Hillary for president

I know that many women in my demographic (middle/upper class, college educated) do not like Hillary Clinton. This does not surprise me at all. Many women in my demographic do not like themselves. They find themselves unfeminine, unattractive, and insufficient. They lament their own inability to find a man or woman*. And, in advance of finding their partner* they lament their own inability to both excel in their career and have a family. Hillary has done both. She is the first viable female presidential candidate (sorry, Carol Mosley Braun) and she has an intact marriage and a child. Yeah, her life isn't perfect. To anyone who attempts to skewer her for staying with Bill: I challenge you to have the personal strength to keep your marriage together at great personal cost to yourself, as Hillary has.

So, succinctly, it seems fitting that women would dislike Hillary - they have to get in line with the patriarchy and cut one another down. If women united as a group, then we would certainly have a lot more influence than we do now - in a time when I would venture to guess that most women try to distance themselves as much as possible from the term 'feminist'. More on this to follow, for sure, but for now suffice it to say that I am not in that camp - I proudly wear the f-word label.

*anyone remember the scene in Mrs. Doubtfire when Robin Williams is at dinner with a business partner, said partner says, "does your girlfriend have a girlfriend?" and RW says "hey, it's the nineties?"
* interesting post at feministe this week about using the word 'partner' - check it out.