I'm Voting For Hillary Clinton, but I'm Not Happy About It

I have a confession: sometimes I wish Hillary Clinton weren't a woman. Or rather, I wish she weren't the only woman up for president of the United States. As a 23-year-old liberal female, I know how high the stakes of this election are for women everywhere — and how important Clinton's role is given her record of advocating for our rights. Yet I still can't make myself feel that happy about supporting her.

Getting to where she is now means Clinton has fought the systemic bias that keeps many female candidates out of the presidential race. As she herself described it to Jon Stewart back in 2014, a whole "cottage industry" has been built on picking apart her every word and action. I cringe when pundits criticize her for not smiling enough or shouting too much. It is a level of scrutiny to which no other male candidate in this race has been exposed.

This makes her candidacy feel so very personal. Young female voters like me have already been implicated in the success or failure of the Clinton campaign. We're regularly reminded how misogynistic many of the other candidates are, suggesting that if you care about women's issues at all, your only choice is to vote Democrat. Older women have come out in solid support of Clinton, so the fact that younger women are divided on her has drawn suspicion and dismissal — even by women like Gloria Steinem, whom I've spent my entire life looking up to, who say there's a special place in feminist hell for women who don't vote for her.

So why do I object to her candidacy? To begin, she has not always been on the right side of history, like when she supported the war in Iraq or adopted interventionist foreign policies that hurt Latin America. I particularly disagree with her cringeworthy responses to LGBTQ groups and communities of color. Her husband signed into law both a detrimental crime bill that helped spawn the current era of mass incarceration and the Defense of Marriage Act, two policies that Hillary championed at the time and has since recanted her support for. Yes, policy opinions change with the times, but it's hard to forget the first lady calling at-risk youths "superpredators" or believe she's not pandering to voters when her campaign comes out with "7 Things Hillary Has in Common with Your Abuela."

And yet, there is barely any room to express disagreement at the polls because the other option — a President Donald Trump — is dangerous.

Another problem with disagreeing with Clinton is that it lumps you in with people who hate her for the wrong reasons. One of the most common criticisms I have heard of her is that she is "a liar" or "a criminal." Nevermind the fact that she has yet to be found guilty of breaking any laws, Clinton is no different on these counts than the Republican front runner. We have watched Donald Trump lie frequently and with relish, and he has even admitted to abusing US immigration laws for his own benefit. Yet, somehow this confession lends credibility to his brand of "businessman who knows the problems with the system and therefore can fix them," rather than being a permanent stain on his reputation. Where Donald has been allowed to rest comfortably within a persona of contradiction and bravado, Clinton is reviled for committing (perhaps less egregiously) the same crimes.

Supporting her is frustrating, but more than that, it's exhausting — exhausting because as a woman I am required to have an educated opinion on her, because passive support is "voting for her just because she's a woman" and active opposition is betraying my gender. Exhausting because for all my own objections, I still find myself needing to defend her. Even if I won't rally behind her claim that purely because she is a woman, she cannot be part of "the establishment," she is the sole representative of my gender in this race and we want, even need, her to be exceptional.

Image Source: Comedy Central

I might not agree with her whole record, but that's the thing — I know her whole record because people have been trying to define her by her weaknesses for her entire career. I thank her for bearing that burden and not breaking under the weight of it. I don't think Clinton is the best woman for the job, but maybe one day, there will be a whole slew of women at the forefront of politics. For now, I am voting for Hillary Clinton.