I'm going to need a minute

Last Thursday night, I sat on my couch and watched a daughter introduce her mother as a major party presidential nominee for President of the United States.

Until I saw it, I don't think I believed it would ever happen.  In fact, it would take me a few days to really understand how important it is to me because I was so overwhelmed that it actually happened.

It's very, very important. Regardless of your politics, it's huge.

If you're a white man who has always seen someone who looks like you in power, you probably think it isn't a big deal. If you know how hard the road has been and how many woman have walked it, you know it's monumental. From an article on USA Today:

• This female nomination came 168 years and nine days after the first women's rights conference in Seneca Falls, NY
• This female nomination came 150 years after Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the first organization dedicated to suffrage for women of all races
• This female nomination came 144 years after Susan B. Anthony was convicted for voting in the 1872 presidential election
• This female nomination came 96 years after the approval of the 19th Amendment barring gender discrimination in voting
• This female nomination came with thoughts for suffragettes Alice Paul, who in an effort to win the right for women to vote was on a hunger strike while confined to a jail psychiatric ward and force fed raw eggs through a tube; Lucy Burns, also on a hunger strike to win the right to vote, held down by five people and fed through her nostrils; Dora Lewis, knocked out by guards who threw her against a metal railing over her insistence that women be allowed the right to vote

This nomination is a big fuck you to everyone who has ever said 

girls don't do that / don't be so bossy / Smile! / that's not a career for women / you do that like a girl / calm down / he picks on you because he likes you / just deal with it, you're lucky to have a job / women can't handle that / you do that well for a woman / you're too emotional / you're not emotional enough, what's wrong with you? / she was asking for it  / you should be at home / slut / she must wear the pants in that relationship / insert yours here

This nomination is

encouragement / empowerment / strength / hope / possibility / reassurance / insert yours here

Things will never be the same for little girls in this country again, in a fantastic way.