Dear Senator:

Californians are deeply grateful for your decades of public service. What stands out is not only your wisdom, but also your courage in opposing the gun lobby; your fight to release the torture report; your support for Israel and at the same time for Palestinian rights; the way you helped mend the rift between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008 and paved the way for Obama’s victory.

Your courage is needed as you face one of the biggest challenges of your life: the decision whether or not to resign from the Senate.

Like you, I am a feminist of a certain age. So I, too, am sensitive to the possibility that demands for your firing represent sexism. I’m here to tell

you

that they don’t, and to explore why it is so difficult to step back when your country and your party need it.

It is indisputably true that white men have historically remained in the Senate long before they could perform

their

all their duties. Strom Thurmond (RS.C.) is the best example, but by no means the only one.

Then why not stay with the lesson? The situation in Washington is now different and dangerous, so that the refusal to retire threatens your entire estate.

The Senate is so partisan and so deeply divided that every vote is critical. There is no cushion, no room for maneuver for a lighter schedule with so much at stake for democracy and with your party operating with such a slim majority in the House of Lords. We trust your health is improving, but shingles and its complications can be severe and severely disabling.

Let me be blunt: we’ve been here before. We accepted Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s wish to remain on the Supreme Court, her refusal to leave when President Obama asked her to so he could name another judge before he left office.

And what happened?

Your Senate colleague Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pushed through three Supreme Court justices nominated by President Trump, and their nominations led to the rejection of Roe v. Wade. As a result, women have lost control of their lives. Thousands of children will be born into families ill-equipped to handle the joyful but often arduous challenge of raising a child because Ginsburg wanted to stay.

And why did

RBG

refuse to resign?

I suspect it was in large part for similar reasons

can make

you are hesitant to leave the Senate reasons I can identify with. Even though I’m 20 years younger than you, we both faced an incessant barrage of messages asking us to give up our careers. If you and your friend are so smart, why don’t you go home and breed? asked an interviewer when I was a student at Harvard Law School in 1979. (I banned him from on-campus interviews.)

Those of us who persevered had to cut out that kind of hazing. We persisted, ignoring the chorus around us and insisting that we behave in an appropriately ladylike manner.

So when you hear people tell you to give up your career in some situation

in which

men haven’t been told the same, no wonder you assume this is the same old sexism you’ve been tuning in for years.

That’s not it.

I’m not defending Thurmond’s selfishness. He should have resigned

,

at. He exercised exactly the kind of white male privilege that condones a cowardly inability to face one’s own limitations as a defense of one’s dignity. The solution is not to extend that privilege to white women. It is to eliminate it for everyone.

Thurmond needed what you have: the courage to act in the public interest despite a threat to one’s identity. I have no doubt that your sense of yourself is deeply intertwined with the dignity of your office and the work you have done exceedingly well, so much so that contemplating quitting can leave you feeling like there is nothing left.

That is not true. When you resign, you get two things that are very precious.

The first is to ensure that Senate cases that uphold justices who respect our rights, empower the slim majority of Democrats in all votes, and fully represent California’s needs and interests, are carried out without delay or abatement during the rapidly shrinking period before

the November 2024

elections

The second thing that would protect you is your legacy of courage. By resigning, you can secure your record as a woman who served the public good, even in the most challenging

by

times and in the most difficult personal circumstances. During your five decades in politics, we have come to respect your strength and your pragmatism. We know you won’t let us down now.

Joan C. Williams is a Sullivan Professor of Law at UC Law, San Francisco; the author of “What Works for Women” and “White Working Class”; and the founder of

Bridging the diploma gap

.