I came across this long piece a few weeks ago and it’s become my go-to link to respond to Facebook friends complaining about Trump but bemoaning “Hillary is a liar”. She’s not. And it lays out a lot of background about how that charge came to be leveled against her and why the author thinks it sticks (hint: sexism).

Am I not supposed to notice that a media frenzy has been aimed at Hillary Clinton for accepting speaking fees of $225,000 while Donald Trump has been paid $1.5 MILLION on numerous occasions with hardly a word said about it? Am I not supposed to notice that we are now in an election season in which Donald Trump , a proud scam artist whose involvement in “Trump  University” alone is being defined by the New York Attorney General as “straight-up fraud”, is regularly calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary” and getting away with it?

What the actual fuck is going on here? What’s going on is what we all know, but mostly don’t want to admit: presidential campaigns favor men, and the men who campaign in them are rewarded for those traits perceived as being “manly” – physical size, charisma, forceful personality, assertiveness, boldness and volume. Women who evince those same traits, however, are usually punished rather than rewarded, and a lot of the negativity aimed at Hillary over the years, especially when she is seeking office, has been due to these underlying biases. There is simply no question that Hillary has for years been on the business end of an unrelenting double standard. And her battle with societal sexism isn’t going to stop because of her success anymore than Obama’s battle with racism stopped once he was elected. These are generational issues, and we are who we are.

 

The whole thing is worth 5-10 minutes of your time. And definitely worth sharing with people.