Stop telling me to get excited about Hillary Clinton

I’m not pooh-poohing what Clinton has fought for and accomplished, but I am not popping champagne over her coronation, just as I wouldn’t be if the first woman to be crowned the presumptive nominee of a major American political party had been Carly Fiorina — a candidate whose policies and positions I fundamentally disagree with. I am well aware of the significance of having the first woman nominee in the 238-year history of my country, and how shameful this is in light of the fact that 63 countries have had a female head of state in the past 50 years or so.

But as women tell me during the Talk, I am young — so young, I confess, that I have only voted for a president once in my life, and that president was a black man. In my second-ever election, five of the Republican candidates would have also made historic presidents — a second black man, Ben Carson; an Indian-American, Bobby Jindal; a woman, Carly Fiorina; or a Latino man, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Being born in the early ’90s is a privilege: “A woman will become U.S. president, sooner rather than later, which may be why younger women are less motivated by the ‘first woman’ narrative,” A (problematic) Wall Street Journal opinion piece recently read. “The question they ask, more wisely than the Baby Boomers, is whether this woman should be president.”…

But the writers in False Choices also pay particular attention to the ways in which Hillary the Hawk has actually undermined feminism. She rewarded states that violently criminalized prostitution when she was secretary of state, despite condemnation by major human rights organizations. With a U.S.-backed coup, she helped destabilize the homicide capital of the world, Honduras, resulting in “skyrocketing” femicides. She and her husband both promoted sweatshop conditions in developing nations in the guise of American interest in the ’90s, a strategy that continued into Clinton’s stint as secretary of state. And of course there is the fact that war, a go-to move for Clinton, always results in increases in rapes, as False Choices points out.