I certainly understand the sentiment here, but I do not share it. Hillary Clinton's campaign has been hit by a fair amount of sexist garbage during this election cycle, and I abhor such things, but they really haven't made me more sympathetic toward Hillary. I think it has something to do with a sense that, despite the abhorrence of these swipes, they represent a sort of karmic justice: this is the same Hillary Clinton, after all, who deployed man-baiters like Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan to make the nasty arguments she wanted made but couldn't say herself; this is the same Hillary Clinton who has unapologetically played the gender card continually during this campaign; this is the same Hillary Clinton who has attempted to gain the sympathy of women by tearing up deliberately during New Hampshire--and anyone who thinks this was a genuine outpouring of emotion should understand that she did the same exact thing on the eve of the Nevada Caucuses a week later.
I am not defending or excusing sexism by any means, but Clinton's campaign has not exactly been very lowercase-p progressive on gender issues. In fact, a bulk of Clinton's strategy seems to be reliving the culture wars from the 1970s in order to get older women to see her election as the fulfillment of feminism. It's pretty sick, in my opinion, especially when one looks at Barack Obama's refreshing and honest approach to race relations. Clinton's campaign just saps the energy out of you as a result of this strategy, while Obama's is invigorating. And it also makes sense why younger women are less reliably for HRC--they don't remember the 70's, so the victimhood stuff doesn't work with them. Which is good for them.
I've always been fascinated by the Morgan/Steinem arguments this cycle, which basically boil down to "America is a sexist country, and you're a sexist if you don't vote for Hillary." Isn't this thesis self-defeating? If America's like, really really sexist, why should we nominate a woman? I don't think this thought is sexist, but I don't really believe it because I don't buy their premise. America has a lot of latent sexism in it, sure. I do not dispute this. It doesn't make me any more likely to vote for Clinton, though, and I don't enjoy being taken down a peg for that. So I see this sort of garbage as a kind of inevitable byproduct of Clinton's "let's open old wounds" strategy--men don't like being told this kind of stuff, and if you want to be divisive gender-wise, be prepared to face the consequences. That doesn't excuse the people making the statements, but it does illuminate them.
