As of Tuesday, Hillary is the official Democratic nominee for president–the first woman in the 239 year history of this country to be such.
I’m fond of pointing out here that women haven’t even had the right to vote for 100 years. But to really put the progress we’ve made into perspective, read this article from last month, “The crushing sexism of young Hillary Clinton’s America.”
“Until 1975, rapists who happened to be married to their victims feared no legal repercussions; on the other hand, until 1977, a woman could be legally fired from her job for being pregnant (or for merely having the potential to become pregnant).
We could go on and on:
The first woman wasn’t appointed to the Supreme Court until 1981, nearly two centuries after the Court was established;
When Anita Hill came forward 10 years later and testified about a different Supreme Court nominee’s long history of sexual harassment, Congress dismissed her out of hand;
When Clinton ran for president in 2008, hecklers often called upon her to “iron my shirt.”
That last might seem trivial, but it’s not. Over the years that correspond to Clinton’s adult life, the nation she may well come to lead has only barely begun to move forward from what amounts to all of human history, when women were not considered human enough to get a say in whether they ironed a shirt, went to the library, or got raped. This is the backdrop to Clinton’s ‘long and tiring path,’ described by Paul Waldman. This is what we mean by ‘historic.’ “
Let’s keep making history in November.