“The governor did not have a whole lot of time for me to think [things] through. There were no phone-a-friend options,” Butler said.

Nor had Butler expected the call: The opportunity was “not on my vision board, not on my bingo card, not in the wildest dreams of my ancestors,” she said to a standing ovation.

Nevertheless, Butler accepted Newsom’s appointment, making her the third Black female senator and the first openly-gay Black female senator in U.S. history.

Stuart Isett—Fortune

At the MPW Summit, the Broadsheet’s own Emma Hinchliffe asked Butler what those milestones and that “first” mean to her.

“I only know how to be a Black woman. I don’t know how to be anything else. And so I don’t know how to lead any other way,” she said. Still, she says she hopes to serve as an example for “other Black women, other lesbians, others who just want to live their life their own way.”

Butler, 44, is assuming the seat of Feinstein, who was 90 at the time of her death and had received calls to step down due to her age and failing health. On Monday, Butler addressed The Great Age Debate that hangs over Congress and the White House ahead of the 2024 elections. “I don’t think that we have a choice but to go in a younger direction,” she said. “We can’t be for representation and inclusion without representation and inclusion.”

Despite the historic nature of Butler’s appointment, her current Senate tenure will be short. She is serving out the remaining year of Feinstein’s term. A pressing question is whether the longtime labor leader will enter the race next November for a new senate term, a contest that was packed with big names and big bucks before Feinstein’s death.

“Is this a temporary job for you?” Emma asked.

“It is an early job for me. It is day six,” Butler said.

If Butler does run—and win—her daughter will get a second chance to witness her mother’s swearing in. The 9-year-old skipped the first in favor of camping. Not even Vice President Kamala Harris’s presence could change her mind, Butler recalled: “She said, ‘Tell her I said hi.'”

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

The Broadsheet is Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women. Today’s edition was curated by Joseph Abrams. Subscribe here.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Prized professor. Harvard Professor Claudia Goldin won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science yesterday for her research detailing gender disparities in the workforce. Dr. Goldin, the first woman to be offered tenure in Harvard’s economics department and the third woman to win the Nobel for economics, spent years researching the flow of women in and out of the workforce and proved that the gender wage gap is now between men and women in the same jobs. New York Times

- Gold rush. Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in history last week after winning five medals (four of them gold) at the Gymnastics World Championship in Belgium. Biles outperformed her peers after two years away from the mat and garnered all-important momentum as she heads towards the 2024 Paris Olympics. CNN

- Filling the gap. ALIAVIA is an Australian venture capital firm born out of the gender disparity that founders Marisa Warren and Kate Vale experienced during their careers in the tech industry. The company has raised more than $8 million towards its mission of investing only in female-led startups, a vastly underfunded demographic in venture capital. TechCrunch

- Retirement resurgence. Fidelity Investments is reporting a boom in women saving for retirement with an almost 50% jump in female clients this year compared to 2019; Gen Z women account for nearly all the gains. Lorna Kapusta, head of women and engagement at Fidelity Investments, told Fortune that personal confidence and lack of funds are holding the rest back. Fortune

- Turning a page. Employees have exited and editorial strategies have changed since Emma Tucker took over as Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief in February. In a newsroom meeting last month, Tucker, whose background is largely with audiences in England, promised broad changes in pursuit of new readers outside of the Journal's male-dominated base. New York Times

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Sonos appointed Deirdre Findlay as chief commercial officer. Hydrow promoted Diana Cino to chief marketing officer.

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PARTING WORDS

"It’s really so much more about relationships and identity and trying to find who you are, which I think is a continuous theme in all of our lives: Who are we? Who do we want to be? Who are we becoming?"

—Singer and songwriter Alicia Keys on Hell's Kitchen, a new musical inspired by her adolescent years in New York, set to begin an Off Broadway run Oct. 24