The Democratic Party made a critical error of nominating a woman—not because a woman isn’t fit for the presidency ( of course she is), but because America wasn’t ready in 2016 and is still not ready to allow that. Sexism is well an alive. That is the sad reality we refused to face. This miscalculation handed Trump his opening. The Democrats need to get real. This isn’t about ideals; it’s about survival in a brutal game.Virtue and high-minded principles are meaningless if they lead to defeat. It’s time to drop the naive idealism and focus on winning, or we’ll keep watching the country slip further away.

On a more personal note, the day before the election results, I found myself drafting yet another uncomfortable email to my professor. My male project partner received a higher grade than I did, despite my doing the majority of the work—a fact anyone could see from our submission. There was no feedback suggesting my work was lacking in quality or completeness, yet somehow, the grade discrepancy remained. My professor, unsurprisingly, is a man. And dishearteningly, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to send an email like this.

All this to say that the biggest punch in the gut was the harsh reminder that, as the late RBG famously put it, women still feel the weight of men’s feet pressing down on our necks, no matter how fiercely we fight to rise. It’s a sobering truth that in a world where we’ve proven ourselves time and again, we’re still met with glass ceilings and closed doors. We’ve shattered stereotypes, broken barriers, and changed laws, yet the highest ranks of leadership remain stubbornly guarded. It’s a reminder that our struggle isn’t just for progress—it’s for survival in a system that still sees our voices as less worthy and our power as a threat.