Why Biden-Harris election matters to me, an Italian woman
When I was 9 years old, I had my first experience with politics. I was elected by my schoolmates to be part of a youth town-council; I was actually the most voted in my school. And that felt great. The council was never really effective, we had a couple of meetings but none of our suggestions were really useful for my hometown, a little city in the south of Italy. Despite this ineffectiveness, I felt the adrenaline of the election: the speeches, the votes, being chosen. I loved every moment of that so much, that my whole dreams changed. As a 9 years old I decided that I wanted to be the first woman to be President of the United States. I wanted to be the most powerful man on Earth.
Now, leaving aside the fact that for an Italian is quite difficult to become the President of the US, being a woman makes it even harder. I have always felt lucky for the fact that I believe in myself and in the opportunities I have ahead of me, but I am aware this is not the standard: there are a lot of women everywhere in the world that do not believe in themselves or have the opportunity to dream big. This election is crucial because it finally gave us a real example of what a woman can achieve. This is one of the first case in recent history where we see a woman in a position of power, a woman taking a “man job”.
This election gave us the first female Vice President of the United State of America.
Therefore this election matters also to me, an Italian young woman, and matters to all the 9 years old girls like me that have a dream bigger than their opportunities. Kamala Harris is demonstrating that our dreams are legit, they can become reality. We probably will have to work harder, but we will get there.
However, that is not it, the Biden-Harris election means a lot more.
I am a millennial and, as you know, my generation is going through some pretty huge crisis.
I remember the moment when Trump was elected: I was stuck in Sapporo, Japan, for bad weather during a weekend away during my semester abroad. I was there with some friends of mine, all from European countries except from this one guy from the USA. It was exactly 4 years ago. We came back from a walk in the city and we discovered the news: Hillary Clinton lost the race and Donal Trump was the new President. We were shocked, none of us saw that coming. I was sure that we would have celebrated the first female President, I trusted people not to vote for a racist and misogynist man. But that morning in 2016, it hit me: I will not win all the elections, there are people, a lot apparently, that believe in different issues, have different views and experiences.
Just few months before there was the Brexit referendum. I remember crying when they announced the results; and then being angry while going through the demographic distribution of votes. Same thing happened during the national parliament election in Italy, when the 5 Stars Movement and the Lega got a lot of votes and formed the government. I kept asking myself, why another generation, my parents generation, has so much power in deciding things that will affect my future more than theirs?
In fact, I was born with the European Union, in 1993. I am part of the generation M. — as a professor of mine used to call us — where the M stands for the treaty of Maastricht. A generation that believes in the power of unity, integration and peace. It hurts every time to see that our values are not reflected in governments, that the people that should represent us do not fight for the same battles.
The rising of national populism has been so overwhelming and delusional for the people in my generation. We have repeatedly felt not heard, misunderstood and underestimated.
After years of not feeling represented — I mean, I lived through almost all the Berlusconi era — we now have a voice. The Biden-Harris election is giving us a voice. We finally have someone representing women, minorities, the LGBTQ+ community. Someone that has won bringing up our battles, starting from the climate.
I know they are not perfect, they made and will probably make mistakes, but the point is that the US people fought together to get a person that represents everything that is wrong in the world out of office. They fought to get the embodiment of this new wave of far right populism out of the White House with the most democratic gesture: their votes.
The reason why people everywhere have been up days and nights to follow this election is that they (we) felt something huge was happening. This election matters to all of us because made us believe this will be the first step for a change in the values that drive our society, a step toward equality.
The American people started a revolution, a new wave of democracy.. and we are living for it.
