WHAT IS CECILE RICHARDS UP TO? The former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund resigned her position in January, and given her familyâs ties to politicsâher mother was Democratic Texas governor Ann Richards; her children are savvy political activistsâI can only speculate wildly. But I HAVE A THEORY. There are a few clues in her new book, cowritten with Lauren Peterson, starting with the title: Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead. The courage to LEAD, huh? LEAD ME TO THE POLLS, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
In Make Trouble, Richards describes her career path from child activist to union organizer to the leader of one of the nationâs biggest reproductive rights advocacy groups. But the heart of Richardsâs book is her mother, whose improbable rise to power her daughter recounts with a balance of nuance and outright admiration.
The Ann Richards I know is the one whose bon motsâthe Ginger Rogers one-liner, the silver foot joke, please YouTube her 1988 Democratic National Convention keynote immediately unless you hate feeling happyâare tailor-made for protest signs, and whose outspoken authenticity and enviable ladyswagger remain unmatched by any of her spiritual successors (to say nothing of her actual successor, the mediocre painter George W. Bush).
Governor Richards is remembered as a fiery straight-talking anomaly, but the one Cecile Richards remembers is more complicated: an incredibly competent, but self-doubting woman, whose status as a divorcĂ©e and a recovering alcoholic was considered political kryptonite. (Dubya, youâll recall, was also a recovering alcoholic, but here the Ginger Rogers quote applies all too well.)
The Richardses were always a political family, working on Democratic campaigns in Texas and counting people like Molly Ivins among their friends. But after having four children, writes Richards, her mother âpursued her role as a housewife with purpose.â While the reach of that purposeâbaking elaborate cakes, never doing holidays halfway, behaving âas if every [domestic] effort was a campaignââsuggests an underutilized genius, at the time, Richards was fulfilling a fairly ordinary role. There was little indication of her coming political ascendancy.
This humanizing glimpse into Ann Richardsâs life is a rare deviation from the usual hagiography, all the more poignant because it comes from her daughter. Itâs also a gentle reminder that for womenâespecially those with childrenâpolitical careers sometimes donât even begin until the second acts of their lives.
In the wake of Hillary Rodham Clintonâs presidential loss and ongoing gun violence, the arc of Ann Richardsâs life (Iâm waiting for the biopic starring Meryl Streep, btw) remains highly resonant: She was an iconoclast punished at many turns for her gender, and when she finally lost the governorâs office to George W. Bush, it was in part because sheâd vetoed concealed-carry legislation. In response to arguments that concealed carry would help women defend themselves, Richards responded: âI donât know a single woman who can find a hairbrush in her purse in an emergency, much less a handgun.â A woman after my own heart.
That was Ann Richardsâs second act. I canât wait to see what her daughterâs will look like.