The Women Who Ran and Five Rules for Rebellion
Rebellion
re·bel·lion
/rəˈbelyən/
noun, the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
Rebellion has always been a “red flag” word for me. Throughout my childhood, into adulthood, both personally and professionally, I’ve both avoided and been intrigued by rebellion. My entire life, I have felt a tug into the act and choice of resisting authority, and as I get older I have noticed a desire to check myself. Do I want to resist, for the sake of resistance? Am I drawn to resist a system or thing, because it needs to be disrupted?
As a child, I’ve seen the red flag acting as a warning, as a sign to stay away, almost in the arena of asking for punishment, or knowing it would be around the corner if I acted out of turn. The red flag into my teen years looked more like something I saw in my rearview mirror, or off to the side as I threw it all to the wind. Now, I honor the red flag and envision it as a “cause for pause.”
Five Rules for Rebellion from Sophie Walker is a book that I have read a handful of times, and depending on the time, have dog-eared the pages, or underlined sections of chapters, or on the most recent exploration through the book, multiple highlight colors.
In the first seven pages of Five Rules for Rebellion, Sophie Walker brings truth:
“And in order for our leaders to be right, someone else has to be wrong. All of that rules out almost immediately any kind of leadership by people brave enough to try new ideas before they’ve been tested to destruction, or by people brave enough to lead alongside other people with different opinions. And it certainly rules out people who look and sound different, and whose opinions, mannerisms and life experiences are different.”
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
“Hope requires discipline and endurance. It requires you to get out of bed every morning and reset your determination to make things better, no matter what setbacks you face. Hope is an action. And to act is to change the world.”
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
“There are levers of power, and they can be changed. You have to think about history and know that the whole world is a history of change. And that in itself is the hope.”
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
Speaking of hope and the history of change.
The opening screen of the documentary, the Women who Ran begins: “In Spring of 2021, women ran for every seat on City Council and the Office of Mayor for the first time in Omaha, Nebraska’s history. This is a portrait of some of those women.” The documentary was recently shown to a sold out crowd in Omaha, and the experience was overwhelmingly beautiful, and strange!
Strange, because it felt impossible to reconcile the passage of time since that election cycle and the corresponding campaigns we all organized, ran, and navigated (how was it only one year and some months ago?). Lovely, because it was truly the coolest place to be in Omaha on that night with so many friends, loved ones, and supporters in the audience. Discombobulating and a bit out-of-body to watch oneself on a massive screen, reliving and retelling an experience that captured immense pride, and also extreme exhaustion and trauma.
The words that I heard come out of my mouth, while watching myself on the screen, still resonate as true. The words are radically aligned with my values and beliefs - held then and still now - however I am no longer the same person that I witnessed up on the screen in the theatre that night. We have all changed so much - and not just those who ran for office - in the weeks and months since early days of the pandemic, and the subsequent modern-day awareness of and to racism and shattered community fabric.
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
A quote of mine from the documentary: “
“I decided to run because I saw the divide. I ran, but I knew I wasn’t going to win. One of the big reasons I ran was to be a support to the other women candidates, and model the behavior of what could be possible. I started a group chat for the women candidates, and we kept adding more and more to the chat, to offer support. It was really cool to see that, and I don’t think you’d see that kind of support from a group of male candidates. Women traditionally have such a natural innate caretaking responsibility. When you flip the script and talk about caretaking for an entire community, I think it was natural for so many women to step up. We heeded the call - if not now for Omaha, I don’t know when it will be.”
A statement that feels evergreen and always so relevant:
“I take a bit of a pause about “vote for all women.” ALL women aren’t a good representation of what values and issues matter to me. I would love to see more feminine leadership, but that doesn’t mean ALL and only women.”
During the pep rally that is shown in near the end of the documentary, I said (watching this moment brought tears to my eyes while watching the film):
“We stepped into spaces that weren’t for us. For too long we’ve had people talk about things, talk about wanting to “start” the conversation. We see that apathy and mediocrity represented now on our city council, and we are here to change that. My entire campaign has been run on education, shame reduction, and accessibility. We have a joke in our campaign team that “Ask Naomi” is the mantra of our campaign, and in the community. I accept the challenge, and I want to take that into city government. “
Photo Credit: Kamrin Baker
Some advice that I gave during that same pep rally will be forever true, regardless of where we find ourselves in an election cycle:
“We need you to talk to your folks. Talk to your people. If it feels scary, then just say ‘did you know there’s an election coming up?’”
A huge thank you to the folks at A Documentary Company … and to all of the women who ran. It is such a joy and pleasure to call so many of you friends.
Cheers to more resistance and rebellion.
“There’s this sense of needing to be darling and delightful long enough to get in the door, and then you can really start to get some work done.”
