Reflections on the 2016 Election from the APC/GSWS Community

APC/GSWS, Stronger Together, Nancy Hirschmann, Director APC/GSWS & Political Science

There are many reasons that Hillary Clinton lost her historic bid to be the first female president of the United States; and it turns out that a lot of it was due to her failure to follow James Carvel’s 1992 slogan: “it’s the economy, stupid.”

All of the Above, Heather Love, English and APC/ GSWS Executive Board Member

I am not sure it is apt to call the mix of panic, grief, and anger that I’ve been feeling since the election thinking. Like many others, I’ve been tormented by an obsessive curiosity that doesn’t seem all that productive

A Much Larger, More Fundamental Difference, Victoria Gillison, GSWS Major

I’ve always considered myself a tolerant individual. I believe in respecting the rights and opinions of all people, even when starkly different than mine. However, to say that the 2016 election did not turn out the way I expected would be an understatement.

Now, More Than Ever, GSWS Graduate Student Advisory Board

This election has revealed why now, more than ever, we need the critical tools and perspectives that the fields of gender, sexuality, queer, and women's studies give us.

The Personal Is as Political as Ever, Melissa E. Sanchez, English and APC/GSWS Executive Board Member

With his notorious claim that Mexican immigrants are rapists, Donald J. Trump opened his candidacy by reviving a myth—at least as ancient as the classical story of the Rape of Lucretia—in which white women stand in for the endangered homeland.

Urgent Lessons, Kathy Brown, History and APC/GSWS Executive Board Member

I am ashamed of our country for electing Donald Trump. As a candidate, he stirred the electoral pot, licensing people harboring all kinds of ugly hatefulness against people of color, Muslims, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and women, to come out menacingly into the open.