Hillary Clinton’s life, in many respects, traces the arc of progress for women in American society. Her mother, Dorothy Rodham, was born in 1919, a year before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote.
It has taken a long, long time for that amendment’s promise of women’s full participation in American democracy to be realized. Mrs. Clinton moved it a big step closer this week, as she became the first woman nominated for the presidency by a major party.
Mrs. Clinton’s nomination — bringing women, barred first by law and then by custom, to the pinnacle of American politics — is to be celebrated as inspiration for young Americans, and as hope for women in nations and cultures that deny them the most basic opportunities. It is further proof that opening doors to women elevates and strengthens our nation.
At a moment when political discourse is divisive and dark, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged stiff challenges but summoned optimism in her call Thursday night for Americans to work together. “America is once again at a moment of reckoning,” she said. “Bonds of trust and respect are fraying,” she said. “We are cleareyed about what our country is up against. But we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge, just as we always have.”
Mrs. Clinton, who grew up in an era of few opportunities for women, revealed strength and tenacity building a career that spanned the world. Her education and work ethic eventually opened many avenues to her, and — despite forays into lucrative and sometimes regrettable pursuits like her corporate speechmaking — she has always returned to a path of service.
For four decades, Mrs. Clinton has listened to and spoken for children and the poor. She has absorbed personal and professional blows that would have left others on the canvas, and she has delivered some, too. Few politicians, and certainly not her opponent, have the intellectual heft that she brings to the race for the White House.
Some Americans remain deeply uncomfortable with women leading corporations, let alone the free world. No woman is more aware of this than Mrs. Clinton, who has struggled as first lady, senator and secretary of state to strike the right balance between what society expected of women and what she aspired to accomplish.
The first time Mrs. Clinton ran for president, in 2008, she all but ignored the historic nature of her candidacy; this time she has embraced it. Yet lingering uncertainty over how to combine Mrs. Clinton’s skills, experience and femininity into a winning package was apparent during this week’s convention, as Democrats and her own husband toggled awkwardly between portraying her as a mother and wife, and as a potential commander in chief.
When Barack Obama was inaugurated as the nation’s first African-American president, historians wondered what combination of qualifications, experience and personality made him, of all black leaders, the one to break through that barrier. Such questions are, if anything, even sharper for Mrs. Clinton. Is she the nominee because she has more relevant experience than just about any candidate for the presidency, or because she is the wife of a former president? Skeptical voters have scrutinized her age, voice, tone, even clothing as qualifiers for the White House. Small wonder women make up less than one-fifth of Congress, and only six are governors.
Mrs. Clinton’s rise has not been smooth or particularly graceful. Some of her positions seem born more of political expediency than conviction. She can be secretive and defensive. Her failure to hold an open news conference for months shows a reluctance to submit to legitimate questions. Her candidacy itself is an act of courage; greater transparency would demonstrate that she does not intend to govern from a position of fear. Her challenge now is to persuade voters to judge her on her merits and ideas, rather than her gender or her husband’s record.
What is already clear is that Mrs. Clinton has had to work fiercely hard, under a withering scrutiny no male candidate would face, and that that hard work has now resulted in a profound service to the nation: A short time ago, the idea that a woman would attain her party’s presidential nomination was beyond audacious; it no longer is.
[Source:-New Yourk Times]
