MassLive | A sea change in Mass. as Healey, fellow women are swept to victory on Election Day

By Alison Kuznitz
Story Originally Appeared in MassLive

A cascade of glass ceilings seemed to shatter one after the other at a recent get-out-the-vote rally in Roxbury headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris, with the barrier-breaking symbolism first magnified by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu rattling off a nearly all-female slate of Democratic statewide candidates — including Maura Healey, Kim Driscoll, Andrea Campbell and Diana DiZoglio — who will usher in a sea change for women leadership on Beacon Hill come January.

Driscoll, the mayor of Salem and now the lieutenant governor-elect following Democrats’ dominating performance in Tuesday’s general elections, commented on the metaphorical and exciting sound of shattered glass last week at Roxbury Community College. For the first time in state history, Massachusetts will boast an all-female executive team, Driscoll said at the rally.

The Associated Press declared Healey the victor in the gubernatorial race within moments of the polls closing at 8 p.m. Tuesday. At around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Healey had garnered 1,046,609 votes to Diehl’s 573,707, with nearly 63% of precincts reporting.

State Treasurer Deb Goldberg and Secretary of Bill Galvin also were poised to win their re-election bids Tuesday, unofficial election results show.

In a powerful moment at the rally, Healey invoked Hillary Clinton’s presidential run as she directly told little girls in the audience — and, as she amended, little boys — that they can be whatever they want be.

“I’m proud of the entire ticket and what it represents because at the end of the day, we’re gonna have better laws and policies when those in office, just like those in the boardroom, reflect the populations that they serve and work on behalf of,” Healey told reporters last week in Boston’s North End. “It is also important because seeing is believing — it will also mean something for a lot of little girls out there who can see themselves maybe someday as governor, or secretary of state, or attorney general. You don’t want anyone to be limited by their race, or their ethnicity, or their gender.”

Healey proved that Tuesday, as she became the first woman to be elected governor of Massachusetts, nearly two decades after Jane Swift served as the state’s acting top executive. Healey, a South End Democrat, was the immediate frontrunner in the gubernatorial race as soon as she declared her bid in January, after Gov. Charlie Baker in December announced he and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito would not run for a third term in office.

“Tonight, I want to say something to every little girl and every young LGBTQ person out there: I hope tonight shows you that you can be whatever, whoever you want to be,” Healey said at the Democrats’ election night party Tuesday night at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in downtown Boston. “And nothing but your own imagination should ever get in the way.”

Healey, who rose to national prominence battling the Trump administration, is also the state’s first gay person to be elected governor.

“I think the message for the rest of the nation from the commonwealth is that in a time of crisis and a time of attacks on women’s autonomy, the voters of the commonwealth are doubling down and elevating women to positions of power because we believe in women’s leadership — full stop,” said Rebecca Hart Holder, president of Reproductive Equity Now. “This is just a moment when the commonwealth should be really proud of the leadership team that it’s voted on. I just think representation matters ... It’s wonderful that I have two daughters who will see this demonstration of female leadership and power.”

The ascent of Healey and fellow female political leaders comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — but also following the passage of new reproductive care protections from the Massachusetts Legislature in July, meant to shield both providers and patients, including those traveling to the commonwealth from states where abortions are now outlawed. The urgent law built upon the foundation of the ROE Act, which the Legislature passed in December 2020, that enshrines abortion rights in the state constitution.

A fierce defender of abortion access, Healey has vowed to always uphold reproductive freedom from the corner office — a viewpoint that caused her to regularly clash with her unsuccessful gubernatorial opponent Geoff Diehl, a former Republican state representative who had been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

Campbell, who made history in her own right Tuesday as the first Black woman elected to statewide office, intends to create a reproductive justice unit in her new office, interweaving legal expertise from the civil rights and health care divisions, alongside the criminal and government bureaus.

Speaking through tears, Campbell told supporters: “The responsibility is not lost on me.” This victory, Campbell said, is for those who have felt unseen, marginalized, left behind and undervalued.

Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno greets Andrea Campbell, candidate for Massachusetts Attorney General (L) and Massachusetts Attorney General and candidate for Governor Maura Healey during Sheriff Nick Cocchi's Annual Summer Cookout held at the Springfield Elks Lodge on Tiffany Street. (Don Treeger / The Republican) 8/17/2022

“For me, what the lesson continues to be is they are women, and they are incredibly competent, and they are every bit as strong of a leader as a man — and finally, they are getting to be in those places where they should have been for a really, really long time,” state Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat, told MassLive. “When you see somebody that looks like you in a certain position, then you now have a mental picture in your head that you can be in that position, too. When you see a woman as a governor, when you see a woman as a Senate president, when you see a Black woman as a doctor, all of a sudden you have a different mental image in your head, and the whole way you look at the world changes.”

When Healey is sworn in as governor in January, Beacon Hill’s triumvirate of top leaders, including the Senate president and House speaker, will be two-thirds female.

In a recent op-ed in Commonwealth Magazine, Friedman — the Senate chair of the Health Care Financing Committee — and Senate Majority Leader Cindy Creem urged Bay Staters to not overlook the strong showing of female leadership that already exists in their branch of state government.

They took issue with a separate Commonwealth op-ed, written by Barbara Lee, the president of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, that heralded the unprecedented slate of Democratic statewide candidates — augmented by female leaders in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, like Ayanna Pressley and Katherine Clark — without acknowledging the state Senate is led by a woman, Karen Spilka.

As the Supreme Court encroaches on civil rights and allows individual state governments to choose whether they want to protect women’s health care, Creem said it becomes “even more important that we pay attention to who our state representatives are.” Spilka, working alongside Healey, can wield enormous power over which bills advance in the next legislative session, such as enhanced privacy protections for people crossing state lines to access abortion services, Creem said.

“I’m hoping that people will appreciate the role and importance of having a woman Senate president. If we have a conservative Legislature, we could be in a pickle like other states,” Creem, a Newton Democrat, told MassLive. “Ultimately, if things happen in the state, the Legislature and the governor are going to make the biggest impact — we’re going to pass laws, and hopefully, our governor will be like-minded.”

People, including women themselves, must learn to recognize and conquer their intrinsic gender biases, Friedman said. Yet it takes an “enormous amount of time” to topple deeply entrenched power structures, she said, in which women and individuals from marginalized communities don’t view themselves as “good enough” to hold public office.

“We don’t lower our standards — we just do what men have been doing for centuries. It’s not about keeping somebody out, it’s about allowing people in,” Friedman said. “Men aren’t not getting what they want because someone is just coming in and taking their place. It has to be who the best person is, and many, many women fit that and can do that job.”

Boosting female representation on Beacon Hill may involve investing more resources at the local level, where fewer women are serving on school boards, town councils, and other municipal governing bodies, said Kat Cline, associate director of the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus.

Women need more prodding than men to consider a political run — and they also face more difficulties than their male counterparts when it comes to campaign fundraising, Cline said. Removing other barriers, such as allowing campaign contributions to cover child care expenses, could motivate more young women to serve in public office, too, Cline said.

“We know that a path forward is about helping women at every step in the pipeline,” Cline said. “We are being really intersectional in how we think about our elections — we’re working toward gender parity, but we need to think about other kinds of equity, as well.”

Massachusetts may be deemed as a highly progressive state, though it can be “quite conservative” in furthering women’s rights and leadership potential, said Carrie Baker, a women and gender studies professor at Smith College.

“I think it’s certainly amazing to have people like Maura Healey, Kim Driscoll, and Andrea Campbell running for office ... but I think we need to keep in mind that the state Legislature is 70% male,” she said. “So we have a long way to go in Massachusetts. I just think we’re in the middle of this fight — we’re not at the end.”

Female leaders are more likely to tackle the everyday struggles affecting voters, such as affordable housing, child care and health care, research has shown. They can provide a much-needed voice of firsthand experience and advocacy, Baker said, while contending with controversial Supreme Court rulings that could soon impede on gender-affirming care and gay marriage.

As the professor sees it, women must maintain highly visible public positions, doubling as role models and mentors, to inspire more young girls about what their own future careers can hold.

“It sounds simplistic, but it’s so true,” she said. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen nationally, but I am pretty sure that great things are going to happen and historic things are going to happen in Massachusetts.”