I grew up not knowing who my dad is. Also, I grew up with a fairly seriously overactive imagination. So over the years, I’ve had a lot of celebrity dads, depending on what kind of person I thought would be put to best use in the moment: Steve Martin, Dennis Leary, Nick Offerman, Hannibal Lecter. But Sean Connery was the first and most important—the proto-father figure, against which all others would be judged.

Defeating Donald Trump in November is existentially crucial, particularly for women. But former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is an imperfect vessel to meet this moment, to put it diplomatically. His is a clueless, paternal sort of misogyny as compared to Trump’s oeuvre of degradation, contempt, and physical violence. He is a man who says things like, "Your job is to keep the boys away from her" to the brothers of young girls, who has been known to make some women he interacts with uncomfortable, and who still has not properly apologized to Anita Hill. Biden is not the candidate feminists dreamed of as we move forward with Me Too and attempt to chip away at the male supremacist power structures imperiling our bodies and our paychecks.

After years of dressing for work like she would for a date, political strategist Jess McIntosh found a Washington enclave where she could do something truly radical: Be her (proudly weird, coolly androgynous, punk-leaning) self.

I talk to my father twice a year.

Around Christmas, we call each other and leave messages until one of us picks up. And our birthdays are just eight days apart, so we repeat the process around then for the second call.