More on Hillary Clinton: Human of New York

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Yesterday, I shared Hillary Clinton's Humans of New York quote (there was also a second one), and I wrote a longer piece for Shareblue about it:

Clinton's story will be familiar to many women, maybe especially (although certainly not exclusively) women of a certain age. The precise details may be different—the setting; the nature of the harassment—but the feeling, that creeping urge of guardedness as a mechanism of self-protection, reverberates through our very cells. A familiar tune, played in a different key.

Even women who lead private professional lives are subjected to intense public scrutiny from men: Strangers barking at us to smile, commenting on our bodies in complimentary or critical ways, offering unsolicited advice about what we should eat, or shouldn't eat, or should be doing, or shouldn't. To be a woman is to be a public object.

And to be an ambitious woman is to be a threat. To be seen, by many men, as taking up space where a man should be. A man who is more deserving, merely by virtue of his manhood.

A woman who aspires to be manager at her fast-food job can run up against exactly these sort of resentments, as can a woman who petitions for an executive position at a Fortune 500 firm. These might be the same woman, at different points in her life—just like a college student taking an admissions exam and a woman who has just made history as the first female presidential nominee of a major party.

Head on over to read the whole thing.

On a related note, I did a little tweeting this morning about the inherent sexism of the corporate media's coverage of this election:

The media are engaging in the most basic form of sexism: Treating a highly qualified woman & a man w/ zero experience as equally qualified.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

It's not a coincidence that every male pres candidate was expected to have some level of competence 'til the guy running against a woman.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

Now suddenly a man with no political experience, no serious policy proposals, no credibility, no honesty, & no decency is considered viable.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

Indulging Trump's unfitness isn't happening in a vacuum, but in the context of a history of low bars set for men competing against women.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

This is exactly how the rules get changed when women strive in across our culture. The standards are altered so talent no longer matters.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

Standards based on talent & competence are replaced with standards of personality, likability, and optics. Sound familiar?

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

Women trailblazers in every field play by the rules delineated for success, then the rules get changed by the gatekeepers.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

This is harmful and indecent when it governs the rules of access in any space, but when it's the presidency, it's terrifyingly dangerous.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016

It reverberates. And it confers legitimacy on this strategy to be used against women & girls in every arena. The media are playing w/ fire.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 9, 2016