Not All Anger is Created Equal, Says Feminist Author Rebecca Traister
*By Conor White*
Women on both sides of the aisle may be enraged, but that anger is still sharply divided. Women are running for office in record numbers this year ー yet the outcome hasn't been the same for Republicans and Democrats, said author and political columnist Rebecca Traister.
"Numbers of women running for Republican seats also went up ー\[but\] they didn't win their primaries at the rate that women and people of color on the Democratic side did," Traister said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar.
"Anger is very combustible force, it can kick political and social movements off the ground, but it can also blow up between allies," she said.
Party aside, the numbers are still striking.
476 women ran in Democratic and Republican primaries for Congress, and there are still 323 races in which at least one woman is running.
To Traister, the numbers are "unprecedented," but women's impulse to change their government has a historical basis.
"Women are activated as door knockers, registering voters, volunteers with campaigns, and again as candidates in ways that are pretty unprecedented in recent decades," Traister said.
But, she added, social movements "often started with women who were angry about injustice at the beginning and wanted to change something."
Traister has called women's anger both "catalytic and "problematic," but she said it's "mostly potent from a political perspective" as the midterms loom.
In the last month, women on the right have raised the decibel on their political voices, especially during Brett Kavanaugh's divisive Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Even in the face of Christine Blasey Ford's dramatic testimony, many Republican women believed the sexual assault allegations against the now-Justice were part of a political hit job ー and many among them expressed concerned that their husband or son could fall prey to similar and potentially unfounded claims.
"That was an instance of white conservative women's anger being used by the right to send a particular message to the electorate," Traister said of the conservative response to the hearings.
Traister, a National Magazine Award-winner, is the author of the new book "Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger," which examines progressive movements throughout history, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage, that started with women getting mad.
The upcoming elections, at whatever level of government, are no different.
"Many of those candidacies started in the anger of post-Trump," Traister said.
"Women were so angry at Trump's presidential win that they were like, 'I'm going to go run for office,'" she said.
"Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger" is on sale now.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-power-of-womens-anger).
Markets opened slightly higher to kick off the final trading week of the year as investors continue to watch the Omicron variant in the U.S. Sean O'Hara, President, Pacer ETFs joined Cheddar's Opening Bell to discuss what drove early market activity.
Carlo and Baker kick off the weirdest week of the year with all the news you missed over the holiday weekend, including calls for the CDC to shorten its isolation window as Omicron sweeps through the country.
Former professional tennis player Patrick McEnroe joined Cheddar to discuss the troubling issues surrounding player Peng Shuai who appeared potentially to have been silenced following her social media post accusing former Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault. Shuai's subsequent disappearance, reappearance, and apparent retraction of the accusation in an interview only added to worries. "When this happened, all of us in the tennis community were very concerned. And, by the way, another thing Peng said in this interview was that she doesn't speak very good English," McEnroe noted. "Well I can assure you, she speaks darn good English, 'cause I spoke to her on many occasions over the last 15 years."
Universities like UCLA, Yale, and Duke have announced they're implementing remote learning amid the COVID omicron variant surge, despite President Biden recommending that K-12 schools should continue in-person education. Jared C. Bass, senior director for Higher Education at American Progress, joined Cheddar to break down what institutions of higher education might be considering differently. "I think some universities are allowing periods of a bit of a respite to allow students to get testing and make sure when they do return back to campus that they're healthy," he noted.
The S&P closed at a record at the major markets ended Thursday's session higher for a third straight day. Adam Coons, Portfolio Manager at Winthrop Capital Management, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he discusses what has investors feeling jolly before Christmas, and gifts investors with winning buying opportunities entering 2022.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on President Joe Biden's vaccine mandates for large companies and health care workers on January 7, 2022. The mandates will remain in place until then.
Carlo and Baker cover the heartening news on the Covid front ahead of the holiday, plus President Biden punting student loan repayments again, a new space telescope and Love, Hate, Ate: Christmas Eve Eve Edition!
This year's worldwide semiconductor shortage limited the supply of everything from new cars to smartphones; and now, many in the chip industry expect the shortage to continue deep into 2022, and maybe even 2023. Semiconductor senior research analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co., Tristan Gerra, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
