Dear Women of America,
Before I became a mom I made colossal mistakes against our sisterhood. Mistakes I regret, mistakes I apologized for, and mistakes I will not repeat. Before I became a mom I did not understand the importance of standing for and with women. But becoming a mother to a little girl changed me.
A few months ago I was in a bookstore with my eight-year-old daughter, Quinn and she caught a glimpse of President Bill Clinton's book, My Life. "Is that Hillary Clinton's husband?" she asked. Quinn knew that Hillary had run for president the same year she was born. She knew that Hillary had been a First Lady, a Senator and the Secretary of State but she had no idea about Hillary's husband. Quinn's question made my day because she is growing up in a very different world than the one I grew up in. Quinn has the movie, Frozen and Hillary Clinton.
I grew up during a time period when Cinderella was a role model and little girls not only believed in Prince Charming, but also believed in competing against each other for Prince Charming. And for most of us, our dads were the breadwinners and our moms were supposed to stay at home, taking care of the house, raising the kids. That worked great for our house, as long as what you wanted was what my father wanted for you. My mother spent most of her marriage feeling trapped, cheated on and powerless. Even though they divorced, she never broke that pattern. She married again, but her feelings and the power struggles did not change. New man, new relationship, same story.
Hillary Clinton has broken a pattern in the power structure of our country and I am grateful to her for that. My hope is that all women today, especially mothers, especially to little girls, would have feelings of gratitude to her for what she has accomplished.
And yet, I continue to hear countless women declare that they hate Hillary Clinton. And when I ask why? The answers I get are the same: "she is evil", "they don't trust her", "she is so calculating", or "she is on a quest for power".
I don't know Hillary Clinton personally, but I have a different view of her because I do know first-hand what it feels like to be vilified by millions of people, especially women, who don't know you. I know what it feels like to have made mistakes that hurt people that you don't even know, and never intended to hurt. I know what if feels like to be publicly thrown under the bus by people you trusted and publicly humiliated by the man you love. I know what it's like to work very hard at making positive contributions and have the media continue to want to talk about what serves them best: your mistakes.
I also know something that I hope you never do, having hatred on a global level directed at you for years, hurts. And it can cause you to be cautious, guarded and not trusting of others. It also causes you to want to crawl in a cave, or move to another country and give up.
You may not like Hillary Clinton, you may not trust Hillary Clinton, you may not agree with Hillary Clinton, but Hillary Clinton deserves our respect, and our kindness, not our hatred. Hillary Clinton has worked hard for decades in a hostile, backstabbing ego filled arena and whatever her reasons are- the whys and whats she tells herself every day in order to keep herself in the game don't matter to me, what matters to me is that she stayed in. And because she did, we finally have a shattered glass ceiling for all of us women and for our children.
Hillary is redefining how all American women work and are seen in the world, she is the leading the evolution of our species towards equality. Like her or not, Hillary Clinton is our champion. Voting Hillary Clinton in to the seat of power is a game changer for all us women, it shifts us all.
And if you, like me, have ever had Cinderella playing out somewhere in your life, if you've ever competed with another woman for a man, or ever once carried on with someone else's husband, or if you have ever been a mean, catty bitch to another woman, if you have ever taken any actions at all against our own sisterhood, please, let your political differences go, because sister, you owe this one to the team.
Let's change the story.
Prince Charming is not going to save us. Hillary Clinton is the Elsa vote.