Hill Yes!

Something amazing happened this past week. For the first time in the history of our nation -240 years, 12 generations- a woman has been nominated by one of the two major political parties as a candidate for president. A woman has a serious chance at becoming the President of the United States.
A woman. Finally.

But as fantastic as the breeching of that barrier feels, we're not done yet. It is obvious from the incessant attempts to deligitimize Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House that sexism holds strong. Not just the overt misogynistic sexism of Trumpeteers who think calling women the C-word is acceptable political discourse or the memes that mock her clothes and looks. That is easy to spot and will likely always be with us. We can only hope to marginalize it as much as possible. I'm actually referring to a couple more insidious brands of sexism.

1. The vague idea that Hillary is not qualified to be president. You see this from a remarkable number of women. "I don't really have a problem with her, but I don't think I can vote for her" A perfect example is Full Frontal's trip to the Mason Dixon county fair in which a female truck mechanic says that being told she can't do her job by a male truck driver is sexism, but cannot see that her refusal to vote for a female for president is sexism also. 
2. The Hillary is a liar/criminal/corrupt mantra we hear from both the far right and the far left. This is also sexism. It is a documented actual real fact that Hillary is NOT a liar or a criminal. There is a whole website dedicated to fact-checking politicians' statements. Politifact says that Hillary is fundamentally honest. The attempt to turn her work as Secretary of State into a criminal enterprise in which she deliberately exposed all State Department secrets to cyberspies, willfully deleted millions of classified emails and caused the death of 4 Americans abroad would be dismissed out of hand had she been a man. In fact, when Bush's administration did the same, it was dismissed. The unending investigations are a concerted effort to deligitimize her work. Not a single investigation has turned up a single shred of evidence of corruption. 

All we have learned in decades of excruciating examination is that, like all the rest of us, Hillary Clinton is an imperfect human. Yet she is being crucified online for her alleged failings. She is being dismissed as "crooked" for no legitimate reason. The next time you think you might not vote for Hillary because she's a liar. Stop. Because the REAL reason is because she's a woman.