Katie Hill - She Will Rise: Becoming a Warrior in the Battle for True Equality

T his year, August 18 (just one week after this book is published!) marks a hundred years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendmentsince women first got the right to vote in the United States. Alice Paul, one of the leaders of the womens suffrage movement, said shortly after it was ratified, It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for full equality won. It is just beginning.

I dont know where she thought wed be in the fight one hundred years after that historic victory. But as far as Im concernedand I hope you feel the samewe havent come nearly far enough. We cant afford to let another hundred years go by before we get there. And if we dont fight now, we might even go backward.

So here, we will talk about how to dismantle misogynistic institutions, redirecting resources and authority to young women and working to install them in positions of power. This work is my calling for the next stage of my lifea life very different from the one I envisioned for myself less than a year ago, not to mention when I was a little girl.

Then again, the big goal I had way back when I was a little girl was always going to be a challenging one. At the time, I dreamed of being Sir Alanna of Trebond.

If youre scratching your head, wondering, Ummwho is Sir Alanna of Trebond? you are simply not a millennial lady nerd. Alanna is the hero of Tamora Pierces iconic Song of the Lioness series, beloved inspiration of nineties preteen girls everywhere. Set in the quasi-medieval fantasy kingdom of Tortall, the four-book series tells the story of a feisty young noblewoman who switches identities with her twin brother in order to take his place at knight school.

A natural fighter, Alanna is stubborn and temperamental, with flaming red hair and magical purple eyes. Beautiful and impulsive, shes also funny, honest, and loyal. She fights hard for her friends and her pets, and to the delight of middle school girls everywhere just figuring out and being suddenly overwhelmed by sexual urges, Alanna even goes into that forbidden territory. She seduces a shocking three men (gasp!) over the course of the series: Prince Jonathan, the clingy pretty-boy heir to the throne, whom she dumps in a bid to dodge commitment; George, the King of Thieves, who makes no demands on her life or personal space; and Liam Ironarm, a smoldering battle-scarred mercenary who dies fighting by her side. Eventually, Alanna settles down and marries George, her low-maintenance lover, keeping her full-time job in the ass-kicking field even after they have kids.

Tortalls strict gender norms? Theyre no match for Alanna. Cultural expectations of virginity and monogamy? Deceased atop the pile of bodies of demons she killed in battle. This warrior has every eleven-year-old girls dream life: She owns a cat and a horse, is friends with her exes and their new girlfriends, is gorgeous with incredible purple eyes, and can wield sword and magic alike to defeat her foes. Is it any wonder I wanted to be her?

If I could go back and talk to my younger self about what happened with this particular dreamthe Big Alanna MoodId try not to cry. Id tell her, We came so close. We came so much closer than most people do.

Id show her all the good things weve done: the strength and focus I brought to my congressional campaignhow we flipped a historically red congressional district to become the first LGBTQ woman to represent California in Washington, DC, and the first woman and youngest person to ever hold this storied seat. Elected to Congress as one of the youngest women ever, I quickly became known as a rising star in the Democratic Party, serving as a freshman representative to leadership and as the vice chair of the House Oversight Committee under Chairman Elijah Cummings. Id show Young Katie all the friends and colleagues who continue to stand by us in the fight to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can.

And the horse! Shed be so impressed, over the moon actually, to know that Adult Katie owns a horse. I started working at age twelve to save up for my own noble steed, just like Alannas, and for the last fifteen years Ive been the proud owner of Marty: a stubborn old Thoroughbred I pay an uncomfortably substantial monthly sum to board at a senior-citizen horse barn. His vibe is more