Bernie Wins out in the Millennial Feminist Conversation

 

When I heard about the prerequisite hype surrounding Hillary Clinton’s assumed presidential nomination, I was beyond excited. Having co-led the Intersectional Feminism club at my highschool, I had been delving deeper and deeper into the history of women, and increasingly valuing those that chose to deviate from the historical norm of womanhood. I felt indebted to feminists like Clinton, before me, that had been introspective enough to realize the wrongs of their confining roles, and brave enough to speak out. 

 

With my hopes on Hillary, I thought about what a woman president would mean. People would begin to respect women on an unprecedented level. There would be a sharp decrease in sexist jokes and toxic behavior that was brushed off as “old-fashioned”. A woman president would be like a black president – it wouldn’t solve all the problems, but it would be a pretty big step in the right direction. Under Obama’s presidency, there were the events that revolved around Sandra Bland, Ferguson, Tamir Rice, and unfortunately many, many more. However, as a society, our often whitewashed lens widened and readjusted as more people than before realized that despite slavery and segregation being over (as if those were the only two things that could be classified as hate), we still didn’t treat people of color right as a whole. Following this path of thought,  I thought that with the image of a female president, women as a whole would inevitably gain respect and power a well, opening up new dialogue that could lead us to progress so that life would be better for women everywhere.  Things would change, and that was exciting to me. 

 

Then, I began reading that Bernie Sanders was gaining popularity and closing the gap between himself and Clinton. I was angry and disappointed that a male candidate would upset the female presidency I had pined for. When my friends started pinning buttons on their backpacks and sharing articles, I glowered inside. They didn’t get it, I thought. Eventually, I started reading those same articles. Here I am now, writing one. The educated stance that Bernie Sanders may be better for millennial women than Hillary Clinton is one that I am behind today.  Regarding women’s rights, Sanders has the will to be bold, which Hilary lacks. Some spectators call this radicalism, a word designed to stigmatize beliefs that challenge a socially constructed norm. Clinton tries to avoid being called radical, as Sanders has been called, by attempting to be as likable as possible.  Instead of this device working, she comes off as stale and full of half-truths.

Sanders recently said in a speech on September 2015 at Liberty University, “Women have the right to control their own bodies…Those are my beliefs, and it is no secret.” Stating this at the largest Evangelical Christian college in the world, this fragment of his speech epitomizes why Sanders contains the boldness Clinton lacks. Clinton may have iconically said “Women’s rights are human rights” at the 4th Annual U.N conference in Beijing, but that’s more or less obvious to anyone who isn’t a terrible person. The blatant political hostility a sentence like the one that Sanders said provokes is dangerous, perhaps, to his potential votes in his audience, but at least it is truthful. Sanders is here to state his beliefs, while Clinton seems to follow the pattern of scrambling for a common ground that ultimately excludes some of her supposed planks. 

 

Additionally, Sanders also acknowledges the need for racial reform, and does so more explicitly than Clinton. At a time when celebrities such as Amandla Stalenberg, Willow Smith, and Emma Watson are using their power over the zeitgeist to sway the young population to more liberal than not, this is important. In a time where more women are identifying as intersectional feminists, Clinton can’t afford to misstep on racial issues and still have a stronghold on the female voting population. 

I am eternally grateful to feminists like Clinton that came before me. She transcended the boundaries her society said she had – her strides gave more flexibility for women like me, in my generation. However, I don’t think for a woman like me, she is the right person for this presidency. In a stark contrast to Sanders, who opened one of his responses in the Democratic Debate on October 13 with “Black Lives Matter”, Clinton has fumbled twice on racial inequality, which is central to intersectional feminism. In a speech at a historic black church in Missouri, Clinton said, “All lives matter”. While she (in an of course, less-publicized foray) made it clear after this statement was not to diminish the deaths of so many humans of the community of people of color, this was still a big “oops!” in the intersectional feminist conversation. The creators of Black Lives Matter, one of the most central movements to the hot political issue of race, are two women of color.  Clinton’s misstep here, combined with her interview with Lena Dunham, below, shows that she isn’t giving the liberal millennials, the most inclusive feminists yet, what they’d like to hear.

 

As described above, Clinton has closely aligned herself with one of modern feminism’s queens, Lena Dunham. In an exclusive interview with Clinton for Dunham’s Lenny newsletter, Dunham brought up the issue of police brutality in the United States. Clinton again shows here that regardless of true intentions or beliefs, she doesn’t communicate those well – and this is enough to put her behind Sanders. In the interview, Clinton made a point to say that “Most deaths in…communities of color are not due to police…they have to respect the police, and the police have to respect the community.” 

 

Clinton has spoken on the deaths of Freddie Gray and the incidents in Baltimore, but it feels to me like a slightly panicked afterthought to quickly mimic whatever Sanders is doing.  Sanders has had a comprehensive plan and ode to racial injustice in his website, while under Clinton’s “Issues” tab, she has everything but racial inequity addressed. Purposefully or not, she distances herself from people of color through her language with “they have to…”. The whole soundbite is reminiscent of white people telling black people how to act to stop violence during times of protest, a much berated concept many feminists are against Clinton’s beliefs sometimes feel like an afterthought of Sanders’. To add fuel to the fire, Clinton did not come out to support gay marriage on a federal level until 2013, and in a world where for many millennials, women’s rights rightfully includes the LGBT community, this is not satisfactory.  People change – I know my views were definitely not the same in 2013 as they are now. But when compared to Sanders, who has held the gauntlet of homosexual equality up to 40 years ago, the difference frames her as unreliable and chameleon-like. In a preliminary race with two candidates with such similar views, Clinton’s communication skills falter as she attempts relatability, and this has large impact as it diminishes interest. Exclusionary language, combined with an unfortunate tendency to be vague and inconsistent in her views, because Clinton to fall short when compared to Sanders.  Though their platforms are very similar  to the casual voter, for millennial women who want an inclusive, intersectional world, Clinton is second-best.