were was impatient.” To finish it. To get back to business.
When the shutdown ended at last, the late Senator John McCain (R–Ariz.) tipped his hat to his female colleagues: “Leadership, I must fully admit, was provided primarily from women in the Senate.”
The Senate comprises 100 members. At the time of the 2013 fracas, its female faction was made up of 16 Democrats and four Republicans. Today the Senate boasts 23 women (only 52 have ever served). It’s a paltry improvement, but leaps and bounds better than the fraction of women in power in other strata of influence: Just six governors are women. Only 24 Fortune 500 companies are women-led—that’s less than 5 percent.
Sen. Shaheen wants to see the Senate look like America, with an equal gender split. (Hers is a moderate stance; when asked at what point there will be enough women on the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pronounced, “When there are nine.”) But even a modest increase in women could make a difference in how the legislative branch operates and votes and affects all our lives.
The midterm elections will see more women than ever on the ballot. What we don’t know is how many of those candidates will win. If current female incumbents hold their seats, a woman-versus-woman race in Arizona will inch the number of women in the Senate up to 24. Some pollsters think it’s possible that Democratic Representative Jacky Rosen could win in Nevada or Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn could come out ahead in Tennessee, which would push the number to 25 or 26 and create a coalition with far more influence than women have had so far.
With a result like that, we’d be closer than ever to getting the answer to a question that has tantalized and divided political scientists for decades: What would happen to our gridlocked, super-partisan politics if women surpassed the tipping point?
The idea of the tipping point dates back to 1977, when Rosabeth Moss Kanter, then a professor at Yale University and Harvard Law School, theorized the idea of critical mass as it applies to women in positions of power. Kanter observed that women had to make up at least 30 percent of a team to contribute at their full potential. Under that threshold, women were often dismissed as token representatives of their gender—not equal participants, let alone persuasive decision makers. Ever since then, experts have debated the ideal proportion: Is it 35 percent? Would 25 be sufficient? Whatever the number, women in federal government haven’t reached it. “The point is to be included—not seen as an outsider,” says Kanter, now chair and director of Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative.
Make no mistake, it does help to have one woman, or a handful, in “the room where it happens.” That was visible in April, when Senator Tammy Duckworth (D–Ill.) gave birth to her daughter, Maile. Less than two weeks later she was back in the Senate, Maile in tow, for a vote. But Maile’s presence there—let alone her warm welcome— would have once been inconceivable. Babies have been banned from the floor as far back as all the people who serve in the Senate can remember. When Sen. Duckworth learned she was pregnant, she asked Senator Amy Klobuchar (D–Minn.) to lead a bipartisan effort to strike down the rule. For months Sen. Klobuchar met with colleagues to convince them to support a reversal. Some on the Hill were worried about whether—the horror!—Sen. Duckworth would have to breastfeed. But Sen. Klobuchar made her case, and the rule was overturned with unanimous consent. “I think it would do us good…to see a pacifier next to the antique inkwells on our desks,” said Senator Dick Durbin (D–Ill.) at the time.
PHOTO: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
Senator Tammy Duckworth, back at work with her newborn.
It’s a nice sentiment, but it overlooks the fact that the United States remains the lone industrialized nation in the world that doesn’t guarantee paid parental leave. Kanter believes that more elected women would lead to changes in policies like paid leave or access to health care. But Georgetown University professor Michele Swers, Ph.D., is more skeptical. While she acknowledges that women have unique experiences to draw on that can make men view certain political issues with a fresh perspective, she cautions that women are not immune to the extreme partisanship that has infected Washington, despite the notion that women are reputed to be better at collaboration and risk assessment than men. “At the national level, there’s just less room for collaboration than there used to be,” Swers says.
Even so, women in the Senate have tried to make the most of their low numbers. It was former Senator Barbara Mikulski (D–Md.) who set out to boost women’s collective power with routine bipartisan dinners. Credit where credit is due, notes Sen. Murray: “Because we took the time separate from legislative action to know where people come from…then when those impasses are reached, it’s much more likely that someone will reach out and ask, ‘How can we solve this?’ ”
There’s evidence, too, that women in office use their voice to different effect than men. In a 2010 University of Minnesota study, researchers found that women in the House of Representatives give more floor speeches. (How else to be heard in public?) And female politicians tend to emphasize issues that matter more to women and families (never mind that most families include men too): A deep dive into 2018 congressional transcripts found that female representatives spent more than twice as much time on health care in their speeches as male legislators did. Those efforts could have a greater impact, in part, because of the “Jill Robinson effect.” Two political scientists coined the term in 2011, positing that because bias makes it harder for women to get elected, those who do persevere are more adept lawmakers. (The phenomenon is named after baseball icon Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball.) To wit: The research found that congresswomen claim up to 9 percent more in flexible dollars for their districts than congressmen do. Want to better fund education or health care in your area? Elect women.
While business doesn’t do much better than government when it comes to female representation— women make up just 21 percent of corporate board seats in the S&P 1500—active steps have been taken to boost their ranks. California recently passed bills that would require publicly traded companies in that state to have at least one woman on their board by 2020, and more women, depending on a company’s size, by 2022. Europe has had such requirements for a decade. In 2006, for example, Norway established a quota for women on boards. France now has one too; the aim for female representation is 40 percent. The laws were passed in the name of fairness, but they’re also good for business. A 2016 report from global nonprofit Catalyst found that companies with three or more women on their board of directors, no matter the size, outperformed the competition across three crucial metrics: return on equity, return on sales, and return on invested capital. In other words, money, money, money. And research from Miriam Schwartz-Ziv, Ph.D., assistant professor at Michigan State University, has found that members of gender-balanced boards are twice as active (meaning, likely to take initiative) as non-gender- balanced boards.
That math underscores principles that William P. Lauder, executive chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies, says have been baked into the DNA of his family’s business since its inception. In April the company added two more women, Jennifer Hyman, cofounder and CEO of Rent the Runway, and Jennifer Tejada, CEO of PagerDuty, to the board, which means eight of its 17 directors are now women. (For perspective, just three Fortune 500 companies have an equal number of male and female board members.) Lauder chafes at the excuse that there are too few qualified women candidates in the pipeline. Lauder, a member of the 30 Percent Coalition, an initiative to create more diverse corporate boards, maintains women are a “value add” for companies’ boards. Before beginning this latest search, he remembers he was explicit with his current board members: “I said, ‘Here’s what we need—we need expertise in cyber and we need expertise in social and digital.’ On top of that, I said, ‘We need more women directors.’ Those were the criteria: female, with these qualifications.”
Hyman notes that women are responsible for 85 percent of purchases in the U.S., so it just makes sense to empower them in business—who better to know the consumer? She joined Estée Lauder because she trusted her opinion would be valued. “It wasn’t that they hit a number,” she says. “It was that they embraced the diversity of the people who were there across every metric. They say it out loud.”
When Ayanna Pressley became the first black woman ever to serve on the Boston City Council in 2009, she did not feel, from the media and the public at least, the kind of embrace that Hyman describes. What she remembers was the sense that people outside the council believed her success was owed to the idea that voters had wanted to elect a “first.” That narrative, she says, “took away from what I had accomplished.” (After she defeated a 10-term incumbent for the Democratic nomination in September, Pressley is now expected to be elected to Congress in November.) Pressley hoped that chatter would die down in 2013, when Michelle Wu was elected to serve on the council. But both women insist it wasn’t until two more women, Anissa Essaibi George and Andrea Joy Campbell, joined in 2015 (and pushed the 13-person council over the 30 percent mark) that their gender started to matter less.
PHOTO: KEITH BEDFORD/THE BOSTON GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Ayanna Pressley (second from right), Michelle Wu (second from left), and the women of the Boston City Council.
“There had been a lot of pressure on us to represent this whole spectrum [of womanhood],” Wu says. “Would we line up together? Would we take opposite sides? There was so much examination, solely about our relationship with each other because we are women.” The addition of Essaibi George and Campbell made clear that they serve their own constituencies, not just those who happen to have the same chromosomes. That’s a freedom women in federal government, and Democratic women in particular, lack. When Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D–N.D.) declined to vote for stricter gun restrictions in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting, she said in an interview with Time that the backlash from women nationwide surprised her: “A female friend in the Senate said to me, ‘You know, it’s because they feel you represent all women, not just the women of North Dakota.’ ”
Earlier in 2018, as yet another government shutdown over how and whether to protect the Dreamers loomed, Sen. Collins introduced a compromise bill that would have given the young undocumented immigrants legal status over time and fund border security. Her effort came closer than other prospective fixes, but failed in a 54–45 vote. An overwhelming number of female senators voted for her amendment, 18 in all. (Four opposed, and one wasn’t present.) Sen. Shaheen points out that with six more likeminded women, the bill would have passed. Nine or 10 more, and women would have had a critical mass—and votes to spare.
Perhaps the headline would have read: “Women Save the Dreamers.” But a better result? If people had looked at the numbers and seen that more than 60 senators with different points of view found a path forward. That, explains Ellen Pao, the activist who cofounded the nonprofit Project Include after losing a gender discrimination suit against the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers in 2015, is the real purpose of a critical mass. The more women in power, the less gender has to be discussed. “People need to focus on full representation for all people,” Pao says. “Not just on gender, but on race, sexual orientation, age, and socioeconomic background. We have to keep that goal in mind and realize that 30 percent is nothing, or at least it’s not enough. A threshold is not a destination.”
According to a new report from the CDC, the number of women age 20 to 24 giving birth has fallen 4 percent since 2016 to a record low of 71 per 1,000. While some millennials are putting off motherhood, others don’t want children now or later—and Khaliha Hawkins is one of them. Here’s her story, as told to Juno DeMelo.
My 11-year-old sister was born when I was a freshman in high school. Being around for her birth and watching my parents—who both had full-time, demanding jobs—raise her, I was like, yeah, that’s not for me.
Don’t get me wrong: Of course I love and care about my sister, and I still babysit her. But my parents were straight-up with me about how expensive childcare is, and I was flabbergasted. And even though my mom had great insurance when she was pregnant, I was in shock about how much my sister’s birth cost.
I also know that you have to have a lot of patience to be a parent, and my tolerance for bullshit is low! I have friends who stop what they’re doing when they see babies, who have always dreamt about being parents, and that’s just not me.
People ask me all the time whether I want kids. I’m usually hesitant to tell them I don’t, because then they ask why, and I don’t feel like I need to give them an explanation. If I do respond, I simply say “no” and leave it at that. If you’re not my partner or a close friend or family member, it’s none of your business.
“I know that you have to have a lot of patience to be a parent, and my tolerance for bullshit is low!”
I have a really large family, and they bring it up every Thanksgiving. My mom always says you should have kids early so it’s easier on you and your body and so you can grow together, and I’m like, no! I can’t imagine it happening, but if I somehow decide down the road that I want to be a mother, I would just adopt.
Even though I’ve been warned that supposedly every man wants a child, I’ve actually been set up with a guy based on the fact that he also didn’t want kids. I’m not dating anyone right now. If I did meet someone, I’d make sure to bring up the fact that I don’t want kids before things got serious.
Obviously I’m on birth control, the importance of which was drilled into me early on. I used to be on acne medication, and I didn’t want to have to remember to take multiple pills every day, so I use a hormonal birth control I don’t have to think about as often.
I know how much you have to sacrifice to be a parent. Some of my friends think I’d be a great mom because I’m so passionate, but I’m passionate about art and politics and my career, not children! People always say it’s selfish to not want kids, whereas I feel like it’s the exact opposite. It would be selfish of me to bring a child into this world knowing I’ve had these convictions for so long.
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