A record number of African American women graduated from the prestigious West Point military academy on Saturday: Of the 200 female cadets graduating, 34 were black—and they’re part of making the class of 2019 the most diverse class in the mostly white, mostly male, military academy’s 217-year history.
“I just showed myself and those who thought I could do it initially that yes, I can,” cadet Stephanie Riley told the Associated Press. “And not just, ‘yes, I can.’ I can show other little girls that, yes, you can come to West Point. Yes, you can do something that maybe the rest of your peers aren’t actually doing. And yes, you can be different from the rest of the group.”
The graduating class of African American female cadets posed for a stunning photo together that has since gone viral. In it, the women are seen in uniform as they hold up their ceremonial sabers.
Hallie H Pound/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Two more records for West Point were also set on graduation day: The graduating class’s 200 female cadets is the largest number since the first woman graduated in 1980, and the 2019 class also included greatest amount of Latin-Americans graduating in the school’s history with a total of 88.
Clearly, there’s still a long way to go until there’s representative diversity at West Point—1,000 cadets in total graduated on Saturday. But the grads are already thinking about the next generation.
“I want women to be soldiers,” cadet Welch-Baker told NBC. “I want these little black girls to say ‘Hey, I can do it too. I have the strength to defy the odds.’ Which is what we did. We defied the odds.”
Jessica Simpson and her husband, former NFL star Eric Johnson, have welcomed baby number three, People magazine confirmed on Tuesday, March 19.
The music and fashion mogul gave birth to a daughter, Birdie Mae Johnson, on March 19, weighing in at 10 pounds and 13 ounces. Simpson has two other children with Johnson: a five-year-old son, Ace Knute, and six-year-old daughter, Maxwell Drew. “We are so happy and proud to announce the birth of our perfect daughter, Birdie Mae Johnson,” she posted to Instagram.
Simpson revealed on Instagram back in September that she and Johnson were expecting. “SURPRISE,” Simpson wrote, alongside pics of her two children with pink balloons. “This little baby girl will make us a family of five. We couldn’t be happier to announce this precious blessing of life.”
Though Birdie’s name is unique, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Simpson’s baby shower had “Birdie’s Nest” written in neon lights, and she captioned several of her Instagram posts with it. Fans put two and two together.
Then on March 3, Simpson foreshadowed the name even more in an Instagram post about dealing with bronchitis while pregnant. “After a week in the hospital for bronchitis (my fourth time in 2 months), I’m finally home,” she posted. “Coughing with Birdie has been a crazy painful journey. I am slowly getting healthier every day. Baby girl was monitored and is doing amazing! ?? I am on my way to healthy and counting down the days to see her sweet smile. Sending love and prayers to all the mothers who are going or have gone through this. OUCH.”
Simpson actually posted several things like this throughout her pregnancy. She was quite transparent about the struggles she experienced—from breaking a toilet seat to feet swelling. “Any remedies?! Help!!!!” Simpson posted in January, talking about the latter issue.
Stay tuned for a photo of little Birdie Mae. Queen Jessica Simpson is quite open on Instagram, so it shouldn’t be long. Congrats to both her and Johnson!
Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas have never really done anything halfway when it comes to their relationship. They’ve had early dates at the Met Ball, hosted multiple wedding receptions to celebrate their marriage, and put their love on display in a music video for Jonas’ new song, “Sucker.”
Now, we can add extravagant gift-giving to the list. In honor of the Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker” hitting number one on the Billboard Top 100, Jonas gave his wife a brand new Mercedes Maybach. (This is the first time the Jonas Brothers have made it to the very top of the charts, previously topping at number five with “Burnin’ Up” in 2008.) It’s obviously a huge accomplishment that Jonas wanted to mark in a special way.
Chopra showed off her new ride, which she dubbed “Extra Chopra Jonas,” on Instagram, writing, “When the hubby goes number one.. the wifey gets a @maybach !! Introducing.. Extra Chopra Jonas.. haha .. I love you baby!! Yaaay! Best husband ever.” Also spotted in the photo, some (surely expensive) bubbly and Chopra’s dog, Diana.
Take a look:
These two are nothing if not publicly supportive of each other’s career accomplishments, as Chopra bragged about her husband’s milestone in a previous post:
The car, a 2019 Mercedes Maybach S650, starts selling at $170,750. Add in any customizations, and you have one helluva expensive gift. Perhaps Jonas credits his wife with some of the song’s success, given that “Sucker” and the accompanying video are all about the women in the Jonas Brothers’ lives. Chopra plays a starring role, alongside Joe Jonas’ fiancé, Sophie Turner, and Kevin Jonas’ wife, Danielle Jonas. The lyrics may have been a clue: “And you’re making the typical me break my typical rules. It’s true, I’m a sucker for you, yeah.”
No word yet on whether Danielle and Sophie can expect similar gifts from Joe and Kevin.
Carrie Underwood and her husband, Mike Fisher, have much to celebrate after the country superstar gave birth to their second son on Monday, January 21. She introduced the world to their new little guy on Instagram, along with a few incredibly sweet photos with his dad, mom, and three-year-old big brother, Isaiah.
“Jacob Bryan Fisher entered the world in the wee hours of the morning on Monday…his mom, dad, and big brother couldn’t be happier for God to trust them with taking care of this little miracle!” she wrote. “Our hearts are full, our eyes are tired, and our lives are forever changed. Life is good….”
Underwood first announced she was pregnant back in August on social media. “Mike, Isaiah, and I are absolutely over the moon and excited to be adding another fish to our pond,” she said at the time. “This has been a dream come true with the album and baby news. We’re just so excited and glad you guys can share this with us and be a part of this with us. Love you guys. We will see you on the road in 2019!”
The road to making the Underwood-Fishers a family of four wasn’t always easy. Underwood has been very candid about the pain of having three miscarriages over the past two years. “In the beginning it was like, ‘OK, God, we know this is, just wasn’t Your timing. And that is all right. We will bounce back and figure our way through it,'” she said in September. “And [we] got pregnant again in the spring, and it didn’t work out. Got pregnant again, early 2018. Didn’t work out. So, at that point, it was just kind of like, ‘OK, like, what’s the deal? What is all of this?'” She credited her faith in helping her get through the difficult times.
After peaking during the 1970s and ’80s, much has been made of the fact that divorce rates are now on the decline—especially among millennials. Still, if you’re thinking about splitting with your spouse, or you have already, sunny statistics aren’t exactly useful. Throughout this weeklong series, Glamour.com explores what it means to uncouple in a modern world.
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The first step is to just lie down. You can deal with the rest of it—the moving, the lawyers, the what do I do with these old letters—later, but for now you should just lie down.
Then, put one of these over your eyes. That’s better, isn’t it. You don’t have to see or think, just lie down somewhere with a blue gel pack on your eyes and see how that feels. Dig into it: consider an acupressure mat—one of those “maybe wellness, maybe nothing” purchases that works for me, for some reason, and that I now love. Look, now you can lie down on the little spike bed and cool your eyes off. This is where your post-divorce skincare journey begins.
After you’ve been on the ground for 7 to 12 days, it is time to focus your attention on looking and feeling better. Start by sinking deeper into your post-breakup depression. (Life hack: the fast track to a glow up is looking very bad for a few weeks prior.) Throw your mascara in the garbage, it is months if not years over its expiration date, and besides, you can’t bat your lashes at Nick Kroll through your laptop, much though you wish it were so. Rustle up some breakouts with a few Night Burgers (regular burgers, ordered at 4 a.m.). Nurture dark circles by lurking on Instagram in the wee hours. Stop drinking water for four days or so.
Then run into an acquaintance at the store and tell them you’re “having a hard time, but I know I’m going to figure it out… I’m reading a lot of books.” Recommend The Four Agreements, buy some coconut oil, whimper the word “self-care,” and get the hell out of there.
When you get home, look in the mirror. You might feel a deep melancholy. You might feel you’ve lost years of your life. “If only I had access to some kind of time machine, or whatever potion was responsible for Benjamin Button,” you might say. Well: Benjamin Button actually had a rare disease; educate yourself. And if you got a time machine we all know you’d have to mostly use it to hunt down Hitler as an infant, so turning back the clock is not an option.
Steam your face over a pot of hot spaghetti then scream into the rain. It can be very hydrating!
What you can do: adopt a 10-step Korean skincare routine. Learn what an essence is (this is a nice one), experiment with emulsions (this, here), and buy a few ampoules, because why not? Put a sheet mask on and get in the bath, a variant on “just lying down” that makes you seem like a much more together woman. Remember that coconut oil that seemed like a good idea at the time? It was. Throw some of that in there, plus a few drops of whatever essential oils you have lying around. The time-consuming nature of this routine will take up all that extra time you have after making dinner now that you’re cooking for one.
Over the next few months, your skin will appear plumper and more luminous, and your psychic and emotional wounds will begin to heal. You might even consider applying highlighter again. You will do a few adult education classes and probably get a bit into horoscopes. You will go for long walks with your mom and let your friends cook for you. You will start to sleep better, and you will drop a few steps of your 10-step skincare routine. (Ampoules tend to be the first to go.) You will know you’re ready to download Tinder when you have winnowed the process down to a single cleanse, tone, serum, and moisturizer.
At this point, you should feel free to supplement with some non-traditional skincare solutions: Not many dermatologists will tell you this, but serums actually absorb better if you’re listening to the finale from The Last Five Years on repeat for the twelfth time. Space out your product applications by consuming one to three glasses of red wine between each step. Steam your face over a pot of hot spaghetti. Have a small relapse into sadness and scream into the rain. It can be very hydrating!
Soon, it’ll be time to add a new product: sunscreen. Previously irrelevant, you’re a free woman now. You deserve to walk in the light without fear of free radicals, sun spots, or the chance of bumping into someone from your past at the café.
Of course you’re going to relapse, I’m sorry. You’ll probably even start double-cleansing again, and that’s okay. If you get the urge to call your ex, or worse, run to them, consider these hand and foot masks, which should keep you immobile until the urge passes. Once your hands and feet are silky smooth and you’ve deleted that intense email you’ve been not-quite-sending but drunkenly editing for many months, it’s time to add a new product: sunscreen. Previously irrelevant as it was impossible to leave the house during daylight hours (hard and risky; he could be anywhere), you’re a free woman now. You deserve to walk in the light without fear of free radicals, sun spots, or the chance of bumping into someone from your past at the café.
One day you’ll have such a good date you’ll forget to wash your face after. Or you’ll be out with friends and things will feel so good and so normal and so easy, you’ll get a bit wild on martinis and pass out in your makeup. Or you’ll wake up in a new person’s bed for the third time in a week and think “I really have to start stockpiling Sephora samples to keep in my purse.” You’ll splash yourself with cold water and brush your teeth with your index finger. Next week, when you get pimples all over your chin from making out too much, that someone will think it’s charming, and you’ll decide you agree. Anyway, when you get home, just wash your face and use Good Genes when the mood strikes. That’s basically all that works, anyway.
Monica Heisey is a Toronto-based screenwriter best known for her work on Schitt’s Creek, the Baroness Von Sketch Show, and Gary and His Demons.
Campaigns are like marathons: Both are races, with a distant finish line on the horizon. Both are slogs, the kind that can drive someone blind with delirium and push her harder than she believed possible. Both are a process and a practice and an ordeal. So to complete one, whether it lasts 26.2 miles or 18 months, much of the same advice applies: Hit the trail. Drink a lot of water. And if at all possible, run with a friend.
This November, a record number of women will run for office—not just for the House of Representatives or the Senate, but for school boards and in gubernatorial races, too. Not all will win, but if even some fraction of them succeeds, legislative bodies will look (and likely vote) differently than they do now. In a midterm preview, Reuterstook Michigan as an example: In 2016, just 23 percent of lawmakers across the state were women. In 2018, women are on the ballot in 63 percent of state senate seats and 71 percent of state house seats. If trends hold, Reuters anticipates that women could make up to 40 percent of the state legislature, an all-time record.
The promise of a female-led political movement has incentivized a not unprecedented, but noticeable collaborative spirit between women candidates. Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib, who is poised to become the first Muslim woman ever in the House of Representatives if she wins in November (which is all but certain considering she has no Republican opponent) has stumped for Ilhan Omar, the Somali-American who could share that title with her if she wins in Minnesota. Deb Haaland, who’s running for a House seat in New Mexico and is Native American, has gone on the road with Sharice Davids, also a Native woman, who is up for a seat in Kansas.
Amanda Litman, the co-founder and executive director of Run for Something, an organization that aims to recruit and support progressive candidates, has come to see relationships like these as a measure of campaign preparedness. When the PAC endorses candidates, Litman connects them over Slack—an internal messaging platform—to others in similar races, people who understand the particularities and peculiarities of electoral politics.
“I once saw a tweet that was like, ‘Behind every strong woman is a really powerful group text,’ and I think that’s true,” Litman tells Glamour. “When a woman decides to run for office, a lot of people will tell her no. It makes it that much more important to have a friend in her corner who just looks at her and tells her, ‘I know this race. Yes.’”
Ahead of the midterm elections, Glamour spoke to 13 women about female friendship in politics. What follows are excerpts from our conversations.
Mikie Sherrill, Amy McGrath, and Elaine Luria
Sherrill, McGrath, and Luria—all graduates from the Naval Academy and now Democratic candidates for the U.S. House—are three in a wave of female veterans candidates on the ballot. In separate phone interviews over the summer, each quoted the Academy’s mission: to develop leaders for “the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.”
Six of the women veterans on the ballot in November keep up via text thread, including Navy Academy alumnae Mikie Sherrill, Amy McGrath, and Elaine Luria.
Sherrill (NJ-11): I entered the race in May 2017, and I did not know that other women that went to the Naval Academy were running. When Amy announced, someone sent me a link to her video. Like, “Look! Another woman like you!” It just blew me away. We got in touch shortly thereafter.
Luria (VA-2): Amy and I were in the same class at the [Naval] Academy. Mikie was three years ahead of us. I didn’t know Mikie at the time, but now we realize that we have lots of friends in common because it’s not that big of a school and also, there were only about 100 women per class back then. Everyone knew who all the other women were. The first class of women started in 1976 and graduated in 1980, and there were 55 women. I graduated in 1997, as did Amy, and there were 115 of us in our class. (There were about 1,200 men.) We crossed paths a lot, but we didn’t know each other even as well then as we do now.
Amy decided to run last summer well before I had made the decision to do this, but in between, we had our 20th reunion at the Naval Academy. I was so proud of her—that she’d launched her campaign, and it was gaining a lot of traction. We had a little get-together with some other classmates, and she told us all about the race, the challenges, the path ahead that she saw. It was really encouraging.
I wrote to Amy before I made the announcement publicly. “I’m gonna do it!” She’s got young kids. I have a daughter who is nine, and we’re both in similar situations where our husbands have also served. That’s what we talked about the most. How are you doing this? How do you balance this?
McGrath (KY-6): I remember that. Elaine was still deciding, and I did not want to push her in either direction because it’s not a simple decision. I just wanted to be there for Elaine to tell her, “If you want to do this, I’m with you.”
We’re both in hard races, so we don’t have time to talk all the time, but I love that she’s out there. And Mikie was in this even before I was. It’s awesome to have a support network of female veterans. And it’s not just us. It’s Chrissy Houlahan. It’s Abigail Spanberger. Once, a bunch of us were passing through D.C. for an event, and we just sat down over a glass of wine. The release of tension—we can talk about the issues, what it’s like to be a veteran in politics, what it’s like to be a woman. We talk about all the people who come up to us and tell us, “I can’t vote for you because you’re the mother of small children.” It happens!
Recently, an ad came out against me that said, “Amy McGrath is a feminist!” This was what was used to attack me. When that aired, we all texted back and forth, like, “Is that the best he can do?”
Sherrill: If one of us wins a primary or gets an endorsement, there’s that text. But sometimes it’s phone calls about how to communicate with voters or how to reach people in our districts. We’re women—we know how to build consensus, work in coalition.
McGrath: Recently, an ad came out against me that said, “Amy McGrath is a feminist!” This was what was used to attack me. When that aired, we all texted back and forth, like, “Is that the best he can do?” It’s that kind of camaraderie, which we’re used to because women who’ve served do have to have a thick skin.
When I was a kid, I had this dream: I wanted to be a fighter pilot. I learned I couldn’t do that because there was a federal law prohibiting women from those roles. I got lucky in 1997. We had a new administration, with President Bill Clinton in his second term and a new Congress. Doors were now open for women in combat. Mikie, Elaine, and I arrived at the Naval Academy at a time when we could exit from there with all the doors open to us. When we started before we had those opportunities, there were men who believed that we had taken a seat from a man. We weren’t going to be able to serve like a man could serve, so we were sort of robbing the taxpayers of that investment. I think we look at this and go, “Nope. You got your investment out of us. We served, and we’re here. Now we’re running.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell and Rep. Barbara Comstock
Both Rep. Dingell (D-MI) and Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) were elected to the House of Representatives in 2015.
“You can tell we’re really good friends,” Rep. Dingell explains, a moment before she has to leave Rep. Comstock on the line and go vote on a bill. “Because I just let her talk for me!”
PHOTO: NBC NewsWire
Rep. Debbie Dingell (L) and Rep. Barbara Comstock (R) in a joint appearance on Meet the Press in November 2017.
Rep. Comstock: Gosh, we met so long ago when I was still staff on the Hill and Debbie worked and her husband, of course, was a member. We really got to know each other well because both of us liked to have these bipartisan women’s lunches with people that we all knew in Washington. A late friend of ours used to say, “Washington isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s men vs. women.”
Once we were both elected in 2015, we found a lot of common ground on issues that do tend to affect women—breast cancer research and now sexual harassment.
Rep. Dingell: Barbara and I have been friends for decades, I think because we saw early in our careers that women needed to support each other. There weren’t many women back then, period. We were always two of a few women in the room. Neither Barbara nor I drop people! So we’ve kept up with each other all this time. We may not agree on all the issues but we do agree on supporting women and that friendship really matters.
“Washington isn’t Democrats vs. Republicans. It’s men vs. women.”
I’ll just add that when I was first elected, it was a really hard time for me. My husband [Rep. John Dingell, who represented Michigan in Congress for almost six decades] was in the hospital, and I was trying to adjust to a new job, take care of him, get everything in order, and Barbara knew what I was going through and checked in on me. I remember the afternoon she said, “You have to leave the hospital,” and we met at McClean Family Restaurant [in McClean, Virginia], and she said, “This is a mental health break.”
Rep. Comstock: We have tremendous mutual respect, and we share a worldview when it comes to values, when it comes to women at work. From the floors of factories to the boardrooms, we want to make sure that women’s voices are heard.
Jessica Ramos and Alessandra Biaggi
Both Democratic New York State Senate candidates, Ramos and Biaggi won their respective primaries, defeating entrenched (male) incumbents. Jeff Klein, whom Biaggi opposed, spent $3 million on the race. She won with 54 percent of the vote.
Alessandra Biaggi and Jessica Ramos met at a No IDC NY activist meet-up at the start of their respective bids for New York State Senate.
Ramos (District 13): I met Alessandra around nine months ago, or so. We were professional women who wanted to challenge these men in power whom we felt didn’t represent us at all. In New York, they’re called the Independent Democratic Conference, but they’re Democrats in name alone. They really vote like Republicans.
Biaggi (District 34): Because we were running against these candidates, it made sense to know each other. And then people started to endorse us as a pair, which was kind of great. I knew I think from the start that I could learn a lot from Jessica. She has experience in government, and she’s a mom, which I think is heroic. I’m engaged and I said to her, “I barely see my fiancé.” The fact that she has kids is remarkable. She’s shown me that as women, we don’t have to segment our lives to run our shelve our other responsibilities somewhere else. We incorporate our lives into these races, because our families and our friends and are our communities are the reason we’re in this.
Ramos: We can be each other’s cheerleaders, and not just because we’re both women, but because when it comes down to it, I don’t want to work with the incumbent. I want to work with Alessandra Biaggi. That’s who I want to pass laws with. That’s who I trust. I may not be able to vote for her because I live in another district. And I may not be able to contribute to her campaign because I haven’t seen a paycheck in months, which is part of running for office, but I am sure as hell her biggest cheerleader.
Biaggi: When I can’t sleep at night, I scroll through Twitter. Recently, I saw that Jessica’s opponent posted a video that was outrageous. The lies! It made me want to crack my phone in half. So I retweeted the video, and I said something like, “These are lies! Vote for Jessica!” I think I said, “Is this a joke?” I couldn’t believe it.
Ramos: That was hilarious, Alessandra. That is so representative. Alessandra is just like this. Sometimes, when I just can’t find it in me, I’m so tired, I’m so exhausted, I think about Alessandra. I do. I hear her, over my shoulder, like, “Go finish door-knocking in that building, Jessica. Go make 10 more calls.” She makes me better.
Ashley Selmon and Zahra Suratwala
Selmon and Suratwala are running for DuPage County Board in Illinois. “At times, I do feel discouraged,” Selmon says. “Like, when party leadership tells us we need to raise unfathomable amounts of money, and I’m looking at our account, and I’m like we’re not quite there! But I have Zahra, and we have this, and we have all these volunteers and all this enthusiasm. I think about that and I can’t help but believe what we want to achieve is possible.”
Ashley Selmon and Zahra Suratwala, candidates for the DuPage County Board, realized fast that collaboration could boost their chances at the ballot box.
Suratwala: We met after we both had decided to run back in September 2017, and we met because there are two seats on the board that will open in November, so we were introduced to each other. We text all the time, especially because campaign season is heating up and there are like 100 decisions to be made per second. Who can print yard signs? Who was that person who said she’d host a meet-and-greet for us? It’s just a constant stream of communication going on between us. But it’s wonderful because it means the work is divided in half. Whoever can take something on does, and as much as we ask each other to help out, we know we’re also both giving 100 percent.
Selmon: In a way, our friendship is a big part of our approach. Where we live, there’s one Democrat on this 18-seat board. If people don’t know the candidates on the ballot, in this area, they’ll just pick Republican. It makes sense to let voters know about both of us, have our faces and names together, so that voters are motivated to turn out for us. Zahra will never take credit for this, but after we won in the primary, I moved and had to have surgery. In any other timeline, I would have incredibly stressed about being out of pocket for a month in the middle of campaigning. But I knew Zahra would look at the emails and would text me if she needed me. She’s what I never could have expected when I decided to do this. And knowing what I know now, I never could have done it without her.
Liuba Grechen Shirley and Christine Pellegrino
Grechen Shirley is a progressive candidate for the U.S. House, who notably won a petition to the FEC that allowed her to spend campaign funds on childcare. Pellegrino beat a Republican in a deep red district in a special election in May 2017. She is now a member of the New York State Assembly.
“We take selfies all the time. At events, people come over and offer to take our photo, and we’re just like, ‘No, no, we’ll take a selfie,’” Grechen Shirley tells me. It was Pellegrino’s idea: “I wanted a record—we did this together.”
Christine Pellegrino, a member of the New York States Assembly, and Liuba Grechen Shirley, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, made an instant connection over local politics and their (loud!) children.
Grechen Shirley (NY-2): After the presidential election in 2016, I started a grassroots Facebook group, and I called it New York 2nd District Democrats, and probably two days after this group went up, Christine reached out to me on Facebook and asked if we could talk. It was 11:00 p.m., I had a screaming six-month old infant to nurse, and Christine called me. We talked for an hour. She was one of the founding members of another activist group in the area, and we just delved into a plan to activate our people across the district. Her daughters were in the background; my child was sobbing. I knew in a second we’d be friends.
Pellegrino (District 9): This is what happens with women activists. We take up the call, literally.
Grechen Shirley: We put it all on the line because we’re fighting for change and we believe we can make a difference. But we have the same commitments that we did before. I’ve been at events with Christine where she’s had to run home to take her daughter to practice. Sometimes I have to rush out to get my daughter to dance class. It’s hard, but it would be harder alone.
Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids
Haaland and Davids (who, fun fact, is an ex-MMA fighter are both progressive candidates for the U.S. House and each could become the first Native American woman ever to serve in the chamber if she wins in November.
Sharice Davids (L) and Deb Haaland (R), campaigning together in Kansas in September 2018.
Davids (KS-3): Deb and I both went to the same summer program at the American Indian Law Center, a program that changed my life and enabled me to even be in a position to run for Congress. We weren’t the same class, but I felt connected to her because of that. Deb and I spoke soon after I announced I would run. The first time I called Deb, she was like, “If you need to sleep on my couch you can.” In some ways, I almost feel—Deb, you don’t even know this—that just hearing her on the other end in that first call, telling me, “Yes, do this,” was the validation I needed.
Haaland (NM-1): I had been at it for a lot longer than Sharice, at that point. It feels like a lifetime. A mutual contact put us in touch, and we share a lot of history. She was raised by a single mom. I’m a single mom. We’ve paid off our student loans. We’re both products of the public school system. We have a lot of similarities in our background, and when you share that struggle, it establishes a bond.
Davids: To me, Deb embodies that concept of someone who leads with love, who has genuine love and care for what we want to do here with Native candidates and women and the direction we’re headed in this nation. It’s been 240 years and we’ve never had a Native American woman in the House of Representatives in our government. It’s long overdue. I wish there were five of us and we all got sworn in at the same time. But we’ll take two for now, and we’ll leave the ladder down.
These conversations have been edited for clarity and concision.
Mattie Kahn is a senior editor at Glamour.
In a pivotal election year, Glamour is keeping track of the historic number of women running (and voting) in the midterm elections. For more on our latest midterm coverage, visit www.glamour.com/midterms.
