Hillary Clinton and my feminist journey

I had debated whether or not to write this post, seeing as there are many writings that talk about Hillary Clinton, and about the personal realization that you are a feminist. But with all of the Republican attacks on women and Planned Parenthood, and finding out that Clinton doesn’t want a second term as Secretary of State, nor does she plan to run for President again, I really wanted to write about Hillary and how she has shaped my life quite a bit for someone who doesn’t know me.

I was born in 1992. As I was a child without health care, Hillary Clinton was crusading for universal health care for all Americans. Though that plan failed I had always admired the fact that she was taking such an active role as a First Lady, no matter how much criticism it caused. It was impressed upon me as a child by my mother that the world I was growing up in was different than the world she had grown up in, the world Hillary had grown up in. I had reason to hope for the future for women. And I did. I did so much that I ended up being oblivious to the sexism around me. Of course, the rhetoric from mainstream media that equality had already been achieved, Feminism had won, helped keep me that way.

In 2000, Clinton became the first former First Lady to run for office, and she won, becoming the first female Senator of New York. By the time she was re-elected in 2006, I began to look at her as my own personal hero. Women were advancing, and I believed Hillary was going to be the first woman President come 2008. It would be, in my mind, the last border women hadn’t crossed.

In my freshman year of high school, a teacher of my drama class began discussing politics. Of his students there was one male. He commented on the majority of girls, telling us that most teenage boys were afraid of joining drama out of fear of looking “girly” or “gay”. Around the town we were growing up in, he told us, gender roles were very rigid. This was the first time I had heard someone talk about gender roles, and the first time I had ever heard a teacher being critical of our town’s very conservative leanings. In this same conversation with the class, he began talking to us about President Bush and how he had two more years left. Who did we want in office? Which party did we think the next President would be from? Then he asked, do you think Hillary Clinton stands a chance? I was the only one who raised my hand. Then he said, does anyone think a woman can be elected this next term? None of the girls raised their hands, including me, as I was insecure and didn’t want to disagree with my classmates.

The teacher looked at us and said, “Sadly, I think you’re right. And as smart and talented as all you young women in my classroom are, a lot of people won’t see that because of your gender.” He went on to say, “I’m glad that you are aware enough of the way society is right now to realize Hillary probably won’t win.And unfortunately, if she runs she will see a lot of sexism.”  The other girls were nodding in agreement, and I was confused. This wasn’t 1950! Sure, there will be the occasional sexists, but it won’t be that bad, I thought to myself. In two years, when I was sixteen, my classmates and teacher proved me wrong.

I couldn’t believe the way people were criticizing Clinton. Not on her public policies or her record, but by the way she looked, the clothes she wore. Then I would hear boys in school saying a woman can’t be President because once a month she’ll bomb another country. I was just shocked at the blatant sexism. Even more shocked when it wasn’t people I knew saying this stuff, but the media! Journalists! Newscasters! The same people that had been telling me for so long equality was achieved and Feminism was obsolete. As I watched men saying they instinctively cross their legs when they saw Clinton, comparing her to bitter ex-wives and demanding, scolding, mothers I kept thinking, how can they say this on TV?!

Others have observed the angry, passionate reaction many young women had to the treatment of Clinton. I think many young women felt what I felt, it was supposed to be different this generation, it was supposed to be equality of men and women. My idealist heart was broken, not because Clinton lost the nomination, but because she never got the respect she deserved. And when she dared to call it out, she was as a lot of the media put it “playing the gender card”. It was the most unfair, clearly sexist thing I had ever witnessed.

And it led to my discovery that Feminism wasn’t as obsolete as people said it was. I didn’t have to look back to the seventies to see women’s rights marches, they had been happening all this time. I felt cheated, lied to, for not finding this out sooner. I was a Feminist from that day forward. And all the stupid sexist, racist, or homophobic stuff I encountered didn’t have to be accepted, it could be fought against, by me and my fellow Feminists.

After Clinton lost the nomination, she came to speak in my hometown, she was promoting a local Democrat running for office. I was one of a fairly small crowd who went to see her (as I said before conservative place). Even though it was small, the crowd was so loud when she got onstage I missed the first words she said. After they quieted down, I watched and listened to this woman that I had seen so many times on television, who was now standing a few feet in front of me, and it was surreal to say the least. I remember wishing I could speak to her, shake her hand, tell her how much she meant to me. But I didn’t get to.

So I thought I’d say it here. Thank you, Hillary for being so brave when you ran for President, thank you for fighting for what you believe, thank you for making us closer to equality, and thank you Hillary, for making me a Feminist.