Strength Rooted In Collaboration

Last week, after Barack Obama visited Gabrielle Giffords' hospital room, three of her colleagues stayed behind, Rebecca Traister writes:

In addition to her husband and parents, three of Giffords’s colleagues stayed in her room after the president left: Pelosi, now the House minority leader; Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida; and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who has lately edged away from her own pro-gun politics by removing the rifles she once kept under her bed. As Gillibrand told CNN, Giffords was squeezing her hand while she talked about how they wanted to grab pizza and beer together, and Wasserman Schultz was promising a New Hampshire vacation when Giffords first opened her eyes, a moment that Wasserman Schultz compared to the birth of her children. In this tableau are embedded hints of other kinds of mythic female strength, rooted in collaboration, friendship and support.