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The numbers speak to the fractured nature of feminism in the U.S. and beyond, where the priorities and realities facing white women are vastly different from those facing women of colour. And if Tuesday’s result is unsettling, it’s not entirely surprising, given how mainstream conversations about women’s rights usually revolve around the experience of white women.

The Toronto-based feminist and cultural commentator Candace Shaw talks about the “empathy gap” exposed Tuesday in the divide among women voters.

“It’s easy to vote for someone when you think that it won’t affect you in the same way,” she says. “Sure, maybe Donald Trump is a little handsy, but he’s not going to kick me out, lock up or ban my relatives or my family.”

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We celebrate how American women finally gained the right to vote with the 19th Amendment in 1920. But within a decade, most black women in the southern states had lost those voting rights and weren’t effectively enfranchised until the civil rights movement four decades later. We also talk about women making only “77 cents” to the dollar when doing the same work as a man. But, Shaw points out, that comparison is based on the salaries of white women — not women from minority groups, who typically make even less.

There are further divisions among women along class lines — where you were born, your level of education, your wealth or poverty. The goals and ideals of a wealthy, straight white woman are likely different from those of a queer woman of colour without the same advantages.