For the girls!
Note: This essay is published in two parts. This post contains the second part, following the first part published previously here. The complete bibliography is available at the end of this text.
Dr. Irena Kuzmina
In the US, a different outcome awaited Kamala Devi Harris, an attorney who served as the 49th vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025 under President Joe Biden. Attorney General of California from 2011 to 2017, of Indian and Jamaican parentage, Harris represented California in the Senate from 2017 to 2021 pioneering, in particular, for BAME under-represented communities. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the party’s nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
Harris lost the 2024 United States presidential election to Donald Trump on November 5, 2024. She conceded the race the next day in a speech at her alma mater, Howard University. All 50 states and DC trended rightwards compared to the 2020 presidential election. Had she won, Harris would have been the first female and first Asian-American president of the United States, and the second African-American president after Obama but it did not happen. Like Hillary (14), she did not seem to be enough neither to be that real scientist...
Finally, in the US, new hope and a new bright star, born in 1989, appeared on the political horizon from the Hispanic diaspora: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC (47). An American politician and activist who has served since 2019 as the US representative for New York’s 14th congressional district, Alexandria is a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. But will she be lucky enough to better her sorority club predecessors’ outcome and, at last, break that glass ceiling? Or are women really less good at the presidential job?
Taking office at the age of 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. The politician graduated cum laude from Boston University in 2011 with a BA, double majoring in International Relations and Economics. While a college student, Ocasio-Cortez was working on foreign affairs and immigration issues (47). She was also, along with Rashida Tlaib, one of the first two female members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) elected to Congress. Ocasio-Cortez has been described as a progressive far-left populist. She advocates, in particular, for a Medicare for All, tuition-free public colleges, and abolishing ICE. Will this brave young woman be able to become the new Cleopatra, American style, reigning over the spacious New World superpower? Is she ready to become that Superwoman? (46)
The American Democrats seem to promote exactly the opposite set of values compared to Vaira’s. Fleeing the real horrors of Communism and the totalitarian Soviet regime, she would have never subscribed to this kind of ideology, even if sharing the same immigrant experience, as well as a Latin-based language: “We took the ship on New Year's night of 1945. It was a transport ship with troops and with armaments and of course if it gets torpedoed it's going to blow it up. But they have taken a certain number of civilians with them, who also want to flee from communism at any price.” (38), she describes her own experience. Ocasio-Cortez, as the only Spanish speaker in the office, had to handle calls from Spanish-speaking constituents criticizing administers about enriching themselves at the expense of the Bronx families struggling to make sense of the bureaucracy (47). Maybe, Ocasio-Cortez will be the woman who will, finally, prove that an American woman can, that America can?
How to handle poverty, homelessness, inflation, as well as rising military expenses? These questions is asking every politician hoping to conquer ballots at polling stations, whether male or female, whatever the body, and sometimes learn from the others’ and their own mistakes (18).
Latin heritage is, indeed, a point in common between the two politicians. Vaira is a prominent French speaker, in parallel to her English and Latvian, so that she is a part of the Francophone feminist tradition remounting to Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1405).
Pizan uses the vernacular French language to compose her book, but she often uses Latin-style syntax in her French prose (15). As a rebuttal to Jean de Meun's popular Roman de la Rose, Pizan combats Meun's false statements about women creating a City of Ladies. She defends women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. These women are housed in the City of Ladies, which is actually the book. As Pizan builds her city, she uses famous women as building blocks for the book. She also advocates in favour of education for women and sees them as valued participants in society and the city (15).
Heated debate in Latvia in 2025 around the Istanbul Convention legally protecting girls and women against domestic violence reminds us that The Book of the City of Ladies and its key messages are timeless. Culturally, Latvia, an EU member state since 2004, is still torn between the East and the West, which is reflected in its MPs’ voting results. Not everybody embraced fully the liberal set of values here: there are pro-traditional and conservative trends still dominating both MPs’ and ordinary people’s minds. The former president defined her position on this question clearly rejecting centuries-old attitudes towards women as the second-best group of population, brilliantly pointed out by her French academic colleague Simone de Beauvoir in her classic book Le deuxième sexe (3) silencing women and reducing them to the good old Kinder, Küche, Kirche pattern and narrative, which protects them from active participation in decision-making, as well as excludes them from positions of power and promotion to senior leadership. Vaira’s example seems to break the glass-ceiling, in this respect.
The little girl who fled from war-torn Latvia spent more than 50 years in exile. After returning she became president. Paradoxically, she also became the first female head of a former Soviet bloc state.
Latvia’s European and global leadership becomes visible through the lense of this proud heathen analysing dainas, overcoming trauma and stages of grief, like the whole of Europe in the middle of the 20th century, she also teaches us a lesson on revenge, personal, political, cultural, linguistic retaliation in the spirit of the communities taking the path of decoloniasation, including their brave and determined women across Africa, Asia, South America and other societies of the former Eastern bloc.
Like Marie Sklodowska-Curie and Miss Hilbery (17), she faced sexism and misogyny in Academia brilliantly depicted in the recently released Night and Day (2026). She had to become a refugee and a real intercontinental nomad travelling between Europe, Africa, America, back and forth (9).
But, just like women from BAME communities in the West, she refused to be small and insignificant or perceived as such and always fought back. Like Michelle Obama, she did not give up her fight for the dignity of her people and their representation. Vaira’s parcours was not always easy. Facing the sexist Professor or escaping a child marriage prove once again that a woman can be enough: after all, it is also about ordinary women’s rights and changing ordinary people’s mentality for the better (Istanbul Convention).
Not everybody is ready for women participating in the presidential race, let alone seeing them win. Women nowadays may have different political orietation, from the far-left to the far-right but they all still have a point in common: under-representation on basis of gender (10).
The remarkable case of the Latvian former President Vike-Freiberga seems to fight discrimination against women, the way Bader Ginsburg did. Her success story proves that it is perfectly possible to be a charming and stylish lady and a powerful politician leading with a hand of steel. Her essays on culture, belonging, ethnic identity, mythology and society also contribute to representation, political and cultural, of ethnic groups and identities often neglected in the past by authoritarian regimes (32). While nobody is perfect in this world, it is better done than perfect: Vaira is definitely leading by example and, until now, we can consider her exception a global scale example in the predominantly boys’ club. She got Latvia transformed, according to her ideals, making that radical transformation possible.
Because Latvia can. Because she could.
Bibliography
General
1. Aspazija. Aspazija: A Latvian Writer 1865–1943. Her Lyrical Prose – Translated by Astrida B. Stahnke. Jūrmala: Jūrmalas vēstures un mākslas biedrība, 2015.
2. Auziņa-Szentivanyi, Ieva. The Cabinet of Folk Songs. iBook. 2021.
3. Beauvoir de, Simone. Le deuxième sexe. Paris: Gallimard, 1949.
4. Beauvoir de, Simone. Les Mandarins. Paris: Gallimard, 1954.
5. Bourdieu, Pierre. La Domination masculine. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1998.
6. Bouyer, René-Jean. Hillary & Bill. Documentary. 1996.
7. Gavron, Sarah. Suffragette. Film. 2015.
8. Kairiss, Viesturs. Melānijas hronika. Film. 2016.
9. Kwan, Kevin. Crazy Rich Asians. New York: Doubleday, 2013.
10. Leder, Miriam. On the Basis of Sex. Movie. 2018.
11. Nafisi, Azar. Lire Lolita à Téhéran. Paris: Plon, 2004.
12. Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda. Americanah. Nigeria: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.
13. Parker, Oliver, Thompson, Barnaby. St. Trinian’s. Film. 2007.
14. Peterson, Alan. Hillary. Movie. 2008.
15. Pizan de, Christine. Cité des Dames. Paris: Stock/Moyen Age, 1986 [1405].
16. Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. London: Penguin, 2004 [1792].
17. Woolf, Virginia. Night and Day. Penguin Classics: 2006 [1919].
18. Zhao, Chloé. Nomadland. Movie. 2020.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga’s Publications
1. Database of Latvian Dainas. A computer-accessible transcription of A. Švābe, K. Staubergs, & E. Hauzenberga-Šturma (Eds), Latviešu tautas dziesmas. Copenhagen: Imanta, 1952-1956. 12 vols. Transcribed by Imants Freibergs un Vike-Freiberga, Vaira.
2. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Dzintara kalnā [On the Amber Mountain]. Montreal: Helios, 1989.
3. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Ģimene un ģimenes godi latviešu tradīcijās [Family and Family Gods in Latvian Tradition], Baltica-91. 3 pp, 1991.
4. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Jāņos [The Midsummer Festival]. Laiks (New York), June 23, p.1, 1993.
5. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Kultūra un latvietība [Culture and Latvian Identity]. Rīga: Karogs, 2010.
6. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989.
7. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Par maizi, pienu un izdzīvošanu [About bread, milk and survival]. Concluding commentary, 7th volume [Poēmas] of the collected wotks [Raksti] of Imants Ziedonis (pp. 374-389). Riga: Nordik, 1997.
8. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Psycholinguistique expérimentale. In: Marc N. Richelle, Jean Requin, and Michèle Robert (Eds.) Traité de psychologie expérimentale (vol. 2, pp. 333-387). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
9. Gamsa, Ann, & Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Psychological events are both risk factors in, and consequences of, chronic pain. Pain, 44, 271-277.
10. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira & Freibergs, Imants. Saules dainas [Latvian Sun Songs]. Montreal: Helios, 1988.
11. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Savai tautai. Citāti no runām un rakstiem [For My People. Quotations from speeches and writings]. Sastādījums [arranged by] Rudīte Kalpiņa. Riga: Jumava, 2008.
12. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Senlatviešu reliģija sinkretisma gaisma [Ancient Latvian religion in the light of syncretism]. Jaunā Gaita, Nr. 104, 16-20, 1975.
13. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. “Sieviete dzintarā”. Review of A Woman in Amber: Healing the trauma of war and exile. New York: Soho, 1995, by Agate Nesaule. Laiks (New York), March 23, pp. 3, 6, 1996.
14. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Tautas nacionālā pašapziņa- problēmas un iespējas [Self-esteem and national pride: Problems and opportunities]. Karogs (Riga), 11, 200-215, 1997.
15. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. The Devil in Latvian Folktales: An Analysis of Character in Relation to Plot. In E.V. Ūygas and P.Voorheis (Eds), Folklorica: Festschrift for Felix J. Oinas. Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol 14. (pp. 291-305). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
16. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. The Major Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Latvian Mythology. In V. Vike-Freiberga (Ed.), Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs (pp. 91-112). Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989.
17. Freibergs, Imants, and Vike-Freiberga, Vaira (Transcribed by). The Montreal Corpus of Latvian Sun Songs. (Over 4000 folk song texts). Montreal: 1976 (updated 1988).
18. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Trējādās saules: Kosmoloģiskā saule [The threefold Sun, Vol. I: The Cosmological Sun]. (An analysis of themes of content in Latvian folksongs about the sun). Riga: Karogs, 1997.
19. Vike-Freiberga, Vaira. Trējādās saules: Meteoroloģiskā saule. Gaišā saule [The Threefold Sun: The Meteorological Sun. The Luminous Sun. Rīga: Pētergailis, 2011.
Online Resources
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49119077
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vaira-Vike-Freiberga
3. https://ewod.ut.ee/k/koidula/
4. http://www.imarabe.org/fr/agenda/expositions-musee/mystere-cleopatre
5. https://radaronline.com/p/bill-clinton-unrecognizable-long-hair-bushy-beard-birthday/
6. https://share.google/CJBiwNfEZ3D5Xoa6c
7. https://share.google/NYSTmvYbEUiuUpvAZ
8. https://share.google/RtNyCSkvEb43fgL5o
9. https://youtu.be/-AphKUK8twg?si=2D6HnD9oTL7cesZl
10. https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/aug/15/will-aoc-run-for-president
11. https://www.vairavikefreiberga.lv/biography/
12. https://www.vairavikefreiberga.lv/publications/
13. https://youtu.be/4zQh99jdyho?si=fWIXZQXx1NlxOoLu
Dr. Irena Kuzmina is a multilingual researcher, teacher, writer, linguist and cultural enthusiast educated in Great Britain, France (La Sorbonne Nouvelle), and the Baltic States. She obtained a PhD in Comparative Literature at Versailles University, France, in 2005.
Comments