This One’s On Us
January 6, 2017
This was supposed to be decisive. American women — especially college-educated women — were supposed to show Donald Trump and the world that if you denigrate, objectify, and assault women, you cannot hold the highest office in this land. What happened instead? We voted for the guy. Or just stayed home. Donald Trump did not win just because people are fed up the gridlock in Washington. Donald Trump won because women (and it seems white women, in particular) sold themselves out. Here’s the thing: We cannot on the one hand elect as the leader of our government — the person who represents us to the world — a man who regularly humiliates, attacks, and dismisses women, and on the other hand ever expect to be paid the same as a man, or have the same professional opportunities as men. Why should we, when even we don’t think we’re worth the most basic, civil treatment?
We said, “His behavior toward women isn’t that big of a deal. It’s how men are. Other things are more important in this election.” Yes, who is nominated to the Supreme Court is important. How one handles the economy is important. Having a plan to fight terrorism is important. But none of those things should be more important to you than you. It really is ok to declare that the #1 requirement for a presidential candidate is that he or she respects you as a human being. That would, in fact, seem self-evident. When we don’t demand that, we end up voting against our own interests. We did that this time by allowing women — and by extension ourselves — to be dismissed and degraded, and then voting for the very person doing the degrading instead of a person who has only ever had our interests at heart. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to vote for a woman who has dedicated herself to the issues that impact women, children, and families for the past 30 years. There was “something about her” that we couldn’t trust.
That “something about her” is a vague hatred built up by decades of partisan attacks, for the crime of being a woman ahead of her time and unafraid to assert herself. What has been so threatening to men — and women — about Hillary Clinton is that she fights when so many of us would give up, that she has taken misogynist hits year after year and never quit, that she believes in her power to make a difference — and earn a lot of money — when so many of us can’t even ask for a raise at work. The only thing truly perplexing about Hillary Clinton is that she keeps working and fighting so hard for us — and our daughters and sons— even as we tear her down, and attack her, and doubt her.
After decades of this criticism, of skewering, of outright hate, what has Hillary Clinton done? She has kept going, and running, and staying true to what she wants. And she has never, ever, complained. And that’s the greatest lesson out of this election for women, if we’re willing to learn it — that it’s not just ok to be ambitious, it’s essential. That it’s not just ok to think that you deserve the best possible outcome, it’s the only possible way to achieve your full potential on this Earth.
Until we believe, with every fiber of our being, that we matter, and start acting like it, American women will never see other women take on real positions of power. And we ourselves will never be able to lead.
Secretary Clinton will grieve last week’s outcome, and then, as usual, she will move on, and keep doing courageous, powerful work. Hillary is not the woman who lost this election. We are.