Hillary Takes It!

I couldn't help but be swept up in tonight's history making primary. The first primary in the nation. The first woman to win it. I know that a lot of people are going to explain away her victory with all sorts of guesses. So I'm throwing mine in -- I think this editorial from Gloria Steinem may have helped. In an op-ed in Tuesday's New York Times comparing the ground-breaking campaigns of Clinton and Obama she wrote:

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

So maybe Clinton can't win -- she was chided for being too cold on the campaign trail. Then derided again for showing emotion. But if she really was showing her softer side, maybe it was all a ploy for votes. But here's the thing: Clinton did win. So for now, pundits aside, the voters spoke. And they voted, not for change, not for status quo. They voted for a woman. The vajority has spoken.