Shattering the glass ceiling, Kamala Harris style

It’s champagne time in the United States. Some 231 years after the founding of the US, the world’s most powerful country has chosen a woman of colour along with a fresh President to reunite the US and revive its soul. With that, a glass ceiling too has been shattered.   

Kamala Harris’ journey has had many twists, like that of every woman who aims to climb every mountain, search every sea and follow every rainbow until she finds her dream. A dream that will need all the love you can give everyday of your life for as long as you live. Raised in a multi-cultural setup, Kamala Harris was born to a Jamaican-American father and an Indian mother, both immigrants who met in the US. Having walked out of her marriage when Kamala was just 5, her mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a breast cancer researcher and a bio-medical scientist by profession, single-handedly raised Kamala and her sister Maya in an adopted homeland, knowing very well that they would be labelled ‘black’.   

But she made sure that such troubled times did not cross her daughters’ paths. While Maya succeeded in her career as a lawyer, public policy advocate and a television commentator, Kamala succeeded as an attorney and a politician. Her list of firsts include; first female district attorney of San Francisco, first female attorney general of California, first Indian-American in the US Senate and the first Indian-American candidate of a major party to run for the Vice Presidency. She rewrote history as the first woman, first African-American, first Asian-American and first daughter of immigrant parents to be elected to the second highest national office.   

But apart from colourism and her feat, her career has been one with many ups and downs. While some call her a radical socialist, others have commended her for her work to ensure that America is a place where freedom is for everyone regardless of gender, income or race. In her victory speech, clad in a white outfit she made special mention about Black women who contributed to the struggle of suffrage, equality and civil rights. Her stance on the ‘green new deal’ and her vow to keep oil and gas companies accountable were plus points that drove the Biden-Harris campaign to victory.  

When Sirimavo Bandaranaike made history as the world’s first woman Prime Minister with executive powers, Sri Lanka herself attracted a great deal of global attention. Despite the occasional man flexing his patriarchal muscle, Mrs. Bandaranaike’s election in 1960 to the highest office in the country was a case study for many students who wanted to examine about a woman’s role in a largely patriarchal society. At that time, gender equality and gender diversity may not have been umbrella terms but many were of the view that women belonged mainly to the kitchen. While this view is widely held even today, post-modernist waves of feminism have influenced most people, the younger generations especially, to feel that it’s necessary to shift gender roles.   

But there is a long way to go towards equality. While modern feminism supports capitalist ideologies, perhaps one of the glaring loopholes in feminism is how it only favours the able lot. Feminism does not often favour or bring in women in the lower rungs of society. Unless these poor find a way and a voice to fight. But even in that case they need another female voice, with money and power to see the virtue of gender equality.   

While Kamala Harris is being celebrated in the US and the world over, what about the Kamalas who pluck tea from cold early morning to afternoon in our estates, the Kamalas that come for domestic work and all other Kamalas we come across in our day-to-day lives? Their lives continue to stagnate, facing domestic violence, harassment, discrimination and a stigma. If feminism was a concept to support every female, how did it evade these Kamalas? Can these Kamalas also come forward to shatter the glass ceiling? Only time will tell.   

But, right now in America, there’s hope. Concluding her victory speech on Saturday, Kamala Harris vowed that “while she may be the first woman in this office, she will not be the last because every little girl watching tonight sees that the US is a country of possibilities”. Perhaps, Sri Lanka may one day see herself appointing another daughter to the hot seat, irrespective of family background, social status, income or race.