The rage is still so vivid to me, from Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood video to the #MeToo movement to women’s call to action and demands for change at the voting booth. I keep thinking of all the signs I saw at the women’s marches — not just the giddily profane ones, but the poignant ones, too. The Future is Female. A Woman’s Place is in the Resistance. America Grabs Back.

How did this happen? How did we expect anything different?

So this is where we find ourselves, 3½ years into a women’s movement marked by fiery rage and purposeful political activism: The most diverse field of Democratic presidential candidates in history is being winnowed to a duel between two white male septuagenarians who have already lost the nomination three times between them.


Women did not grab back on Super Tuesday and they did not channel their Trump-induced anger into a female champion. Women decided again that there is not going to be a woman president anytime soon.

“There’s zero evidence to the idea that women will somehow wake up in the morning and magically support other women,” said Soraya Chemaly, the author of “Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger.” “That’s never really played out.”

What happened to all that propulsive rage?

Kristina Looper, a 30-year-old Cambridge voter with a doctorate in physics, spoke of the heyday of the women’s marches in the past tense on Super Tuesday.

“It was really a response to frustration with the looming Trump administration, and I don’t feel like that particular part of the movement has done a lot of work to move things forward,” said Looper. She voted for Senator Elizabeth Warren because she viewed her as the best candidate — not because she’s a woman.

“I feel like the bigger thing that has happened since then was the get out-the-vote and the forwarding of women’s candidates in the midterm elections when we took the House.”


Yes, women’s anger was converted to electoral action in the 2018 midterm elections that catapulted historic numbers of women to Congress. But voters have always been more comfortable electing a woman to a legislative body — where she’s one of many — than to an executive position, where she’s the boss, according to the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, which supports women’s advancement in politics.

Chemaly pointed to “a well-documented and persistent pattern” of women — particularly white women — failing to support their peers as leaders. She cited a 2015 Harvard Graduate School of Education study of nearly 20,000 teenagers that found the students most trusted as leaders were white boys. The least trusted were white girls. Those least likely to support white girls? Other white girls.

“I think we saw that again with Elizabeth Warren,” said Chemaly, who supported her. Leadership among white women tends to make other women feel competitive and inadequate, she said.

Some women said that the movement of the past few years doesn’t persuade them to vote for a woman, particularly when there are progressive men in the race looking out for their interests.

“I feel like the threats to women in general are with Trump, and I don’t feel like any threat to me is coming from the Democratic Party,” said Bethany Sales, 30, an editor.

She still smarts remembering the Access Hollywood video that leaked a few weeks before the 2016 election — and what she calls voters’ “blatant disregard for what came out" by electing a president they’d just heard bragging about assaulting women. In the months and years that followed, Sales went to the Women’s March in Boston and donated money to Planned Parenthood.


But in the primary, she was torn between Warren and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. She didn’t like Warren’s late attacks on Sanders and she was most impressed with his consistency and passion on the issues that most concern her.

“There’s just something about Bernie,” she said. “It’s hard to find authenticity in politics, especially now, and there’s just something authentic about him.”

So on Super Tuesday, Sales went to her Cambridge polling place ― the same one where Warren votes ― and cast her vote for Sanders.

Women have always bristled at the notion that we should back a candidate based on gender. That’s also because of the cultural focus on individualism, said Chemaly.

“We focus a lot on the idea that we have a lot of self-efficacy and agency, that we as individuals can seek it out and make our own judgments,” Chemaly said. “People aren’t really educated to think about the role that they play in perpetuating inequality. They just see candidates as individuals.”

Even those who supported Warren on Tuesday were adamant about their gender-objectivity.

“I think she’s the best candidate and also happens to be a woman,” said Caroline Elkins, a 50-year-old Harvard University professor who cited Warren’s eloquence, intelligence, and clear vision for the country’s future. “Hands-down there’s nobody close to her in the field.”


Elkins delighted in watching Warren’s debate performances, particularly when Warren savaged Mike Bloomberg for silencing former employees with non-disclosure agreements. (”My heart sang: ‘Go Elizabeth, go!’ " Elkins cheered.)

But voters did not reward Warren with the debate ribbon she won in her youth. Instead, they went for the guys.

“And that should surprise us why?” asked Elkins.

Warren was the only woman remaining in the race with a chance to win the nomination and on Super Tuesday, she didn’t win a single state. Not the state where she was born and raised (Oklahoma), the state where she taught as a young professor (Texas), or even the state she represents in the US Senate (Massachusetts).

"Her clear outperformance of many of the men on many of the topics is an indication of how far we still have to go,” Elkins said.

“Her candidacy gestures to what I think many women, regardless of where they are in the hierarchy, wrestle with every single day," she added. “Her struggle is our struggle."

Today, those who advocate for women’s political advancement are looking for bright spots. In the 2020 race, six women appeared on a presidential debate stage at once — more than had ever taken the stage in all of American history, noted Amanda Hunter, research and communications director for the Barbara Lee Family Foundation.


“Each of the women in this race, in their own way, challenged stereotypes and showed a different example of what a presidential candidate looks like,” said Hunter.

So we have this: In 2020, the “woman candidate” was no longer a token, but a full category that included Warren and fellow Senators Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Kamala Harris; author Marianne Williamson; and Representative Tulsi Gabbard (who, like Warren, is still in the race, though in early contests she picked up only a single delegate).

Some of those women presented credible candidacies and political personae and were viewed as less polarizing and more “likable” than Warren.

But in the end, America didn’t like them either.

What She Said is an occasional column on gender issues.

Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at Stephanie.Ebbert@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @StephanieEbbert