Opinion | Women lead Alabama: Insult them at your peril

Like her, loathe her, love her, or lampoon her—Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, may indeed become the President of the United States. In a political landscape where women are often scrutinized more harshly than their male counterparts, the question arises: Can a woman become President of the United States? The answer is a resounding yes. Will it be this woman? No one knows.

Here in Alabama, a state known for its ruby-red conservative values, three of the top leaders are women: Governor Kay Ivey, U.S. Senator Katie Britt, and U.S. Congresswoman Terri Sewell. Two are Republicans, and one is a Democrat. One is married with children, while the other two are not, and none of those differences have changed their ability to lead.

It is okay to disagree with their politics but these women have carved their paths to leadership through their own merit, often overcoming significant odds. Despite the challenges female candidates face nationwide, I can’t recall Ivey, Britt, or Sewell being accused of sleeping their way into office or being labeled with the misogynistic and racist slurs hurled at Harris. She has been called a DEI hire, a whore, a bitch, a Jezebel, the original Hawk Tuah Girl, Colored, and other repulsive slurs, mostly by men.

While it is doubtful that Harris could win Alabama, which has not elected a Democratic president since Jimmy Carter in 1976, it is also true that Alabama is a place where a man using such derogatory language against a woman might earn himself a swift pop in the mouth.

While I would wish that political campaigns were run on issues and not personality or vicious hostility and anger, it is foolish to fail to understand that politics is a foul, mean, brutal business—a binary contest and a zero-sum game for power. But at its best, it is about the future and what kind of state and nation we want to live in.

Just over a week ago, the 2024 presidential election was a battle between two old men and a choice between infirm or delusional. Suddenly, it is different; the contours shaping the race are fluid. The likely advantage still remains with Republicans, but it is now their election to lose. The enthusiasm for Harris has changed the race’s dynamics, but excitement alone doesn’t necessarily win political contests; it takes skill and a healthy dose of luck from the fickle gods of politics.

Lately, much has been made about the “childless cat ladies” remarks made by Republican Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance. In 2021, while running for the Senate, Vance highlighted what he saw as one of the biggest problems facing America: “We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”  When he makes these statements, I wonder, has he met Alabama’s women leaders? It makes me wonder if these men who attack women with such vile remarks say the same about their mothers, sisters, and wives? Perhaps the greatest threat to America is not the cat ladies but the men who denigrate others for their choices. Maybe we should ask, “Didn’t your mama raise you better?”

We should reject the vicious nature of our current political climate that champions vulgarity and hubris over debate and competence. The disheartening and soul crushing lack of civility and common decency is anathema to most people. Perhaps it is provincial of me to bristle when a man uses foul and degrading language toward a woman, but here I stand, an anachronism in a world of hate. Now, please allow me to introduce you to the women who lead Alabama; insult them at your peril. Beware, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.