Hillary Clinton flips the script Politico

If we do a week in review, this one has been intense for me. It's no secret that my presidential allegiance is to Hillary Clinton. While I gladly -- if with disappointment -- changed my allegiance to Barack Obama in the 2008 election, I've followed Hillary for years and written extensively about her tenure as Secy of State in the Obama Administration.

Being haunted by a Bloomberg Politics article that appeared midweek, I am delighted today to read a much more positive slant on the Clinton-Sanders race than the one presented by the media at large.

Gone are questions about her authenticity. Here, black voters say Clinton’s history as a civil rights stalwart -- she first visited the state as a college grad investigating the problem of youths incarcerated in adult jails for the Children’s Defense Fund -- trumps any trust issues that dog her elsewhere.

The script has been flipped, for the first time, in her favor.

Her stories about her own mother’s abused and abandoned childhood resonate deeply with African-American women -- and there are about 100,000 more black women than men of voting age in the state. And to them, it is Bernie Sanders who is viewed as an unknown quantity, whose big ideas of free college and healthcare are greeted with skepticism.

South Carolina Feminists Want Woman President Who Isn't Clinton Bloomberg Politics

These Politico words are vastly more positive than those shared by a group of young South Carolina college women with Bloomberg Politics earlier in the week. The title alone upset me greatly, so much so that I sent a message to Cynthia Beavin, " a 20-year-old junior who created her own major: sexual and reproductive health rights in developing countries. She said she’s been a socialist for three years and sees in Sanders a revolutionary capable of building a government not beholden to the whims of Wall Street and rich white men. With an aghast expression, she recalled Clinton’s claim in a debate that she can’t embody the “establishment” by virtue of her gender."

"Hi Cynthia. It was like a dagger in my heart, reading your comments about Hillary in today's Bloomberg Politics article. I wrote on my FB HillaryWomen News page:

"It's a head shaker when a young woman who has created her own college major in sexual and reproductive health rights in developing countries can't find Hillary Clinton's immediate decision as Secy of State to create a new ambassador level post, headed by Melanne Verveer in the Office of Global Women's Issues, as deserving of her support. Prior to Hillary's arrival, women's issues were nonexistent in the state dept.

After leaving the state dept, Hillary and Verveer founded the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

It's a sad, sad day with America's young white women who call themselves feminists. Wow!"

A Not So Sisterly Battle Of Generations of White Women

The FB vitriol against former Secy of State Madeleine Albright's ill-timed and tone-deaf comment about a special place in hell elicited an overwhelmingly negative response. But the actions then taken by progressive women to discredit Albright were appalling and FALSE.

I feel that the judgements of our young women about why Bernie is great for women are so misplaced, although I absolutely value the Scandinavian countries and have been there with some frequency in my career. Their commitment to gender equality goes far beyond lip service. As America slumps globally to #75-#99, depending on the study, in electing women to office, our young women are oblivious to this deeply troubling trend.

Intersectionality is a dominant topic in our thinking about feminism today, where issues of class and white privilege are interwoven with racism and sexism. Countless young white progressive women seem to take their feminist rights for granted, when a steady drip-drip-drip in the Republican War on Women seeks to take away those rights.

Just How Big Is America's Gender Gap 50 Years Later?

Why Aren't We Talking About How Boys and Men Feel About A Woman President? RoleReboot

At rock bottom, we must ask: exactly how different are the lives of American women today, versus 50 years ago. My friend Soraya Chemaly dives into that question in her recent article Why Aren't We Talking About How Boys and Men Feel About A Woman President?

Millennials Express Strong Preference For Male Leadership

Soraya cites a study of 20,000 high school students conducted by Harvard's Graduate School of Education about their preference for student leaders. Key findings in the study included almost a quarter of teen girls -- 23% -- preferred male over female political leaders. Forty-seven percent of teen boys preferred male over female political leaders.

Students were least likely to support granting more power to white girls as council leaders. In 59% of the schools we surveyed, students on average expressed more support for a council headed by white boys than one headed by white girls.

The most stunning finding in the study is the reality that white girls appear to be biased against other white girls as leaders. If these are the beliefs of the majority of young white women, then either feminism has failed miserably in America, or females have an inherent preference for male leadership.

Soraya summarizes the extent of women's progress in America over the last 50 years in stats that we can all relate to.

In the United States, white men make up more than 80% of Congress, 78% of state political executives, 75% of state legislators, 84% of mayors of the top 100 cities, 85% of corporate executive officers, 100% of CEOs of Wall Street firms, 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs, 73% of tenured professors, 64% of newsroom staffers, 97% of heads of venture capital firms, 90% of tech jobs in Silicon Valley, 97% of owners of television and radio licenses, 87% of police departments and 68% of U.S. Circuit Court Judges. Men have been 100% of our Presidents. If I wrote this list as a novel in which the genders were reversed, reviewers would describe this world as a violent and emasculating feminist tyranny or a frightening male dystopia.

Typically, I would say that "we have work to do". But I find myself so appallingly depressed by this Harvard study of 20,000 students and their clear preference for male leadership that I'm at a loss for words. ~ Anne