Why Women are Wearing White at the Democratic National Convention

The Washington Post

16:04 JST, August 23, 2024

CHICAGO – Anyone entering the United Center on Thursday evening was immediately met with a shock of white. Women left and right were wearing the color, and not just in pantsuit form: float skirts, body-con dresses, hats, jackets. Head-to-toe white, from shoes to headbands. Earlier in the day, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s line sisters from Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., largely decked out in white, took a group photo on the United Center stage.

Women wearing white en masse, especially in Democratic circles, is a common sight in recent years. This time, curiously, seems to be at least in part a grassroots action; although a Women’s Caucus event earlier in the day had white on its dress code, many small groups of women or individual women also appear to have chosen to wear the arresting hue on their own. One thing they agree on, however, is that the final night of the Democratic National Convention, on which Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is slated to speak, is a meaningful night in America to remember the women’s suffrage movement by wearing its signature color.

Alaska state Rep. Sara Hannan wore a white pantsuit on Thursday in honor of the suffrage movement – a poignant invocation, she noted, on a night when “we are going to be hearing from, hopefully, our first woman president.”

“Talking about symbols is important. They are part of understanding history,” added Hannan, who taught social studies before she ran for office. “We fought for a long time, and we have yet to get fully there for the rights of all people who should be able to vote.”

Maine state Sen. Jill Duson had worn a white suit and white blouse that morning for the Women’s Caucus event at McCormick Place and arrived at the United Center in the evening wearing the same. “There’s no time to go back and change, of course,” she said with a laugh. “The only challenge for me was, since the Women’s Caucus started pretty early this morning, I had to not have ketchup on my eggs.”

Duson has worn white in the past, however, for events celebrating women’s suffrage as well as the Equal Rights Amendment, and felt right at home on Thursday in what she called “women’s white.” “It’s pretty exciting,” she said.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) also came to the convention Thursday in all white. It was her first time wearing white with the other Democratic women, she said; usually, “I wear a lot of very bright jackets.”

This convention, though, felt different. “I’ve been to all the conventions since [the ’90s],” Hirono said, “and I think this is the most united, energized, happy convention.”

A person or a group dressed in all white is, visually speaking, always a striking sight – and that fact was not lost on the suffragists or “suffragettes” who advocated for women’s voting rights in the early 20th century. As The Washington Post’s Marisa Iati wrote in 2019, suffragists “donned white dresses meant to generate photo coverage in the daily newspapers.”

In recent years, Democratic women have worn white as a group on a number of occasions. In 2016, supporters of Hillary Clinton’s campaign wore the color in memory of the suffrage movement; the following year, Democratic congresswomen wore it to President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress. In 2019, they did it again, drawing attention to the record number of women in Congress that year and the record number of women elected to the House in the prior year’s midterms.

And just five months ago, at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in March, dozens of Democratic congresswomen reprised the color once again. This time, some explained on social media that the effort was to make a statement in support of women’s reproductive rights. Many posted photos of congresswomen clad in white in groups. “We are standing up for your right to make your own health care decisions including abortion,” wrote Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.). Rep. Linda T. Sánchez (D-Calif.) wrote that the color represented “our fight for reproductive health care.”

On Thursday night in Chicago, however, something else unusual happened: Some men showed their support for women in politics by wearing white, too.

Terrance Moore, an attendee from D.C., brought a white suit to Chicago just because he liked it. But when he heard women were organizing to wear white together, he joined in, “in honor of voting and women’s suffrage and women’s sort of springing to the top of our political party and America, and American politics.” He wore the suit Thursday night with a white shirt.

As men, “I think we should continue to show our support in all forms,” Moore said.