Kimberly Ellis has been head of the San Francisco City Council's Department on the Status of Women since 2020. A law expert, she led Emerge, the association encouraging women in politics inspired by Kamala Harris's first campaign in San Francisco in 2004. She ran – unsuccessfully – for president of the California Democratic Party in 2017 and 2019 to shake up the establishment and try to bring the party closer to the underprivileged classes. She has accompanied Harris in her political ascent over the past 20 years.

I've been vacillating between a state of shock and deep sadness and anger and fear. And where I am right now on the grief process is understanding that – whatever narratives or stories we may have or may have wanted to believe with respect to what America was or is –the outcome of this election, for better or for worse – for many people, it is for worse – this is what this country is at this moment in time. And that was a very sobering realization.

And it's hard because so many of us have worked so long, myself, almost two decades, to improve the material position of the marginalized, of those without a voice, of those who have historically been oppressed, including women and girls and members of our LGBTQ
community, people who are living with disabilities, the poor working class.

This realization that there is a strong and growing part of this country that is not only rejecting the advancement of anything that is other than white and male and heteronormative, but is willing to actively take part in putting forward and enhancing a regressive agenda, that's a really hard thing to face.

California will continue to not only be a beacon of hope but the tip of the spear with respect to the resistance that now has to be mounted against this incoming regime. But for many folks like myself, very specifically women of color and Black women who have been fighting this fight for decades with incremental advances and progress, the wear and tear, the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual wear and tear that that kind of day to day resistance takes is more than what many of us are willing to bear again.

Absolutely. One of the things that was on full display in this election was the concept of toxic masculinity. It's one of those American traits that is woven into every aspect of American lives.

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