A Quote by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Women like me aren't supposed to run for office. — © Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Women like me aren't supposed to run for office.
I think that all women should consider running for office. What's happening now is just horrifying. With the people we have - with the person we have in the president's office, with so many of the people we have in Congress - we need more progressive women in office. At all levels. From city councils on up. We need women to run. I encourage women to run
Nobody ever wins the first time they run for office. Nobody's ever supposed to win their first bid for office. Nobody's ever supposed to win without taking lobbyists' money. No one's ever supposed to defeat an incumbent. No one's ever supposed to run a grassroots campaign without running any ads on television. We did all of those things.
As one of the national organizers of the Women's March back in 2017, immediately after the Women's March, over 20,000 women across the country had registered to run for office - the largest numbers we've seen in probably our entire American history for women to run in this way.
It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else... The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women.
I can't tell you how many 30-year-old dudes believe they should be senator or president. Women, we're like, 'Well, maybe after ten years of working...' No. Just run for the office you want to run for and run on the issue you want to fix.
Part of that problem is women don't run. We don't run for office. It's not that people are overwhelmingly voting against us. We just don't step up to the plate. So we have to do a better job of recruiting women and getting women to step up.
My mom didn't run for mayor until she was 65 years old - it was like a second and third career.... The way I've always thought about it is that I don't believe you run for office because you want a job. I believe if you run for office, it's because you have a vision for change. And if I ever came to that point, that's what would lead [me to run]. And right now I'm happily in a position where I believe I can work to deliver impact and work for change.
I've been a proud mentor to many women seeking public office, because I believe we need more women at all levels of government. Women have an equal stake in our future and should have an equal voice in our politics. These are challenging times, but I believe getting more women to run for office is a big part of the solution.
The problem with elections is that anybody who wants an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn’t have it. And anybody who does not want an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn’t have it, either. Government office should be received like a child’s Christmas present, with surprise and delight. Instead it is usually received like a diploma, an anticlimax that never seems worth the struggle to earn it.
We have seen a lot of barriers removed for women like myself with young children to be able to run for office.
We do need women in civic life. We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to be at the table when decisions are being made so that the right decisions will be made.
Women face a very, very difficult time when they run for higher elected office, unfortunately, especially against a guy like Donald Trump.
Anyone can run for office. When I ran for Governor of Minnesota, the only requirement was that you had to be a state resident. I believe you had to be over thirty five years old, something like that. That's the way our country was founded. That anyone can run for office. That you're not required to be a lawyer, you're not required to be anything.
Women are outfundraised. Why? Because men have been doing it a lot longer. And, so not only do they have entry into the money, they have connections that a lot of women don't. Women are a lot older most of the times when they run for office because of the stigma.
People think my family pushed me into running for office. The person who pushed me most not to run for office was my father.
The important thing for women to know is, you can be who you are and run for office. Women need to see themselves as good candidates, whose life experience matters, and understand that there are multiple ways that people enter public life.
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