"a woman is running for president. she advocates for fair labor practices, social welfare programs and women’s rights, but is also a maze of contradictions — she is anti-abortion (as are most at the time), but pro-free love; a eugenicist, but also a civil rights supporter and socialist; a suffragist and a spiritualist. she has worked as a stockbroker, a lobbyist, a businesswoman and a newspaper publisher. she is both admired and despised by many. nominated as her running mate is an african-american man.
no one really thinks she will win. however, everyone who nominates and supports her, including she herself, feels that it is important a message be sent to the u.s. government that it is time for a woman in government and in the white house.
during her run, personal — rather than political — attacks are made on her from all sides, in all the ways women who threaten the status quo, women who dare, are typically attacked: she is painted as a witch, a bitch, a prostitute, a woman of “loose morals.” her politics and platform are not what are critiqued: she is a woman, and so it is her person which is maligned and demonized. she is purposefully scandalized by people — primarily men, or women acting as protectors of men — with power to prevent her, and any other woman, from having any chance at all.
sound kind of familiar? but, see, it isn’t 2007. it’s 1872.
this isn’t hilary clinton. it was victoria woodhull, the first woman to try and run for president of the united states, before women had even secured the right to vote." [#]
