It’s good to see a woman in the US presidential race. In fact is bloody fantastic.
The prospect of having a woman in the Oval Office — arguably still the most powerful position in the world — is a great example for the younger generations. It sends the clear message that it IS possible to have a woman in the highest possible level of politics; and finally a huge glass ceiling may be cracked.
But is the fact that we have a female US presidential candidate creating a movement of women who are putting aside what they believe; purely to support a woman just because she’s a woman?
Unfortunately in politics, the gender debate can change the normal protocol when it comes to who you should vote for and why.
Are women doing the right thing when it comes to choosing the leader of a country and looking for a policy champion instead of just at the gender?
We fear that many people are just looking at the person, and not at the entire party behind her. This then becomes populism, rather than intelligent political choice.
And this is not the equality women should be aspiring to achieve — and quite frankly not what women deserve, either. This behaviour takes away the credibility of the equality movement and also takes away from seeing and reviewing Hillary Clinton as a woman with credentials and experience.
Women didn’t spend generations fighting and lobbying to be treated as an equal in the world of business and politics to then end up being just like the men (who often support men purely because they are men).
Furthermore, the pressure for women to support Hillary Clinton — or another woman purely because she’s a woman — can also be seen as a form of feminist bullying.
As women we should be pro-choice when it comes to voting. We should encourage all women to choose what they want to believe in and who they want to vote for … and they should feel supported by women for doing so.
The instant that women feel pressured to choose a woman over a man purely because of her gender, we are headed down the path of returning to a ‘Stepford Wives’ world — we are blindly manipulated to a course of action simply because of gender.
Does feminism still matter to us?
