My Promise to White Women:

History, Healing and the Presidential Elections

I am a white woman living in Marin County, California. Yesterday, I was phone banking when another white woman in Georgia answered my call:

 “Who are you planning to vote for?” I asked.

 “Trump, all the way.”

 “I’m curious what you like about him.”

 “Everything. America is the greatest country on Earth. We need to put our country’s needs first.”

 “Got it,” I said, allowing myself to fall silent and feel my discomfort. 

 “We probably have a lot in common,” I said after a few moments. 

“Yeah,” she paused, “we probably do.”

Speaking Across the Divide

The upcoming presidential elections have got me thinking about my identity as a white woman, who we are as a group, how history has treated us, and why we’re so divided today. 

I want to try to speak to white women directly. My hope is that I can reach at least one person, somewhere, with whom I can have a conversation.

When I told the Trump supporter in Georgia that I thought we might have a lot in common, I was thinking about how white women have been used by white men to increase male power for a very long time.

Now, this is where I’m afraid I might lose you–the one person out there I’m trying to reach, but I hope you’ll hear me out. 

I think it’s pretty clear that the white men who founded this country had no intention of ever sharing their political power–not with their wives, daughters, or anyone else. They believed they were superior and that they could make better decisions for us than we could for ourselves.

And white women went along with it.

Why Did White Women Do This?

To understand this behavior, we have to go back even further. Many of our ancestors came to the United States fleeing Europe after centuries of subjugation, war, and trauma. My Irish ancestors came here after a genocidal starvation imposed by Great Britain.

The men in our lives were the life rafts we clung to. Deep down, we knew that if we rocked the boat and demanded rights equal to theirs, we might lose that protection.

After all, many of us had ancestors who were burned as witches.

Allying with patriarchy was a survival strategy, and the sense of superiority over Black and Brown people handed to our foremothers upon entry must have felt pretty good after what we’d been through.

Eventually, in 1920, women won the right to vote, but men’s control over our lives continued to be sanctioned by law. We joined the workforce, and that freedom came at a cost. Now, we had not just our husbands but our bosses to contend with.

It wasn’t legal for my grandmother to have a credit card in her own name until 1960, when she was 39 years old–a quarter-century after their invention. To this day, our financial freedom continues to be limited by men.

Our Trauma is Intergenerational

Things have changed for white women since the 1960s, but as a bloc, men still dominate in every sector. Women make up only 28 percent of Congress, we earn just 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, and 1 in 3 women in the US have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime.

I was raised by a single mother. Most of the time I was growing up, my mom didn’t vote (though she does now). She preferred to influence the system by housing battered women in our home and protesting against wars overseas.

The women in my family have experienced a lot of suffering, including the trauma of violence and the violence of poverty.

This has been true in our family as far back as I know, and that history still haunts us. We also have a lot of privilege: educational, cultural, and attitudinal (that was a joke), which has helped us better our situations somewhat.

My particular body holds a lot of trauma–intergenerational; childhood developmental; sexual; and, in my case, the rare trauma of being held as a political hostage for 410 days in solitary confinement in Iran (look me up; that’s a whole other story). I also have a lot of unearned privilege.

I am a white woman who was awarded a fellowship from Stanford; and I am also a white woman who grew up in an apartment where we sometimes couldn’t afford heat in the dead of winter in Chicago.

The combination of privilege and trauma is confusing … and it can be dangerous.

The Worst Possible Day

We’ve all done it. I was sitting in a restaurant in Oakland, CA, one afternoon when I realized I had lost my car keys. It was the worst possible day for this to happen. I was on my way to a meeting I’d been anticipating for weeks, and a lot of potential money was at stake.

Panicked, I told my waiter what happened. As this Latino man began to help me look for my keys, I noticed an intense heat rising in my body.

Every cell in my body screamed, “He took them. They were right here on the table a minute ago. He’s laughing at you.” 

Thanks to a bare minimum of executive functioning, I said nothing and simply glared at him as I walked out the door. Half a block down the street, I found my keys on the sidewalk, where I had dropped them. 

My fear and stress had triggered the latent racism and entitlement stored in my body. Had I accused him or called the police, my bad day could have been much, much worse for my waiter. 

Let’s Heal Together

The more I understand about trauma and the nervous system, the less I’m a “blame” type of person and the more I become a “let’s heal together” type of person.

For the last few months, I’ve been in a therapy process with my mom. Though we love each other deeply, we had hit a point where we were mired in conflict. The burden of the trauma we both carry was harming our relationship.  Finding the support and courage to talk about topics we’ve been avoiding for decades has created an incredible shift for my mom and I.

We went from not being able to look each other in the eye to laughing and bonding over deep insights during these sessions.

As white women, blaming each other for our trauma only deepens the divisiveness in this country, allowing our male-dominated systems to pit us against each other and use us for their own ends.

White women are not the only bodies that hold trauma or get dysregulated under pressure. When I study history, it becomes clear that the survival strategy of identifying with your oppressors is not limited to women or domestic violence survivors. It is a common survival strategy that’s been passed down for countless generations in many populations.

White women are not weak, we have power, but our bodies have stored the belief that our femininity will protect us.

As a block, White men have long taken advantage of this, using white women’s socially engineered dependency to entrench their power.  

Today, we’re basically doing the job for them. 

As white women, our trauma and our privilege are a part of who we are, and we are also more than the sum of those parts. We belong to this country, and we must claim our power. 

The Good News about Epigenetics

Epigenetics is the study of how social and behavioral factors can change how genes function without altering the DNA sequence. Also called “molecular memory,” it examines how fears and behaviors can be passed down over many generations through gene expression, resulting in the passing on of traits–such as the hormones released during stress–from mother to child.

Biologically speaking, this is meant to prepare the child for an environment similar to what the parents experienced. Instead, as seen in Holocaust survivors whose descendants were shown to have low levels of cortisol, the changes that might have helped them survive the starvation their parents experienced put them at a disadvantage in their current context–more at risk of PTSD, obesity and hypertension.

The good news is that positive traits are passed down, too, like joy and resiliency. Also, changes in gene expression can be reversed. How?

By getting to the root of our trauma symptoms, much like my mom and I are doing in therapy, and by pushing our brains out of their comfort zones and living a healthy, laughter-filled life.

Can White Women Heal and Have Power?

 White women don’t just act helpless and weak; our bodies tell us we are. Although our survival strategies limit our choices and cloud our discernment, these limitations can be undone through the practice of somatics.

 Somatics is a mind-body therapeutic healing method that creates lasting change. The science behind somatics is that our bodies are populated by a web of neurons that influence every feeling we have and every decision we make. Throughout our lives, stress, traumatic events, systemic oppression, and early patterning get stuck in a loop in our bodies.

Through somatic therapy, we can reprogram and renegotiate these neural networks, forming new pathways that lessen the impact of past wounding, allow us to meet overwhelm with more creativity, and create a different future.

Through a somatic lens, what happened to me in that restaurant with the Latino waiter was that my body went into survival mode–immediately jumping to anger and misdirecting it at someone I’ve been socialized to fear.

My mind told me there was no reason to suspect him, but my body was saying the opposite, and I didnt know which to believe. 

Early on, I was taught to shove down and hide anger and fear because these emotions were not safe enough to express in my home environment. Through somatics, I’ve learned to express these powerful emotions in safe ways that don’t harm others, gaining access to the important emotions underneath the anger, and freeing myself in the process.

Our Country’s Needs First 

I’m still thinking about what the Trump supporter from Georgia said about putting our country’s needs first.

I understand why a lot of women in this country are conflicted about who to vote for. I also understand why for so many years when I was growing up my mom didn't vote at all. I’m not thrilled about either political party, or candidate. I don't think that Kamala Harris will somehow magically solve the problems we’re facing.

What the Harris administration does offer is someone we can work with.

Trump’s administration will continue to divide us and take away our rights. With Kamala, we will have leverage, and we must use that leverage to benefit everyone.

For me, our lives are inextricably linked to people of all races, classes and creeds, and our policies must reflect that. Division along race, class and yes, gender lines only serves the rich and powerful. But unity around the preservation of women’s rights and freedom serves all Americans, all people. 

Denying our interconnectedness will not make us safer and more prosperous; it will continue to rob us of our power. 

When We Heal, We Win

How about instead of “when we fight we win,” we say, “when we heal we win”?

My mom and I are the first women in our lineage with the courage–but more importantly, the resources–to tend to our relationship in this way. For the first time, we’ve talked about how poverty and abuse have harmed our relationship, found ways to feel safe again and begun to enjoy one another. 

My Mom and I are not unique. White women in this country continue to face devastating poverty. In 2013, life expectancy declined for white women for the first time in modern history–the result of an increase in suicide and addiction stemming from poverty, food scarcity, and limited access to healthcare.

As white women, the more we can learn to regulate our bodies, the more we can act with discernment and purpose in our own interest.

A healed body is a powerful body. Getting my body out of survival mode means that the legacy of my genetic line can evolve to benefit all women and all people.

As white women, we have power, but we won’t be able to use it in our own self-interest until we process our trauma patterns and liberate ourselves.

Women as a Voting Bloc

Kamala Harris is going to get the overwhelming majority of Black women’s votes in this election; we all know that. But the election will be determined by the bigger voting bloc: white women.

 White women have power in this society, but the power we have comes from the strength we have as a bloc. The only way for white women to gain more power is to expand and strengthen this block by allying with women of color and with all women.

The outcome of this presidential election will be determined by whether white women vote in our own interest, or against it. 

As women, I don’t think we do enough to stand with one another–across race, class, and political lines. We are taught to compare and compete, and in doing so, we turn against ourselves.

There’s no escaping that our interests are aligned. Our liberation is tied to one another. I want women to be powerful: white women, Black and Brown women … all women.

My Promise

We’ve made it this far, let’s go farther. 

I am no longer in denial about how easily our rights can be taken from us. Contraception, health care, choice and economic mobility..I can now see with clear eyes just how precarious my freedom is and how bound up my rights are with other white women.

If we want the richest white men to continue to consolidate their power at our expense, we’re going to get more of that.

If we want to continue to advance and better our country, we must use our power wisely.

I’m invested in you, white women; I’m invested in your freedom and power. I’m invested in us.

Call Me?

If you’re a white woman who is undecided or even certain about voting for Trump, and this message somehow reaches you–and if you’re willing to talk to me–please call me. Just email sarah@sarahshourd.com and I’ll give you my number.

Ways You Can Work With Me

If you’re interested in working with me I offer body-centered therapy as a Somatic Practitioner and embodied leadership skills as an Executive Coach.  I offer immersive coaching packages, group courses and ongoing 1:1 sessions to help you on your journey towards embodied leadership, personal liberation and trauma healing. Learn more at  shourdsomatics.com.

In January I’ll be teaching a LIVE, online SOMATIC HEALING COURSE called BREAKING OPEN, BREAKING THROUGH: Transforming Loss and Trauma into a Gift for the World. This 12-week online course is designed for women and nonbinary individuals who have lived through a disruptive experience—whether losing a company, processing a divorce, or grieving a death—and are ready to reclaim their power. You can fill out this form to secure your spot, or sign-up for a free, 30-minute discovery call or email me at shourdsomatics@gmail.com if you want updates on the course.