Women ultimately handed Barack Obama his second term as president. In 2012, the gender gap for voting between Obama and Romney was the highest in poll history. Women very well could decide the upcoming election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
This concept alone scares me. Hillary isn't being looked at as a politician but as a woman politician. If this difference between her and the other candidates is one of the deciding factors, then America needs to reconsider what this win could actually mean for women in our country.
As a millennial with the first chance to vote, this election couldn't more of a disappointment. The candidates for the two major parties are a disgrace to this revolutionary country.
After many of Trump's comments full of hate, disgust, and plain foolishness, much of the population, even the Republican population, is turned away from voting for this man. They feel like they need to vote or Clinton because that is not a vote for Trump, they need to choose the lesser or two evils.
Choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.
If Clinton's support stems from her not being racist, then this support fails to look past the image she has been trying as a presidential candidate, but as her work in her past political positions.
As senator and secretary of state, she demanded that Obama “denounce” Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Groups from across the country got together and begged her to stop race-baiting, drawing on racial division as a primary strategy of the election. The most laughable, she previously stated that she wanted to build a "barrier to try to prevent illegal immigrants from coming in" along the border of Mexico. Sound familiar?
I'm not ignorant enough to believe that if someone who doesn't hold the same position as me that their opinions are invalid. I can understand the point of those voting for Hillary, that several of her policies are exactly what they may want. But due to the hypocrisy of her statements in the past compared to what she is trying to portray now, I am not with her.
Most importantly, I am not with her because she doesn't support what I want for women in our country.
I admit, I would love to see a woman president in my lifetime. Just not this one.
I fully support, nonetheless dream, for equal pay and the dissipation of barriers in the workforce. I think this is the first step toward fighting the gender discrimination which has not disappeared in the 21st century. I want to be hired or not hired based on my ability. I don't want to be rejected in comparison to a man; on the other hand, I don't want be hired as pity of my gender. If Hillary is voted for president because she is a female, how is this going to help women be seen as equal?
Many women only want a female president if the woman in question fits their version of what a woman should be. Is Hillary the fit?
If we are striving for fair treatment at home, should we elect a woman that stood by her husband's affair as acknowledgment to a man's "needs"? If we are striving for women to be seen as powerful, are cover ups, one after another, a just act of power? If we are striving for a true, pure woman as a role model to our future generations, is a dishonest woman an honorable role model?
She is (not) the leader for me. I'm (not) with her.
