Idol Worship: Every State Needs A Wendy Davis

Welcome to Idol Worship, a biweekly devotional to whoever the fuck I’m into. This is a no-holds-barred lovefest for my favorite celebrities, rebels and biker chicks; women qualify for this column simply by changing my life and/or moving me deeply. This week I’m remaining inspired by Wendy Davis.

Wendy Davis made history last month when she filibustered a dangerous piece of legislation in the Texas Senate for 11 hours.

Davis, who read stories out loud that she’d collected via social media until and despite needing a brace later on in the process to remain standing, was trying to stop the legislature from passing SB5, an omnibus abortion bill that would have closed all but 5 of Texas’ abortion clinics. Davis succeeded, although Governor Rick Perry eventually “won the war” by calling a second special legislative session to push the bill forward in which it passed.

Davis, despite the final outcome, rose to political superstardom. She had a hashtag on Twitter, a column in CNN, talks of a gubernortorial run in the state. Her pink shoes became the stuff of legends. Wendy Davis was living, breathing proof of why you don’t mess with Texas. But it wasn’t her first self-sacrificing filibuster, and she was already well on the way to political superstardom before she put on that back brace.

wendy-davis-holds-up-two-fingers-to-signal-a-no-vote-as-the-session-she-tried-to-filibuster-draws

Born in Rhode Island and moved to Texas at 11, Wendy Davis started from the bottom – rock bottom. She was the child of a sixth-grade educated single mom with three other children, who worked at an ice cream shop to make ends meet. By the time she was 14, she was working to help support her family; by 19 she was a poor single mother herself living in a trailer park.

Davis ended up in a two-year paralegal program when a coworker left a brochure on her desk; eventually she transferred to a four-year program at Texas Christian University. She graduated top of her class with a BA in English, and went on the graduate with honors from Harvard Law. Davis isn’t just a politician of convenience – she works to right the societal wrongs she suffered through, witnessed, and recognizes as interconnected to those injustices. She was elected to the Fort Worth City Council five consecutive times before defeating a Republican for seat as state Senator in 2008. And on June 26, 2013, she became a national political player.

Davis wrote of her filibuster:

I stood up and began talking on the floor of the Texas State Senate not long ago because I hoped the Republicans in power would listen to how their latest cruel health care proposal would hurt the women of Texas…Real Texans don’t want any woman to die of cancer because she can’t get decent health care or medical advice. Real Texans don’t want any woman to lose control of her life because she can’t get birth control…

The “people’s filibuster” that put a temporary stop on the misguided bill that powerful Republicans are still intent on ramming through will long be remembered as the moment when regular Texans — real Texans — stood up and said “enough” to the self-interested politicians who have run our state for too long.

images

The truth is, Texas is not the only state. Laws like the one Davis put her well-being on the line to defeat are being planted and passed across the nation: draconian bills which defy the Supreme Court and our constitution, openly target abortion providers, and shut down access to preventative and affordable medical care for women across entire states. In North Carolina, abortion provisions that would close all but one clinic were signed into law by a governor who campaigned on the promise not to pass abortion legislation that further restricted the procedure; the provisions were hidden in sharia law and motorcycle safety laws. In Ohio, a pro-life governor surrounded only by men signed restrictions into law that left the state with 8 clinics.

In every state, there has been an outpouring. In every state, there have been women and men, children and families, the young and the old, people of all races and ethnicities and sexualities and gender identities coming forth to protest, to scream, to cause a hot fucking mess in the name of everything they love: liberation, freedom, autonomy, respect. In every state, there has been a Wendy Davis – a superstar Senator, or Representative, or city councilwoman waiting to rise to demand order, to question apathy.

Even when these pieces of legislation pass, even when we wonder how it’s possible to win when the odds seem so stacked, we learn so much when we watch ourselves stand up for each other, when we hear our stories in someone else’s stories, when we no longer feel like we’re the only people concerned about this shit in this god damn place. It’s one of the reasons I got involved in activism – the breathtaking, exhilarating moment when you stop feeling alone, when you realize in standing up you have grown ten feet and ten years all at once. Watching Democracy take place in front of your eyes is sometimes absolutely beautiful, though most times this broken system is more bittersweet. There is nothing not rewarding about winning something for everyone. There is nothing not amazing about being able to do that with your voice.

Abortion has become a national issue, with some predicting it will hit the Supreme Court for the 2016 elections and polls showing American views shifting on the issue as voters in individual states make it an issue of priority in their local elections. It feels like we’ve been doing this forever, but we’re just getting started.

Every state needs a Wendy Davis. Every person has a story. And when you stand tall to share it, you never know what might happen.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

14 Comments

  1. Wendy Davis 5ever. She is such a badass.

    Also this is so wonderful “Even when these pieces of legislation pass, even when we wonder how it’s possible to win when the odds seem so stacked, we learn so much when we watch ourselves stand up for each other, when we hear our stories in someone else’s stories, when we no longer feel like we’re the only people concerned about this shit in this god damn place.”

  2. a post after my own heart! seriously, reading wendy davis’ story makes me super verklepmt (in a good way) and so, so inspired. thank you carmen!

    brb, gonna go stomp the patriarchy now.

  3. Leave it to Carmen to include a Drake reference in an article about Wendy Davis. Love it, love her, love you!

  4. She is such a god. I’d vote for her for president in a heartbeat. It literally gives me goosebumps to think about what she’s doing for me and other women, and how far we have to go to fully attain women’s rights and equality. Ahhhh feelings.

  5. I really wish Kentucky had a Wendy Davis. Granted, we might, but I haven’t found her yet. (haha maybe I should become her!)

  6. In Wisconsin, one of those heroes is state representative Mandy Wright, who spoke out powerfully against the state’s proposed (and ultimately successful) bill (SB 206) that mandated vaginal ultrasounds as well as another (AB 216) which severely restricts contraception. (On Wisconsin, indeed.) Wright’s comments re: requiring women to report rape/incest in order to receive health services ended up being shown on The Rachel Maddow Show.

    Basically, I’m pretty sure Rachel Maddow could take Scott Walker in a fight, and I know that Wendy Davis and Mandy Wright could.

    • They should form a super hero, political justice team against all the super-crazy political and social injustices.

      • OMG stop it, now I want political comics. Complete with Wonder Woman (sans the whole fascist Superman stuff) and Black Widow coming in on occasion to help them out.

  7. Yo. I really get that what Wendy Davis did was awesome. I appreciate it with all my heart as a woman in Texas and a feminist and an activist but for one, I don’t like the way the media is honing in on Wendy Davis as the sole legislator who spoke out in Texas. It’s really weird for me when people are overlooking legislators like Leticia Van De Putte who made that wonderful comment that sent the gallery in a ruckus. But besides that hairsplitting, as awesome as it was that Wendy Davis is a feminist, I hate that people are calling for her for governor when homegrrl is a fracking queen and has backed the concept.

    http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/05/02/senate-vote-on-fracking-wastewater-pipelines-drawing-near/

    http://blogs.star-telegram.com/barnett_shale/2011/02/davis-bill-would-require-tracer-fluid-in-fracking.html

    That shit is fucking up communities all across America and in Texas.

    http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/texas-and-fracking

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/us/as-fracking-in-texas-increases-so-do-water-supply-fears.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

    People might say that there’s one fight at a time and we need to pick our battles, but we need better fucking politicians and maybe a system that isn’t putting business first, always. While I appreciate what Wendy Davis did when she stood in solidarity with Texas women, I’m tired of a bunch of groups in Texas that have started to hone in on that energy to coax our votes out for her. I’ll give her credit where credit is due but she also needs to stop fucking up in all regards and not just being awesome in one as though that makes up for it. Sorry, but not sorry.

  8. Also, Carmen, I know this is your Idol Worship and I honest to goodness didn’t mean to intrude on the lovefest. I’ve just had a lot of feelings about this for awhile. Not meaning to be a troll, I promise.

  9. i think i inevitably cry every time i read about wendy davis. makes my heart swell.

  10. Oy, we need Wendy Davis to come to Ohio and team up with awesome, feminist Senator Nina Turner to destroy that sneaky-ass budget bill with abortion restrictions. That will be justice.

Comments are closed.