Unlike Michelle Obama, a former executive who has largely been accepted as a popular first lady, Hillary Clinton was vilified during her time in that role. Jezebel [5]'s Dodai Stewart cites Clinton's 1992 interview in which she said, "I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession which I entered before my husband was in public life."
Stewart argues that Clinton's words now sound normal because the public and its expectations of women have shifted.
But the truth is, we have changed, as a country, as a planet. Times have changed. Since Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, women have been more visible, and we're more accustomed to seeing a female face in positions of power and authority — from Helen Clark to Julia Gillard to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to Michelle Bachelet to Angela Merkel to Dilma Rousseff. The pop charts this past decade were dominated by female voices, like Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Mariah Carey. Television shows, from The View to Sex And The City to Oprah to Grey's Anatomy and the fourth hour of Today concerned themselves with women. Although Hillary didn't end up being the democratic candidate in 2008, she handled the aftermath gracefully, becoming Secretary of State for her former rival, and travels the globe, holding her own, during a time when global power is shifting we are now used to seeing her as a hard-working woman who doesn't complain or seek the spotlight but quietly gets things done. Not just a survivor, but one who thrives. There's a magic in her "too busy for bullshit" persona, a mystery.
Read Dodai Stewart's entire article at Jezebel [5].
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