For as long as I have been alive, I have known who Hillary Clinton is. She is a household name for a reason, being a leader in women’s rights issues and tirelessly working to shatter the glass ceiling. As she strives to be the next leader of the United States, we are faced with the potential to see a woman sitting in the Oval Office for the first time in history.
The prospect of this lights a fire in me and makes me believe we are so much closer to closing the wage gap, getting paid maternity leave, and having stricter laws against sexual assault. These issues are at the front lines of this election. It is extremely clear that Clinton or Bernie Sanders are the best candidates to see changes in policies relating to these issues, but should women vote for Hillary because she is a woman?
NO. Hillary and Bernie are both exceptional candidates. To cast a vote simply because you share the same gender is like choosing your spouse based on the similarity of your Starbucks order. We will have this president for at least four years, and it startles me that millions of Americans will fail to do any research besides what they see in their Twitter feeds.
I began looking into the leading Democratic candidates last week, and my pervious #FeelTheBern mentality has shifted to #FeelTheUndecided. As much as I love Bernie’s ideas about free education, at the current state of our economy, having tiered tuition based on parent’s income (Hillary’s solution to the student debt crisis) to graduate debt-free is a much more feasible scenario. Clinton has also proposed many more programs to promote renewable energy, including constructing half a billion solar panels. Billion. Half a billion. The renewable energy industry is going to millions of jobs in the coming years, and by fostering its growth, we are paving the way to economical and environmental progress.
In eight months we will take to the polls and decide who will be leading our country. I do not know who I will cast my vote for (I do know that it will not be for Donald Trump) but I will be confident if Sanders or Clinton is to be my voice. Clinton could make history and be the woman I hope to be. As a former Senator, the Secretary of State, a Yale educated lawyer, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a climate focused citizen, she has the power and knowledge to make great changes to the United States. I would be proud to see her in office, but I will not be proud to vote for her simply because our genders are the same.