The Week That Was: #standwithwendy

In a week when the country is collectively obsessed about a group of elite athletes running around small grass courts in SW19, it's hardly surprising a pair of running shoes topped the headlines. What's more surprising is who was wearing them. Never mind the commercial power a Nadal or Sharapova can have when wearing a certain brand of T-shirt or skimpy tennis skirt. This week, Democrat senator Wendy Davis managed to turn a pair of pink Mizuno trainers into Amazon's best-selling shoe.

In a week when the country is collectively obsessed about a group of elite athletes running around small grass courts in SW19, it's hardly surprising a pair of running shoes topped the headlines. What's more surprising is who was wearing them.

Never mind the commercial power a Nadal or Sharapova can have when wearing a certain brand of T-shirt or skimpy tennis skirt. This week, Democrat senator Wendy Davis managed to turn a pair of pink Mizuno trainers into Amazon's best-selling shoe.

Thanks to the Texan's marathon filibuster stunt, when she talked non-stop for nearly 11 hours in an effort to stop a Republican anti-abortion bill becoming state legislation, Wendy's 'Wave Rider 16' trainers have become an unlikely symbol of feminist defiance.

Forget bras being burnt, in one inspired piece of political set-play, a pink running shoe - or 'rouge red' running shoe to give it its correct colour description - kick-started a whole new pro-women, pro-choice movement.

While #standwithwendy trended on Twitter, and Obama joined the support party sending his own tweet of encouragement, Wendy stood up for what she believed in, and then stood for some time more.

Filibuster rules, a peculiar quirk of the American political machine, demand a speaker keep talking without break, keep standing without support, and forgo toilet or food stops while they're at it. But the most difficult rule to keep, and the one which eventually brought Wendy's epic mission to a close two hours ahead of schedule, is that the speaker must stay strictly on topic - a feat I dare say unimaginable for most.

Silenced in the end by Republicans who claimed she had deviated from the topic one time too many, Wendy's battle was not in vain. The senate chamber of the Texas capitol in Austin where the bill was being debated descended into chaos as midnight approached. In the end, no one was really sure whether the bill had passed or not. That in itself is enough to keep the new rules, which would likely see 37 of Texas' 42 abortion clinics have to close and thereby make it extremely difficult for women outside cities to obtain abortions, off the books.

For how long, no one is really sure. A special session to try once again to push those rules through, has since been called for 1 July by Texas governor Rick Perry - the same man who on Thursday accused Wendy of failing to learn from her mistakes as a single teenage mother.

Should Perry care to peruse a read of the Amazon reviews for Wendy's trainers, he might not be so quick to put down the woman who could yet run for the very seat he himself currently holds.

The public outpouring of support, all typed neatly into Amazon's reviews pages, say more for the 50-year-old politician's efforts than even she could have predicted.

"Guaranteed to outrun patriarchy on race day," wrote one reviewer.

"The snazzy hot pink color brings out your inner badassness," types another.

Or one of my personal favourites: "Wendy Davis, I speak for women around the world when I say that you... You are our Batman."

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