Kamala Harris, Triumphant Cat Lady
29th July 2024
For all the firsts that Kamala Harris represents as a presidential candidate, there’s one part of her identity that seems to both inflame her opponents and energise her supporters like none other. If elected, Harris will be not just the first woman of colour to ascend to the presidency; she will be a woman without children of her own.
Harris, 59, has been married for 10 years to attorney Douglas Emhoff, and is stepmother to his two adult children who famously (and, let’s be honest, adorably) refer to her as “Momala”. It’s her first marriage; before that, she had several high-profile relationships with men including television personality Montel Williams and San Francisco politician Willie Brown, who is 30 years Harris’s senior and is credited with helping jump-start her career as a district attorney.
There are various ways to describe Harris’s romantic history and current family background: non-traditional, blended, modern, messy. The youths, possibly, might call it “brat”, a lifestyle vibe characterised by chaotic fun (along with cocaine use and the occasional emotional breakdown). But whatever you want to call it, it’s remarkable to consider how far we’ve come from the days of rigidly defined “family values” in politics, when extramarital affairs could be career-ending scandals, and even just being divorced was vaguely suspicious.