They showed up primed for victory, and dressed to party.
Jules Randell was 7 years old when Wellesley College grads, including Jules' mom, gathered for what they believed would be a celebration of fellow alumna Hillary Clinton becoming the first female U.S. president on Election Night in 2016.
Jules picked out a flowy blue skirt, after learning that was the Democratic Party's color, and topped it with a tiny T-shirt stamped with a big statement:
"Future president," it read.
But that was the long game. Jules was definitely not aspiring to be the first to shatter that ultimate glass ceiling 鈥� that person "of course" was going to be Clinton, in just a matter of hours.
"I want to be the second," Jules explained excitedly when questioned by this NPR reporter who was covering the event that night.
That election obviously didn't go as Jules expected. And after former President Donald Trump again defeated a female Democratic nominee for president last week, we wondered about those youngest fans of Clinton and Vice President Harris and how they, in particular, were processing it all.
Both Jules and little sister Bee, who was 4 at the time, still have vivid memories of the hyped-up vibe at the Wellesley party, including cupcakes topped with sugar-based "shards of glass" and toy wooden hammers to mark the expected shattering of the nation's highest glass ceiling.
"I remember the banners and the balloons and everything," Bee says. They both only saw the festivities; their bedtime rolled around and they went home long before all the excitement and cheers devolved into despair and tears.
But both also remember the morning after when their mom broke the news to them. "It was definitely a disappointment," says Jules, who's now 15. Bee, now 12, says she remembers continuing to think about it 鈥� especially every time she sat down to eat on that laminated placemat her mom always used to put on the table, with little portraits of all the former presidents.
"I just thought it was crazy that, like, all of these years, there's never been a woman president," she says.
It brought them some solace in 2020 to see Harris elected the first female U.S. vice president.
"Yeah, I remember thinking 'Oh wow, this is so epic,' " says Jules.
But this year, Harris' loss to Trump hit hard. It felt personal and more high-stakes.
Jules now identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. When Trump talks about Americans being better off under a Trump administration, Jules doesn't believe that applies to everyone.
"It's a matter of safety for millions of people 鈥� immigrants and people of color and LGBTQ people and women," says Jules. "They are all people genuinely in danger if they live in a state where they are not protected by the state, and that's scary."
At the same time, Jules takes a more sanguine view of the long-term.
That's partly because Trump can serve only for four years, Jules says, and also because their generation will be old enough to vote by the next election 鈥� and they're definitely paying attention.
"I thought it was really cool when I went to school and literally in all my classes people were discussing the election. Kids really care, and that gives me hope."
Jules also sees it as a sign of progress that their generation seems somewhat less hung up on seeing a woman in the oval office than their moms were.
It actually made Jules and Bee giggle to think back to another old T-shirt of theirs that their mom once considered so progressive and feminist.
The shirt read "The patriarchy isn't going to smash itself" and pictured a cartoon lineup of exclusively female heroes, including fictional ones like Wonder Woman and Hermione Granger, from the Harry Potter series.
That, to Jules and Bee, feels like a fusty old form of feminism compared with the kind of gender equity that their generation is fighting for, one they say advocates for a broader and more inclusive definition of feminism along with an emphasis on intersectionality.
"I don't think it has to be just brave women who are actively doing something for the country. It can be anyone," says Bee.
"Right, absolutely," Jules nods. "Men can be feminists. They just have to believe that women have a choice to be who they want to be."
Electing a female president would be a big symbolic victory, they say. But what matters most is policy change 鈥� and whether whoever is in the Oval Office is with them on their issues.
Copyright 2024 NPR
