The Green Party’s Forgotten Woman Nominee

I recently came upon this meme, one of many memes this year about Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2016 presidential nominee. Have a look:

The meme features a picture of Jill Stein with the text “This is the first woman to receive her party’s nomination. Don’t buy the Hillary hype.”

I get that not everyone does the whole history thing. What I find disturbing about this meme is not that Jill Stein isn’t the first woman to receive a party’s nomination (literally dozens of women hit that milestone before she did). It’s that she’s not the first woman to win her party’s nomination. The Green Party nomination went to former African American congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2008.

I have my issues with the Green Party, and I’ll be voting for Hillary come November, but if you’re going to go Green, please at least do enough research on the party to ensure that you don’t unwittingly whitewash women like McKinney out of its history.

While we’re at it, let’s take a moment to reflect on the many, many, many women who have run for president over the past two decades. Every woman who has entered politics and put her name out there has been an integral part of the greater effort to bring about women’s political equality, from Victoria Woodhull to Hillary Clinton. Let’s not erase any of them. We can celebrate the moment we’re in—with gender parity in the presidential nominees of the two major parties and the two most significant third parties (though not in vice presidential nominees) without overlooking the important history that brought us to where we are today.

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