Cassie Chambers Armstrong (’16), Kentucky State Senator, authored an article for The Atlantic discussing why J.D. Vance has no business speaking for Kentucky (“‘Hillbilly’ Women Will Get No Help from J. D. Vance,” Jul. 19). Cassie drew a sharp contrast between Vance’s rhetoric and the real challenges facing women in Kentucky, including the difficulty of obtaining domestic-violence protective orders and divorce, particularly in rural areas, and Kentucky’s law criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy. Cassie also pointed to a widespread lack of child care contributing to unemployment: “We need policy makers who will bring resources and attention to this crisis, not leaders like Vance who try to gaslight women into believing it doesn’t exist. . . . The Appalachian Mountains are full of hill women holding their communities together. They don’t have the resources or support that they need to enact sweeping change. But they find creative ways to make quiet progress. We don’t hear their stories enough. More important, we don’t pass enough policies that help them.”
