Why Hillary?  Why Should Women Support Her? And Why Now?

By Gretchen Glasscock, President/CEO AdvancingWomen.com

Why Hillary?  And why should women support her over the long term, not just in this election cycle, no matter how this election turns out?  The answer to that is stunningly simple.

It is not just because if women ever hope to achieve equity at work and financial parity with men, it’s important to get women in office—because that’s where the power is. And the greatest power resides in the White House.

It is not just because women are poised at an historic, watershed moment where women are the majority of voters, our influence in the workplace is rising, and we have the potential to shape a new context for women taking on a bolder, more influential, and vigorous role in the economic and legislative life of our society.

These outcomes, however desirable they may be to women and women's groups, are not the primary reasons to support Hillary Clinton. The most fundamental and compelling reason is because Hillary is the most capable, experienced and intellectually tough minded candidate; the one best able to meld high purposes with practical policies to achieve them and therefore the candidate most likely to bring about the change the United States desperately needs, and restore respect to our nation throughout the world.

Hillary Clinton has the intelligence, experience, stamina and compassion not just to run and win, as she is demonstrating increasingly every day, but to govern with our best interests – which are also the best interests of the nation - in mind.

Hillary fought to stop the current administrations’ attempt to privatize Social Security . Hillary has been a long time advocate for children, for bringing more qualified teachers into classrooms. She has fought for women’s health care and for more protective gear for our troops and expanding health benefits for the National Guard and Reserves and tracking the health of our men and women sent to Iraq. Hillary understands the challenges women face in careers and business. She understands whether you work in a large corporation or start your own business, you will always have to fight for resources. Women have a notoriously hard time borrowing money, and we’re often forced to rely on high-interest, short-term credit, if we can get loans at all. Hillary, a champion of global micro-credit, has said: “Although the economic plight of a poor woman in Bangladesh who wants a loan to buy a second milk cow or sewing machine may seem worlds away from that of a technology entrepreneur in San Francisco, the bottom line is this: No matter where they live, women need help breaking down the barriers to capital.”

Hillary “gets it”.  Whether “it” is the multi-faceted challenges facing working families, the need for better health care and education, or the threats from abroad which challenge our nation. To achieve structural change, it’s vital to elect lawmakers who have a deep understanding of the great array of  difficult to solve issues and pledge to support them. If one were to imagine all the qualities most important to executing the job of President of the United States, it would be hard to imagine a better candidate for the job than Hillary.

AdvancingWomen.com is one of the women’s organizations that fought for the positive change that makes Hillary’s candidacy possible.  Today we have a woman president of Harvard, Speaker of the House and candidate for president. So change is possible.  But we must fight for it. Fighting for a candidate we believe in to become president of the United States , to lead this country into a better future is no different. As Senator Clinton herself says, it is time for us to be Americans again and do what Americans do best: to dream, to lead, to solve thorny problems of energy and environment, to create a vision of a better tomorrow and make it a reality. If we want some one who is ready to lead the charge, to help shape that vision and make it a reality, I believe, as Hillary says "She's our girl!"

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About the author

Gretchen Glasscock, president and CEO of AdvancingWomen.com researches, writes and speaks on  women's equity; she co-founded the first online, refereed journal on women's issues. Glasscock has been called upon by the U.S. State Department to work with leaders of other nations to create a foundation for greater equity for women, focusing on how to create organizational change to bring equity to women and identifying elements which foster women's advancement.Glasscock has provided career and business content to Fortune 500 companies like Citibank and Hearst; She has also had articles published in the United States, Europe, Australia, Canada and India.