Kate Hunter, Features Editor
@khuntercourant
2020 has been a year of firsts. The election of Kamala Harris as Vice President is just that: a first. She is not only the first woman to hold power as a Vice President in the White House, but more specifically, the first daughter of immigrants, the first African American woman, as well as the first Indian-American woman to ever fulfill this leadership position. Many women and girls nationwide have seen Harris’s nomination as a symbol of hope and strength.
Founder of LiveGirl, Sheri West, said she is ecstatic about Harris’s nomination. West began working to empower young women following her own corporate experience as well as her experience as mom. “I spent many, many years in corporate America and saw and experienced first hand some of the things that were holding women back,” Ms. West said. “Then, when I became a mother myself to three amazing human beings, I saw through a parent’s eyes the difference of opportunity, role models, and mentors available to boys versus girls.”
In hopes to inspire more young girls to fill leadership roles, she founded LiveGirl. LiveGirl works with young women ranging from fifth grade to college. “All of our programs are evidence based and they’re proven to build self esteem, social emotional intelligence and empathy, which we believe are the keys to becoming a confident inclusive leader,” she said.
Ms. West acknowledges, though, that a large piece of building the confident and inclusive leaders LiveGirl strives for is the presence of a female leader who girls can look up to. She said that Kamala Harris’s nomination gives young girls this role model.
“I think Harris’s nomination has an incredible impact. The election of the first woman, the first woman of color, and the first daughter of immigrants lets girls see that anything is possible,” Ms. West said. “I’ve had many conversations with girls in our community, especially girls of color, and there’s a lot of research that shows that girls can’t be what they can’t see.”
Ms. West said that the concept of girls not being able to achieve what they can’t see is yet another reason why Harris’s nomination is so exceptional. “Girls not having a role model can cause them to give up their dreams as young as age five,” Ms. West said.
A college junior at the University of New Haven, Tiara Starks, is delighted to have Kamala Harris represent her identity as American Vice President. “Having a woman of color in the White House is so incredible,” she said. “As a woman of color myself, it’s so exciting to see a woman that is able to represent people that I know and in my community. I’m so grateful to see Kamala Harris become Vice President.”
High school senior Neya Krishnan said that Kamala Harris’s nomination gives her hope for her future. She views this as a first step. “It gives young women and me this idea that ‘hey, we belong in those spaces and our voices matter in those spaces,’” she said. “If a woman can be Vice President of America, a woman can be President of America, a woman can win Nobel Prizes in chemistry, a woman can do whatever they want to.”
Katherine Stindolph, a senior at Greens Farms Academy, agrees. She said, “as a young girl growing up in America, I never really had someone to look up to in this office, and now its amazing and inspirational to me that these girls that are growing up now will have someone to look up to and think ‘this is who I want to be’ in ten years, or twenty years, or thirty years. We have that role model, which is so important to our democracy.”
Neya can also relate to her nomination on a more personal level. “Kamala’s parents are both immigrants and my parents are actually both immigrants too, and they both recently became citizens four years ago so they were able to vote,” she said.
Neya said, “It’s a pretty monumental time and a pretty monumental election just because we’ve had nearly 50 years worth of presidents and white men leading our country. There’s a large part of America that isn’t just or a man or cacausion, fifty percent of us are women, so I think that having somebody who can represent a different part of our country and advocate for those voices is important.”
Ms. West said that she hopes Harris’s nomination opens young girl’s eyes to the endless opportunities that lay ahead of them. “I hope that girls, especially girls of color, know that they have the power inside of themselves. I think the unfortunate reality is that for some girls the barriers and limitations are systemic. We have girls that are so capable and confident and brilliant and analytical and fierce, but there are systemic limitations. I hope that when they see Kamala they now know for certain that the power is inside of them and that they know that they can work hard to topple those systemic limitations.”
“The vice president elect Kamala Harris lets girls see that anything and everything is possible,” Ms. West said. “I don’t think anyone can deny the power of seeing somebody who shares your identity, whether that be gender or race in a position of power. For girls everywhere, seeing Vice President Kamala Harris elected to the highest position of power that any woman has ever had in our country and the second highest position in our country is an incredible moment.”
In Neya’s words, “I think Kamala Harris’s nomination as Vice President is a first. And a first allows for a lot of seconds and thirds and fourths.”
