Elizabeth Warren Still Has Plans For America

Elizabeth Warren is one of The Advocate's Women of the Year. View the full list from the current issue of the magazine.

You don't have to be one of the thousands of women in America who teared up at seeing Elizabeth Warren give her concession speech to know why she's on this list.

A perfect analogy for the dichotomy between many women and men in this country, Warren came to this race with policy plans and mapped out processes for every single ideation that came from her campaign: Here's what we'll do and here's how we'll do it. Her male competitors for the highest office in this country often did not.

But therein lies the rub. In 2020, women must still be dramatically overqualified to get a job (often to even try for that job) while straight cisgender men are willing to wing it if they hit at least one of the requirements. And often the confidence that lands a woman the job gets her deemed a bitch.

Well, Warren was a bitch who knew how to get things done, but America wasn't sure a soccer mom could win, so even though survey after survey showed we liked her, not enough trusted that their neighbors and friends would also vote for her. Still, supporters are crossing their fingers that the great senator may become the next secretary of State or head of Treasury or even just a badass back in the Senate, where she has been since 2013.

What we do know is that even if their moms didn't vote for her, millions of little girls looked up to Warren this year and knew they too could try to be anything they wanted to be. She inspired in the same way Hillary Clinton did in 2016. That's one step closer to equality.