Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2015, 04:09 AM - Edit history (3)
I remember when she was First Lady-Elect. I had this jaw-dropping moment of realization that - for the first time in my life there was actually going to be a First Lady to whom I could personally relate! They were all my mom's age and older, up til then. It is jolting as all-get-out when you suddenly realize that people your age are running for President. That really is a personal earth-shaker, lemme tellya! There's NOTHING that says "you're not a kid anymore" like that does!
It really rocked my world. Here was a President's wife with whom I actually had quite a bit in common. For the first time ever. I was more impressed, and emotionally gripped, by that even than I was by her husband. I found myself bristling against the wrong-winger attacks on her - almost as though they were also attacking ME!
What they were finding fault with and bitching about all the time was ME! They didn't approve of her speaking her mind? Well I spoke my mind a lot and I know my inlaws had to get used to that and my parents never completely understood me either. The term "career gal" was still kind of derogatory - as though, if you had more to say for yourself (and WANTED to say for yourself) than exclusively the wife/mother role, you were kind of an oddity, or scoffed at. NOT putting down the traditional wife/mother role, mind you. I've since done that, too. But when I was coming out of college that was pretty much still where a girl's journey led. Women, on average, did not have as many choices, and many more avenues were closed to them than is true now. But back then, the prevailing conventions were that the wife/mother role was still the be-all and end-all for women. Women went to college mainly to get their "MRS degree". Well, I wanted to express myself in other ways. Being a wife and/or mother was just one of many important and challenging and life-defining and soul-feeding goals available to me.
Heck, at one point, I was pretty well resolved that I did not want children. My career was tremendously satisfying to me at that time in my life, and my husband was thrilled for me and tremendously supportive. Besides, he too had a thriving career doing something he just loved, so he was right there with me philosophically. And I suspect he, too, wanted to pursue his own dreams for awhile before coming back down to earth and really settling down with the whole kids-and-family thing. I had other things I wanted to do, and felt I might be capable of doing. I had other contributions I wanted to make. I was in a position back in the 70s, just out of college, wherein I was doing my own VERY minor version of what Hillary was doing, and had been doing. Working professionally while also a mom, making headway in a male-dominated arena. Sometimes earning bigger paychecks than her husband, even being the main or sole breadwinner in the family. Yep, me too! Hillary was a few years older than me, but I still felt mighty close to her in age and relative experience, as well. Really amazing time. Things were changing, BIGTIME. The women's movement was in full flower by the time I got there and began to enjoy some of the benefits that women Hillary's age and older had fought so hard to win.
I identified like mad! Intimately so. I didn't appreciate it when people took umbrage because she said she wasn't just sitting at home making cookies and "standin' by mah man like Tammy Wynette." Well, I didn't EITHER! When her critics found fault with her all the time and didn't like that she kept her own name as a professional (I'd done that, too), and it wasn't what most women in the workforce did back then so it wasn't as easily accepted, I couldn't help but take it personally. It was hard NOT to take it personally. I'd been there myself. Indeed - when we tried to rent our first apartment after we got married, the rental office didn't want to rent to us because we had different last names and we couldn't convince them we were married. Even showed our wedding rings and that wasn't enough! They thought we were "living in sin" for fuck's sake.
I identified strongly with Hillary Clinton then, and I still do now. She's not perfect but I still think she's pretty damn terrific. And I think she'd make a great President. Certainly a great First Woman President. Unlike what the other side "offers," Hillary's no lightweight. Nor is she a flake. Or a bimbo. She's got every bit as much gravitas as any man - WAY MORE than anybody else on the other side has. She had me at 1992.
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