Morgan Baskin, Former Mayoral Candidate, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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1. What was it like to run for mayor as a young woman?
Being a young woman running for political office is not fun. It's not a walk in the park. There are pieces of it that are fun but definitely there's a whole extra layer added about being visibly female and especially visibly feminine in a world that doesn't value that. And politics is definitely a world that doesn't value that. Um, and what really helped me was finding other women who had run for public office or who had been involved in some other place where they felt devalued because of their gender. And also being clear that I was a women and I wasn't going to be ashamed of that. And it was a part of my identity and it was a part of who I showed to the world, like I wore lipstick and I wore heels and sometimes I wore dresses and I was an 18 year old girl and that was a part of my campaign as much as, you know, believing in the environment or public transit was a part of my campaign. That I was a young woman was valuable and that believing that that perspective was valuable and something that could be beneficial at City Hall was so important to me, and part of what helped me you know wake up in the morning when people were saying terrible things about me mostly just because I was a woman.