NPR Commentary: Why I love Hillary

I heard this AWESOME editorial on NPR yesterday, and I just had to share it. It completely sums up why I was so excited that Hillary was in the game, and is a very accurate portrayal of the female experience in this country - from my vantage point, anyway. It reminded me of one summer wedding I attended, where someone asked me, "You didn't bring a date?! When are you getting married?" after I'd just gotten home from going on tour to Europe with one of the biggest and best orchestras in the world and had found out I was going to solo with one of the orchestras I was contracted with. But none of that mattered.

So when I heard this commentary on the radio, I was saying "Amen, sistah!" in my kitchen as I prepared dinner. I couldn't have said it better myself!! (I suppose that's why she's the writer and I'm the musician....)

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Commentary
Why I Love Hillary
by Susan Cheever
Listen Now [2 min 32 sec] add to playlist

All Things Considered, May 14, 2008 · Why is it that the more Hillary loses, the better I like her? (Yes, I know she won last night but that's already being dismissed.) She's glowing with the inner fire of the warrior in a battle she can't win without a miracle — why do I identify with that so much? Why do I feel after forty years of voting, that at last for once, there is a politician who truly represents me and not just because she wears pansuits?

When I tell a handsome man at a party that I support Hillary, he looks my black pantsuit up and down. "That figures, you're an older woman," he says. I am hurt, but he is right. Woman get their power from their looks and Hillary has worn away her youth in the service of a difficult husband, a smart child and the ideal of service. She was never the pretty, simpering, long-legged blonde we were all supposed to be; she had to find another way to be a woman. Me too.

"I love her because she is a loser, and I'm a loser," I tell my brother.

"But Sue, you are a big success," he says.

Hillary's a success too, but she's a worker, and women don't get respect for being hard workers, they get respect for having good legs. She's a woman dedicated to social justice, but women don't get respect for their dedication — they get it for their baking skills. She's a woman with staying power. But women don't get respect for their staying power, they get respect for their sexual power.

My generation of women were told that our biggest job was to marry the right guy — and the sooner the better. When I went for career counseling my last year of college, the dean gave me her condolences.

"All our best girls are engaged," she said. Oh yes, it sounds outrageously antique, but is it? I never talk for long about my 26-year-old daughter, a lawyer and an activist at Harvard, without someone asking: "And is she seeing someone?"

Women like me usually run for president of the PTA or president of some nice arts organization. We don't usually get to run for president of the United States. At last here's a woman who wants to play with the big boys, and she's qualified, and she's giving them a run for her money. And I love her for that.

Susan Cheever is a writer who lives in New York City.