When I was nine years old, I asked why my older brother got the fun chores like mowing the grass instead of having to do the hated dishes every night like me. I was told he's a "boy", like that was supposed to make sense. Then in college, I was repeatedly passed over for leadership positions for the "boy" even though my resume completely outshined any of theirs. I was told that to be happy I needed to focus on my looks and "find a man". Over and over I learned that being a "girl" was a disadvantage. I was pretty angry.
Fast forward a bunch of decades and I now serve in the Missouri state legislature where women are subjected to continual sexual harassment scandals and policies pushed by the GOP designed to punish and shame women. Pay equity, reproductive justice, keeping domestic abusers from guns and our voting rights are issues we fight for every year, where it's clear that particularly in Missouri, it remains a liability to be a woman. I am still angry.
I want my next President to fight for me, my daughter and my granddaughters. I want someone smart, worldly and experienced. I want someone who believes that "Women's Rights are Human Rights" is not "playing the gender card" or merely a meme.
I want someone who believes at their core we must stop senseless gun violence, that automatic voter registration and a strengthened Voter Rights Act is urgently needed and the protection of a woman's access and legal right to birth control and abortion is a must. I want a President who cares and is deeply vested in the quality of women's lives. I need a President to work in tandem with me for equality and justice in my state, not flagrantly pander to the evangelicals who work against women, families and workers.
If that candidate just happened to be a woman who would be the first woman in history elected to the White House ---OMG ---that would be like the best cream cheese icing on the biggest chocolate fudge cupcake ever.
Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly exceedingly fits my requirements. I want and need her as my next president. There is not another candidate in the field of wanna bees who comes even close.
I'm sick of those in power turning a blind eye to people barely scraping by on minimum and unequal wages and children in certain zip codes sentenced to poverty and subservient education. Hillary Clinton has long been a champion for those families and advocates paid family leave, childcare assistance and equality protections for all, regardless of sexual identity or preference.
She is smarter than the entire field of candidates put together in recognizing that astronomical student debt must be addressed. I want my daughter and her friends to succeed in their fields when they finish their college paths without years and years of college loans to pay back. I want girls and boys to be able to afford their dreams and someday, their own families, regardless of their ethnicity or where they were born. So does Hillary Clinton.
Economic injustice, racial inequalities, ugly attacks against immigrants and violence in our communities is real. I want Hillary Clinton as our next U. S. President to take charge with her vast experience, tenacity and lifelong commitment to these very issues. We have serious problems which require serious policy by a serious leader like herself who has been enormously respected around the world for years.
And ongoing threats of nuclear and national security? Hillary Clinton has already been on the front lines of international threats as our Secretary of State. She's been there. Protected us. Faced it. Done it.
But most of all, I want Hillary Clinton in the White House because after repeatedly being told most of her life what girls couldn't do, like be an astronaut (like NASA told her) or become President of the United States, she "gets" it.
She gets the attitudes, discrimination and even the violence that many of us women experience because of our gender. Even though she herself faces continual sexist attacks and media/Congressional interrogations based on no evidence, Hillary has consistently proven her entire life that she will fight with every breath to protect the rest of us from injustice, repression and the right to choose if and when we have children.
The media keeps stressing "like-ability". Really? We're not electing our next bestie friend but someone who knows how to run the country. I don't care what her hair looks like or what she's wearing or if she laughs too joyously. Neither should anyone else.
Besides showing my granddaughters and other young girls that the world can be their oyster, the trickle down effect of gender equity will be amazing. By putting the smartest and most capable candidate in the White House who just happens to be a woman, Hillary Clinton's presidency will foster women leaders in all areas of government, business and the military where they have long been absent. It will also catch us up to those other countries who are light years ahead of us with
22 currently elected female women leaders.
So, I enthusiastically endorse Hillary Clinton to be my next President. I will continue working with all my might to push those vital women voters to show up with me on Election Day 2016. If my efforts require a Wonder Woman attitude or Rosie the Riveter coveralls, I'm all in.
Join me in destroying that cracked Oval Office glass ceiling for good and declare to women of all ages and the men who love them, that being the fiercest, most experienced and best resume "girl" officially rules.