This morning, Wendy Davis, the former Texas State superhero who stood on her feet for 13 hours in 2013 to filibuster an anti-abortion bill, was a guest on Tumblr’s SXSW Answertime, an online Q&A segment for Tumblr users. What were some of the things we learned from Davis, our favorite SXSW “disrupter” yet?
• She would “love to have the privilege of serving in public office again one day,” but recognizes the challenge of electing a Democrat statewide in Texas.
• She’s a Taurus.
• She just recently launched a new initiative intended to get women to realize their goals for gender equality: DeedsNotWords.com. Davis writes of the new initiative that it will “connect young women who are passionate about gender equality with concrete steps to help achieve it; concrete ways to weigh in and make a difference.”
• She believes the two-party system is broken, but can be fixed. “I think,” she writes, “because consensus and compromise have become dirty words. The Texas senate used to be a place where that happened. Not anymore. It all depends on who we elect. We’ve got to vote every time we have an opportunity to do so and vote for people who believe in working together.”
• She thinks Missy Elliott is the best.
• Three books that impacted her politics and worldview are Simple Justice by Richard Kluger; Dog Whistle Politics by Ian Haney Lopez; and Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
• Young women who are interested in getting into politics need to “hold on to that dream” and let Davis help them realize it. She added that “we need young women representing us at every level of government.”
