Here, here. Obama has my vote in part because I'm a feminist. It's quite sad to hear feminists going for a spite vote instead of seeing the bigger picture. Right now they can't see how selfish they're being, and what a McCain presidency would mean for women's rights. Thank you for a great post. Rec'd.

You can add me to that list. Emma in Maine is also not mad that Clinton is losing.

I, too, am mad at the "feminist" Clinton supporters. Their stand is no better than any other single-issue reason for voting. Single-issue voters are a peeve of mine.

I feel empowered and enlightened by keeping a clear mind and an objective eye and selecting the best candidate for myself, regardless of race or gender...and without a group of angry women telling me how I should feel or what I should do.

I love your post.

You don't have a clue. You know nothing about the feminist movement and how difficult it was, how hard we worked and what it meant to all women in this country. Just because you've limited your own experience to the white middle class doesn't mean that everyone has and just because you're not aware of it, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am sick to death of this constantly parroted meme that the feminist movement was and is for white midlle class women. It never has been, women have always worked hard to ensure that civil rights are extended to all members of this society even though the opposite was seldom at work.

You also might want to stop projecting your own scenarios onto feminists - I don't know any feminist who has claimed any of those things you say they have about Obama. What they are pissed about and I agree with them 100% is the lack of support in the sexism that has been and is rampant in the press and not one DNC leader has spoken against or even recognized that it exists. They're not angry at Obama, they're angry at the lack of support, recognition and willingness to fight for the women who have always been among the party's staunchest members.

The next time you might want to ask instead of making unsubstantiated accusations and complaints about a movement that has done so much for so many by so few. I have quite a few complaints about younger women and their complete apathy and lack of interest in the feminist movement along with their mistaken notion that it's all over and all they have to do is reap the beneifts.

bevd-
wtf. as a feminist, you spit on your mothers and now turn around a kick your daughters. Once again your generation did all that heavy lifting so that we may benefit and live in a better society and can actaully choose our life. No us youngsters don't think the movement is dead we are fighting the next battles and to have people like you swagger around and not listen to us is insulting. I am super pissed that hillary clinton has 3 cajones and is ready to nuke iran and she continues to tantrum because she lost. Hello people win and people loose, now about afforadable daycare and public education and the weakening dollar and security and equal pay.......

Hey, Jennifer, wonderful post -- but let's not 'marginalize' those older (Hillary's age) "whiter" women. In fact, some of us are probably more angry than you!

It been a dream with us longer than it has been with you to see a woman competing equally for the top job in this nation. (Forget about pride. With all the problems we have, why would we want to limit the pool of potential problem-solvers. And at least we women understand that sometimes the best problem solver WILL be a woman, or a black, or a member of some other 'non-favored' group.)

I have resented it every time Hillary has played on the fact that she is a woman, which has been *often,* overt and sometimes in unseemly fashion. I have resented and been embarassed when she and her staff and supporters scream "sexism" at each bump in the road. I have cringed when she's acted out so many of the negative stereotypes of women that keep us on the sidelines (overly emotional, thin-skinned, tone-deaf, unrealistic, etc.) I want her out of the race so that it doesn't get worse, so there aren't more painful images piled up.

And now that we are almost at the end, looking back I find that am furiously angry not just at her, but also at the strident 'feminists' (who screamed even quicker and more piercingly than Hillary herself - NOW has forever lost any respect I had for it) and at the media, commentators, and other politicians because they haven't been discriminating *against* her but rather "patronizing her because she's are a woman" That's one of the worst forms of sexism in my opinion - and experience - but that's not what NOW and the others are screaming about. And Hillary readily accepts being patronized -- in fact, she relies on it. She - routinely - does and says things that a man would be laughed off the stage if he tried.

As I wrote on another post, if you are honest, don't you get the feeling that some of these men (media, politicians, pundits, even other candidates) are praising Hillary's "guts and grit and stamina" in public while, in private, they are thinking something like "Wow, just look how that gal is fighting. Of course, it's ridiculous - she's already lost, it's hurting her own party, and she looks like a fool, and no man would lose his dignity that much, or be allowed to! But you gotta admit that it's pretty impressive for a woman can fight that hard, even if it shows she doesn't have good sense. Let's applaud her a little to see how long she can go on. And of course. we don't want to say anything negative in public, whatever we think, because she and her posse will start calling us sexists."

Do you think, possibly? Sadly, I do.

For good reason, the black community knows a lot more about fighting for equality than women do. The prejudice against us was, frankly, a lot more comfortable and safe than racism in amost all cases. I believe the black leaders and the community in general learned you have to be very level-headed and reality-based to break down barriers. When there has to be a "first person," you need it to be someone exceptional and solid to the core, a Jackie Robinson not a highly skilled but flawed Dwight Gooden or Darryl Strawberry. A Martin Luther King, not a Stokley Carmichael or an Al Sharpton. (For the record, I'm not saying that was planned or brought about by the black community - in fact Branch Rickey chose Robinson for those qualities. But it's a lesson very important to blacks and by now well-learned.

So I truly believe, deep in my heart, that if Sen. Obama had started behaving as, well, embarassingly as Sen. Clinton has done, he would have been taken aside and 'talked to' by some wiser father - and mother! - figures and reminded that it wasn't just about him, not this time. And even if that didn't happen, or if he didn't listen, I believe the black voters in general would have returned quickly to the skepticism they expressed in the beginning of his campaign. They aren't going to waste that precious power of the vote .... AND they know, as we should all know, that a badly-behaving "first person" puts the fight for equality and respect further behind. It's perhaps better to wait a little longer for the right "first person".

It never occurred to me when Sen. Clinton's campaign began that she didn't have what it took to be a serious, respected, considered on her own merits candidate. Whether she won or lost, she was going to do us proud and prove without doubt that women truly belong "in the big leagues." By New Hampshire I realized she wasn't going to be anything special, just another not-very-honest politician. And there were many cringes after that. After her Three-Days-of-the-Faces-of-Eve in Iowa ("I'm so honored" - "shame on you" - "celestial choirs"), I started just wishing she would just - please! - get off the stage.

But it took the sniper fire --- seeing her tell that story (for the 2nd or 3rd time) on St. Patrick's Day, when she was fresh and smiling and relaxed - Hillary at her best, most engaging and (apparently) most HONEST - and then learning it was a blatant, flagrant lie. Then it became visceral. Since then, I give myself the same 'gift' I do with George Bush - hit the mute button when they start to speak and depend on transcripts or summaries to find out what was said. And then wonder, with cynical detachment and no more than a 50/50 bet either way, if what they said was true.

So, although I'm older than most of you and, except for education, in that demographic where I should be a staunch HRC supporter, I am instead disillusioned (I voted for her twice!), extremely disappointed, and - yeah - angry.

I can't help but be angry at Hillary for letting us down but (and this is true admiration) I couldn't have lived the life she has and stayed sane, much less be strong enough to get out there every day and be impressive most of those days. I also believe she doesn't *see* the foolishness (or worse) of many of the things she is doing. It reminds me so much of George W. Bush - at some point they just turn off their brains and go into, as Scott McClelland described it, "permanent campaign" mode.

I am equally or even more angry at other women: those who are blindly supporting her - "enabling" her in seriously self-destructive behavior - and those, perhaps including myself, who see it and don't step up to tell her in some caring, persuasive fashion that it's going to have to stop, that she's hurting all of us. This isn't an issue just for Obama supporters - actually, it has nothing to do with him. If Biden had stayed in and I'd continued to support him I'd feel precisely the same. Actually, Hillary's own supporters should care more than we do, but even Republican women are affected because, as women, this is going to affect all of us.

She's been our "first person" on the biggest stage and while it's nice (and I hope true) for Sen. Obama and others to praise the path she's broken for all women, I have to say that I wonder. Given the drama and injury to the party and moments of sheer embarrassment that she has brought, will the powers-that-be, or the voters, four or eight or twelve years from now be more - or perhaps less - willing to favor a woman candidate? I don't know. I fear many will look back, see only Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary, and decide it might be wiser, more sane to consider the potential male candidates.

And maybe that's why women my age are either blindly devoted and blaming everyone and everything besides their candidate and themselves ..... or deeply angy in the other direction. This is probably the last chance WE will have to see what we've all felt could and should happen: a woman president who competes meaningfully and proudly for the top spot and who will fill it with honor if successful. I truly fear that that day may be further away, not closer, as a result of Hillary's campaign. I hope I'm wrong. But I no longer believe it will happen in my lifetime. Not now - it's going to take some time to recover from this.