Hillary Clinton is an actual feminist: She met Trump’s misogyny head on, without apology

Instead of going cautious and playing it safe, Clinton leaned hard toward feminism in the final debate with Trump

AMANDA MARCOTTE

Hillary Clinton frequently gets characterized as an overly cautious politician, afraid to go out on a limb and swift to scurry towards some ill-defined “middle” at the first sign of conflict. Part of that reputation is due to people mistaking her for her husband, but part of it is her own fault, as she trended in that direction in the 2008 primaries, leaving it to Barack Obama to portray himself as more liberal, even though Clinton was actually somewhat to the left of her primary opponent.

In Wednesday night’s debate — thankfully the last of this endless election season — Clinton proved her detractors wrong. Her opponent this time, Donald Trump, is an obnoxious misogynist who literally bragged during the debate that he didn’t even apologize to his wife after a tape came out featuring him bragging about sexually assaulting women. Despite this, Trump continues to poll well with over 40 percent of voters. A more skittish politician would see that, assume the country is still incredibly sexist and not ready for a strongly feminist message, and try to find some middle-ground way to tiptoe around the issue of women’s equality.

Clinton did the opposite. Faced with a misogynistic pig with a long record of belittling and objectifying women, Clinton leaned into the idea that voters want a feminist in office. (After all, the last president they elected is one!) Despite decades of pressure from the media to step back, soften her voice, be more submissive and bake more cookies, Clinton made absolutely sure that the debate-watching audience could not doubt her commitment to feminism.

“In the 1990s, I went to Beijing and I said women’s rights are human rights,” Clinton reminded audiences. Younger voters may not know how controversial that was at the time, but if that statement seems obvious now, it’s in no small part because Clinton had the ovaries to say it out loud then on a prominent international stage.

It took over a year to get here, but finally, Clinton got to be in a debate where she was directly asked about abortion rights, and she offered a full-throated defense of reproductive rights.

She even reminded audiences that Trump doesn’t just oppose abortion rights, but reproductive health care access generally: “Donald has said he’s in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. He even supported shutting the government down to defund Planned Parenthood. I will defend Planned Parenthood.”

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http://www.salon.com/2016/10/20/hillary-clinton-is-an-actual-feminist-she-met-trumps-misogyny-head-on-without-apology/