I am a piss poor excuse for a feminist. When at age 17 my first novel was published by Viking Press, I was thrilled that the media described me as being not only smart, but in possession of a tiny waist. When I went for a PhD in Classics, my advisor — a woman, no less, and a distinctly maiden lady — grimly advised me that no woman could succeed in Classics and be married, much less have children. One husband and 3 children later, I abandoned my studies ABD.
Which brings me to my point.
Young women, you don’t realize how hard it was. You do not begin to understand what Hillary has gone through to be where she is today. How she has had to play the game. The concussions she has sustained dashing her head against the glass ceiling over and over and over again. I’m not saying don’t support Bernie. I will happily and wholeheartedly support Bernie if he becomes the nominee. But to say, “Bernie or nobody.” To say , “Any woman but Hillary!”
WHAT??
There is no woman in this race but Hillary, and, if you take that stance, chances are there won’t be for a long,long time. There will be no President Klobuchar. There will be no President Gillibrand. There will no be no President Warren. Hello! If you haven’t noticed, they are coming for our rights and, if you think they won’t succeed, check out all those states where male Republican politicians have have rolled back access to abortion. Make no mistake: they are coming for our reproductive rights and, if you think they aren’t, then you are sadly mistaken.
I’ll say it again: don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The stakes are high, we are at war and, if we don’t rally behind the only goddamned woman in the field, provided she manages to win the nomination, then the blood of the women’s movement is on your hands.I don’t want my granddaughter to face the same discrimination I did, the discrimination my mother, a true feminist, fought so hard against. If Hillary is the nominee, then, for crying out loud, just go ahead and support her.
Unless you want the best thing anyone will ever have to say about you is that you have a tiny waist.
Melissa Hardy 
All true, Melissa. Cannot understand the appeal of Sanders myself–he can no more do the things he says he wants to do than Trump can. Hillary is a pragmatist and the smartest by far of the bunch. Yet it seems also to be true that young women have to fight their own battles. There is little recognition that the battles we fought are not all won–in the US at any rate.
Well said, Melissa — thank you!