Ignore the sexist jibes – Kamala Harris is forged in furnace of adversity

For the first time in 150,000 years a female became the most powerful human being on the planet.

The woman was Kamala Harris, vice-president of the United States, and the occasion was the colonoscopy being undergone by her boss, Joe Biden.

Unkind wags say that the real issue was not the president going under anaesthetic but detecting exactly when “sleepy” Joe had actually come round! However, the official timing of Kamala’s period of power was 85 minutes.

READ MORE: Ignore the sexist jibes – Kamala Harris is forged in furnace of adversity

In contrast, the 150,000-year estimate comes from the latest research dating on the “Mitochondrial Eve”, the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line through their mothers.

The deeply ingrained belief of the sinister power of “Eve” is related to the Christian concept of original sin; that it was the female of the species who (with the assistance of a serpent) tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit and thus provoked the fall from the Garden of Eden.

I should say in passing that Islam doesn’t hold with this tenet of faith, suggesting instead that Adam and Eve, male and female, had joint and several liability for that particular expulsion – one in the eye for those men who think Muslim women are all about looking like pillar boxes.

At any rate no new disaster befell the world in these 85 Harris minutes. For that time, ultimate power was in her hands – nuclear codes, presidential prerogative, the Oval Office and all that goes with them.

But somehow the world survived this brief ascent of woman. Surprisingly, neither alpha male presidents Xi or Putin mounted a sneak attack. Even Kim Jong-un kept respectfully silent for the hour of the female (Obviously in terms of work rate a female hour has more than 60 minutes crammed in). After her 85 minutes of supremacy, Biden came to on his hospital bed and Kamala went back to being his mere number two.

According to the US chattering classes, Kamala just isn’t cutting the mustard as vice-president and exhibits many of the stereotypical weaknesses that male journalists just love to believe are such a burden for female politicians – lack of perspective, inability to manage staff and emotional over-sensitivity to slights, real or imagined.

In reality Kamala does not have to imagine any slights – the Washington insider knives really are out for her big style. But they would be very foolish to think this cookie will crumble under their assault.

Kamala Devi Harris is the daughter of a Tamil mother and a Jamaican father who met through the civil rights movement in the 1960s. She is the American melting pot made flesh and has broken barriers all her working life, in first the law and then in politics.

The enduring feature of her politics, in these difficult times, is that she steadfastly stands by a message of optimism and hope for the future of humanity. Never underrate the significance of the inspiring impact on girls of all ages and colours of the message that they too can reach for the stars.

I watched the Harris inauguration with moist eyes. It is incredibly inspiring for myself and my daughters to see a woman of mixed race make it all the way to the White House.

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And it will have been a long road. Kamala Harris did not come from an underprivileged background and California is arguably the best state in the union for someone of mixed race to grow up in. However, that does not alter the fact that throughout her life she inevitably will have had to battle just that bit harder to overcome the twin prejudices of racism and misogyny.

As for the current press pile-on, she will have experienced the like many times before. It only differs in scale. Unlike her boss she has not spent a lifetime swimming with the Washington sharks but she has still had to swim faster than any of her contemporaries. She will have walked into many “power rooms” where no-one else looked remotely like her.

All of which prepares her well for current circumstances. She has been forged in that furnace of adversity and when the going gets tough the tough do get going. So ignore the jibes that her popularity ratings are worse than even those of Biden. He is the ailing man. She is the coming woman.

And so the next time she assumes the mantle of the Presidency it may well be for a great deal longer than 85 minutes.