Amidst the recent chaos in American politics emerges one Hillary Clinton, struggling to keep smiling for the cameras as she watches her numbers get slowly munched on by Bernie Sanders.
As the general election approaches, Democratic voters — and any citizens who desire a backup plan for the Donald Trump apocalypse — face a dilemma that can only be a part of the 21st century American canon: Are we really going to get this close to the first female president and let the chance pass us by?
In a recent stand for Mrs. Clinton, feminists Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright think that we should not, in the name of feminism, let this happen. Both women urged young female voters, who have been polled to show more support for Sen. Sanders than for Mrs. Clinton, to think about the consequences of turning their backs on Hillary. As Ms. Albright has said many times in different ways, “There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.”
It is here, in the 2016 election hoopla, that we see a problem with feminism exposing itself: Feminism is not the blind support of all women in every single one of their endeavors — for that would be not an ideology, but a cult. Feminism, in its best descriptions and most noble achievements, is liberation, or the freedom to act on your desires. Feminism is an assertion that everyone deserves the same degree of liberation in human culture, so should they desire it.
What was suggested by those women is not explicitly “cult-esque,” but rather an important feminist message repurposed for a political context. However, it seems as though political contexts breed misunderstandings and this case of feminist gusto is no exception. A young woman who supports Bernie Sanders is not “holding back” Hillary Clinton, but exercising her political freedoms.
In American politics, we historically brag about sound ideas, nobility, charisma and morality as being important qualities in our best executive heads. Not race, not gender, not wealth — just homemade American character.
The trouble with these ideals is that they are thoroughly subjective, as most spheres of human culture eventually reveal themselves to be. What this means is that we cannot impose their goodness on each other. We must come to believe in the goodness of these things on our own, find it in the face of a political candidate and proceed to getting that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Then we take that fuzzy feeling right to the polls.
Obviously, the American political system isn’t as simple as representation via individual choice anymore. However, we continue to bicker, read intensively or avoid newspapers like the plague just so that we can maintain our own unique stance on politics. Truly, the heart of American freedom is the ability to think and speak as you wish, even if what you think and say has an impact that others may not agree with.
As the political playing field lights up with shots fired on our potential futures, we must remember that feminism is something that aligns with the spirit of freedom, and not something that we should use to suppress it.
Hillary Clinton going head-to-head with Bernie Sanders reflects a change in American sentiment which may not have been possible a few decades ago. Quite obviously, Mrs. Clinton is not a better presidential candidate than Sen. Sanders because she is a woman just as Sen. Sanders is not a better presidential candidate because he is a man.
In the coming months, the youth electorate in America would be astute to pay attention to that which makes someone appear as a good person to them — which is hopefully close to what makes someone a suitable leader. Maybe then, we may just collectively land on a great leader.