Madame Vice President: a thread
(I originally wrote this as a FB post but I just thought of a postscript that made me want to bring it to Twitter):

Kamala Harris, our new VP, has had life experiences that no vice president or president has ever had.

Besides her amazing professional record, which of course is what got her the job, she also:

(not a comprehensive list, mostly from Wikipedia plus a couple of guesses of my own)

-- was bussed to a white school as part of the desegregation efforts in 1969

-- is the child of two PhDs,
one a breast cancer researcher looking at the genetics of the progesterone receptor
and
the other an economics professor

-- sang in a children's choir in an African American church as a child in Berkeley

-- learned about Hindu beliefs as a child visiting a Hindu temple in their neighborhood

-- had grandfather in the civil service in India. He directed refugee relief efforts in Zambia and served in a high position in the government of India in the 1960s. He had very progressive views on women's rights and human rights in general, and was a big influence on her.

-- moved with her family to Quebec when she was twelve, when her mother took a job at McGill University. She attended a French-speaking primary school, and she graduated from high school there

-- graduated from Howard University, a HBCU

-- probably knows how to make dosa

-- has had a period

Postscript: When I added that last note about having had a period, I was just thinking, hey here's a person who's shared this commonplace experience with about half of all people, and that no VP or POTUS til now has ever shared.

But today I'm remembering the then-serious discussion in the 1980s about whether women could be trusted with leadership positions because of their menstrual cycles

Does anyone else remember how PMS was basically supposed to make you insane, a hair-trigger rage-filled emotional basket case who couldn't be trusted to reason properly until nature had taken its course?

That was a real thing that happened, and I nearly forgot about it.

I can't even think of the last time I heard the acronym PMS; it doesn't seem to be a thing in the zeitgeist anymore (though it's still a thing in real life, for some. But don't worry! It doesn't make you unfit to lead!)