Is This The Year Women Reclaim Power?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what’s happening to women in this country. And I don’t like what I’m seeing. It is not a coincidence that a lot of my writing touches on women’s issues, and centres our experiences. My life-long experiences of working in a man-dominated field, both in law and as a president for my Synagogue, have made women’s rights a topic close to my heart. Therefore, I’m hoping that the coming year will be the one where we reclaim our power. 

How Did We Get Here?

I remember a time, the early 2010s, when things seemed to be improving. Journalists wrote about “the fourth wave of feminism” that was characterized by digital activism, intersectionality, and pop-culture visibility rather than solely academic or grassroots movements. In the media, women of more sizes and colors than before were finally being portrayed. Wherever you looked, women were running for office, running companies, and running conversations. It really felt like an exciting time. 

But then, something happened.

Around 2016, when Trump won his first presidency, it felt like the country reverted back to the dark ages. Suddenly, we were watching the rise of these openly misogynistic figures. People like Andrew Tate and other “manosphere” influencers were preaching the idea that women should be controlled, diminished, or punished, and young men listened.

From Roe v. Wade being overturned to Project 2025 and the weakening of Title IX, women’s rights are being taken away in front of our very eyes. We’re now bathing in the waters of a misogynistic flood, impossible to wade through without getting pulled under. I dare say it’s almost worse than it was twenty or thirty years ago.

Everything is Our Fault

America Ferrera really put her finger on it in the 2023 Barbie movie, written and directed by Greta Gerwig: “It is literally impossible to be a woman (...) and it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.”

It feels like every frustration, every failure some men face, somehow circles back to being our fault. As if women have taken too much space, too much power, too many rights. I’ve even said it to friends and family: women are being blamed for all the problems that white men have. The supposed “male loneliness epidemic”, the dwindling birth rates, boys’ mental health…

I see it in politics. I see it in workplaces. And I see it in the culture online.

Women’s voices are being dismissed, our experiences erased. We’re called “catty” or “bossy” or “bitchy” when we assert ourselves, just as we were decades ago. It’s the same old playbook, just dressed in modern language.

What frightens me most is the growing effort to silence women through law and policy. I’m genuinely afraid I won’t be able to vote this year. There’s a proposed law called the “SAVE Act,” supposedly to prevent non-citizens from voting. But the way it’s written, you have to be registered to vote under the same name that’s on your birth certificate.

Well, I changed my name when I got married, as most women do. So under that rule, I wouldn’t qualify. And that’s not an accident. It’s a way of keeping women, millions of them, from voting.

The threat is real. And it’s not just voting rights. It’s healthcare. I wouldn’t want to be a young woman getting pregnant right now. Doctors are afraid to act when complications arise, terrified they’ll be prosecuted. So they don’t do what needs to be done. Women die. 

That’s where we are.

Progress is Not Linear 

I keep thinking about how progress is never linear. The pendulum swings forward, and then it swings back.

We had progress. We had hope. We were on the verge of electing a woman president. And then the backlash came. Now we’re back to defending rights our mothers and grandmothers already fought for.

It’s exhausting, but it’s also familiar. I’ve been interrupted in meetings, had my ideas stolen, been dismissed, and labeled. I’ve lived this cycle before. And I refuse to go silent again.

The Struggle Continues 

At the core of everything I believe is something very simple: We should listen to everybody, regardless of gender, sex, race, class and ability, because they’ve got something to say.

That’s what it all comes down to; being heard. Being taken seriously. Being believed.

Whether it’s in a courtroom, a synagogue board meeting, a classroom, or the halls of Congress, women are still fighting to be heard. And if we let them silence us now, if we stop speaking up, the progress we made will vanish entirely.

So I will keep speaking. I will keep writing. I will keep telling these stories. Ten years on since the pendulum swung back, I am hoping that we women can reclaim our rights.

Because as long as women are being blamed, dismissed, and ignored, our words will remain our most powerful form of resistance.