In her essay, “Dreams of My Mother,” Anna March speculates, “Is the daughter’s work to fulfill the unrealized dreams of her mother…?” March describes the emotional days following her grandmother’s death, campaigning hard for Hillary Clinton with her own mother, in the days just before the 2016 presidential election. Her grief does not immobilize her; the opportunity to rally behind Clinton, a presidential candidate and woman three generations of women in her family support, motivates March to work to fulfill the dreams of generations of women before her. While Clinton lost the election, she made history, becoming the first female presidential candidate to win the popular vote. Much like March’s action in the face of grief, women in support
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By punctuating the essay with photography, March immediately appeals to the reader emotionally through its arrangement. Superficially, these five black-and-white photographs, shot by photographer Cédric von Niederhäusern, selected by March, illustrate the days just before the election; however, when the images depict Hillary Clinton, they obscure her, emphasizing that the essay is not about just one woman, but women in general. In his book The Fundamentals of Creative Photography, photographer David Präkel explains that focus can be purposefully controlled by the …show more content…
After “[n]early two and a half centuries of men at the helm” (March par. 8) and only nearly one century of women’s suffrage, the election of the first female U.S. president would feel like a “win for women” (March par. 2). From a strictly historical perspective, electing a woman as president would mean "changing history” (March par. 9) and a step towards American political equality. Presidential elections are inherently polarizing, but March reminds the reader that the results of the 2016 presidential election yielded the “largest recorded gender gap in history” (par. 11), making the candidates’ and voters’ gender an undeniable factor in the outcome of the election. Regardless of the reader’s political affiliation or ideological stance, March’s personal bias towards Clinton does not affect the fact that women still do not experience equal representation in American government nor have ever served as President of the United
By punctuating the essay with photography, March immediately appeals to the reader emotionally through its arrangement. Superficially, these five black-and-white photographs, shot by photographer Cédric von Niederhäusern, selected by March, illustrate the days just before the election; however, when the images depict Hillary Clinton, they obscure her, emphasizing that the essay is not about just one woman, but women in general. In his book The Fundamentals of Creative Photography, photographer David Präkel explains that focus can be purposefully controlled by the …show more content…
After “[n]early two and a half centuries of men at the helm” (March par. 8) and only nearly one century of women’s suffrage, the election of the first female U.S. president would feel like a “win for women” (March par. 2). From a strictly historical perspective, electing a woman as president would mean "changing history” (March par. 9) and a step towards American political equality. Presidential elections are inherently polarizing, but March reminds the reader that the results of the 2016 presidential election yielded the “largest recorded gender gap in history” (par. 11), making the candidates’ and voters’ gender an undeniable factor in the outcome of the election. Regardless of the reader’s political affiliation or ideological stance, March’s personal bias towards Clinton does not affect the fact that women still do not experience equal representation in American government nor have ever served as President of the United