03-How Women In Congress formed
And became the biggest progressive caucus
A near-term sci-fi story of how Women In Congress restored Liberal Arts Colleges and much more.
Note to readers ~ Remember this is a work of fiction.
Note to readers ~ You can read past, already published chapters HERE.
How did women go from the 2017 Women’s March, to governing, with the Presidency and the largest caucus in the House and Senate? Well, briefly…
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dg-Women’s March 2017,
2017 Women’s March, January 21
The Women’s March was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as president. The march was prompted by several of Trump’s statements many considered anti-women and otherwise offensive to women. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women's_March
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Women realized, more humane interpersonal behavior was not going to come from — never would come from — current generations of male leaders. The leadership ball was in the women’s court. What did they want? What was their next play?
By 2022 women gave up most marching. Men weren’t listening. Washington, DC, run by old men, ignored all marches no matter how large. The media, run by old men, wasn’t paying attention.
Starting 2023 women starting running for elected office — in droves. The number of elected women officials in city, state and national office doubled every other year.
After the Big Blue Wave election of 2024, in Jan. 2025, several score of elected women and new women staff came to Washington, DC to live and work. A woman was in the White House. In terms of numbers, the House and Senate, women were now in charge. Many were saying, “We gotta get organized!”
With many new women pouring into the House and Senate, by June 2025, many formal and informal support groups sprung up to meet new needs. More experienced elected women mentored newly elected women. Various support and free mentoring services for newly elected women in the House and Senate were offered. Gradually this ferment developed leaders; and, became more self-aware.
Women In Congress forms
Eventually this female ferment formalized itself as “Women In Congress.” “Women In Congress,” often abbreviated as either “Women” or “WIC” was a networking and policy body organized to leverage women’s political power more effectively and strategically.
WIC was organized as a political caucus, within the House and Senate, for those interested in replacing greed-driven values; and, power-grabbing politicking with policy and investment, informed by “truly human values.”
A few male Senators and Representatives were invited or permitted to join, only those whose values and voting records met or exceeded the standards of WIC. So-called “Centrist Democrats” and “Wall Street Democrats” were specifically barred by voting record criteria.
By 2026, admission into Women In Congress was the top request of newly elected women. By mid-2026, elections, Progressive women were the largest, the most influential majority, in both House and Senate, the largest of all caucuses on the Hill.
Only gradually, did Women begin to realize their greatest superpower lay in their coherence and consensus around healthy shared values. In 2085, WIC’s on-going evolution continues.
What did Women want?
The WIC Vision, Mission, Product platform statements included, “… workable policy and enforcement for meeting the needs of the 99%.” This often manifested as legislation to support hourly wages, wage earners; and, a 40 hour work week as a way to raise a family and own a home again. This required re-visioning and re-building the US manufacturing base in the USA, a long story outside our scope here.
In the USA, starting in 2020, more serious talk of a new third party in politics began. To anyone outside of Washington, DC, the need for a replacement party for the two old useless parties, Wall Street Democrats and Big Business Regressive Republicans was obvious.
Most progressive political watchers imagined any new third party, or new replacement major party, would grow from the example of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). Many under 40 voters were already joining Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Unexpectedly, when more women were voted into the House, Senate, city and state positions, the focus shifted from “socialism” per se to Cultural Creatives, sometimes called the “Creative Class.”
Their strength is not in their numbers. Rather, their strength is these are the people creating new culture, at most levels of commerce and government. Compared to CCs, all other categories of voters are followers of some kind.
Q: Are there any Republican Cultural Creatives?
A: Yes, but a small handful for every 100 progressive CCs, those aligned with truly human values and the highest good for all concerned, the highest good of the 99% of the population and the brightest future for SpaceShip Earth as a whole.
Cultural Creatives become a focus
Who were the Cultural Creatives?
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World is a 2000 nonfiction social sciences book by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Anderson. It introduced the term “Cultural Creatives” to describe a large segment in Western society who; since about 1985, have developed beyond the standard triad of tech-loving modernists, traditionalists (conservatives and regressives) and Old Left radicals and progressives ~ Wikipedia
Tho Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson didn’t coin the term 2000, 1972 is when this demographic became more self-aware. The details are beyond our scope here. The terms “conscious consumer” and “the creative class” both point to the same demographic.
If Cultural Creatives is a new term to you, you may wonder why historians in 2085 sometimes call what happened first in US politics, “the revenge of the Cultural Creative women.” Cultural Creatives points to a group in demographics, the fraction of the population who are:
- Still curious, still learning as adults,
- Still curious about other and new cultures, and
- Often think about what could be done to make the human experience on Earth more wonderful.
So they tend to be progressive or liberal-minded; yet, this is not New Age by any stretch. The most affluent Cultural Creatives are those in silicon Valley; or, working for Big Tech anywhere.
Cultural Creative socialists?
The female President sworn in in January 2025, was sympathetic towards small “d” democratic socialism; and, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). As radio host, Ian Masters, says, most people alive forgot the U.S. functioned primarily as a social democratic state between 1947–1977.
In 2034, as part of hiring new staff, Experiential Insight Colleges used the two main models of personality preferences for all Human Resources decisions:
- MBTI — https://www.16personalities.com (MBTI in the post-Keirsey-Bates era), and
- HEXACO model, developed by Kibeom Lee and Michael C. Ashton.
It was found both of these were crucial. Without measuring the “H factor” of honesty-humility, MBTI was a disaster waiting to happen — (See: “Collapse of Arthur Andersen: A Failure of Emotional Intelligence?” PDF by Christopher Golis, MA Cambridge MBA London Business School FAIM).
While used in an on-going way in administration and human resources, the two models were not taught to students until the sophomore or junior year. Starting in 2040, graduates of Experiential Insight Colleges began introducing these models — and how to use them safely-sanely — to corporations, worker-owned biz and more widely in government.
Looking back from 2085, it’s clear most Women in Congress were Cultural Creatives, iNtuitive Thinkers or iNtuitive Feelers, as described here:
- https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types#Analysts
- https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types#Diplomats
As academic and public awareness of MBTI+HEXACO spread in the 2040s, people were surprised to find a very large fraction of Democratic Socialists were Cultural Creatives as well. In fact, phD candidates did research on this. Going back in time, they found in the period 1930s-2000s, the personality preferences of political activists were NOT Cultural Creatives; they were more Artists and Guardians, more rigid about policy and goals, having no interest in Emotional Intelligence or interpersonal competency skills. Historians explained this shift as a natural result of the balance of the gender shift in activists and DSAers from male to female dominance.
Decline of “issue-driven politics,” Rise of value-driven politics
The context here is politics in the 1960s-1970s, especially Left politics and activism, was strongly issue-driven. Either you were for or against war in Vietnam; you were either for or against nuclear power plants; you were either for or against Nixon.
This was a holdover from the issue-driven politics of the Teddy Rosevelt Progressive era: Either you were for or against Fat Cat monopolies called “trusts.” This in turn was a holdover from the US Civil War: Either you were for or against slavery.
Before Women In Congress redeemed USA politics, male leaders conceived of business and politics as Tug of War contests. There is only one rope; there are two sides; yet, there can be only one winner. Winner gets all the money and power. Loser get nothing but shame and scorn. This tug-of-war metaphor resonated with old males love of againstness: fighting, fighting, fighting. Let’s march against the Vietnam war, march against nuclear power, against this, against that etc. When the Old Left became more self-aware, they appreciated the joke from the Marx Brothers movie, Horse Feather (1932). In it they sing, “Whatever it is — I’m against it!”
Where men preferred to fight against each other, imagined external enemies (projections) and tangible problems — women were more likely to connect, cooperate, and collaborate, in support of values they felt passionate about. Then women considered what was practical and workable in coalition-building, policy and investing of resources.
Looking back on males’ primitive concept of politics, Women said to each other, “No wonder so little got done in Congress with men attached to such immature models of connection, cooperation, collaboration and negotiation!”
War Is a Force Which Gives Us Meaning (2002)
The thesis of Chris Hedges’ 2002 book was later updated by whole-brain researcher and author, Iain McGilchrist who re-phrased this as, “War, conflict and separation is what gives left-brain-man his illusion of meaning and purpose” (2024).
President Stacey Abrams spoke to this in her Jan 2029 inaugural address, “Men were afraid to lose, to be perceived as losers. The destruction men feared, came upon them.”
What was learned from women taking over politics? In most situations, women were better negotiators. They were more skilled and subtle in using and applying passion in Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High (1st ed 2002). Where men primarily expressed passion as anger in competitive sports, women had a wide range of passions to express thru. Unlike males, Women’s passion was not fettered solely to competition and defeating the other.
To gain competitive advantage, over an opponent, because women rarely used their passion as anger, females were more observant, more astute diplomats, more ready and willing, to take the extra care to not offend other stakeholders in either public or privater discourse. What was common was elected female officials rehearsing their public statements and speeches among each other, polishing them before going in front of audiences and the media.
dg-WIC T-shirt
The familiar “I’m with Women In Congress” T-shirt started as a popular staple at live public rallies. The T-shirt went into the Guinness Book of World Records when in 2045 it had outsold the number of “I love NY,” Rolling Stones and “Yellow Smiley-face” T-shirts combined. Increasingly women’s voices, proposals, legislation — not men’s — had majority public sentiment behind them.
By 2027, Women in Congress, as a caucus had considerable impact on proposing and passing policy. They built on these successes to influence corporations, economic policy, industrial and trade policy.
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Calming “strident feminism”
Some readers will be too young to recall the strident Feminism of the 1960s-1970s. It was in large part inspired by the meme of Black Power in the 1960s. When women used their healthy male animus to compete directly with the toxic male animus of failed male leadership — the result was not pretty. Too easy to slip into againstness; and then, warfare.
Q: Was women’s takeover in the later 2020s a replay of the strident Feminism of the 1960s-1970s?
A: No. Two learnings worked to calm the tendency of strident againstness.
One was in the 1980s, when more women entered the corporate world, they soon realized their talents, creativity and personalities were being channeled into the male game of win~lose, exploit-extract. By the 1990s many Cultural Creative women already understood only feminine values of win-win could improve things. Competition between genders to become King of the Hill, one dominant, one subservient, was a male error Women would not repeat.
The second learning was Blueprint of WE, a simple pen-paper and conversation exercise between partners and colleagues which betters any and all committed relationships This story is told in the next chapter.
