An Observation

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Yesterday, I read some cool articles by dudes who have recently (in the last 48 hours) discovered that Hillary Clinton is actually quite a good politician, a solid candidate, and/or well-liked by many people!

These remarkable articles with their totally trenchant observations were widely spread among progressives, with enthusiastic exhortations about how they were soooooo great.

Sure. They were amazing.

It's always amazing to me to see dudes getting props for saying shit that I—and other feminist women, and our allies—have been saying for weeks and months and literally years.

I've been making the case for quite some time, ahem, that Clinton is a savvy politician and a great candidate and a likeable person who is liked by many people who like her.

But, in the same familiar pattern that happens with all sorts of feminist writing, any woman who says something for years and years, who establishes herself as an expert on a subject, gets pegged as uncredible—compromised by virtue of her womanhood and attendant "lack of objectivity."

I'm just a stupid shill. But some rando non-feminist dude suddenly notices that Hillary Clinton is not, in fact, history's greatest monster, and he's instantly credible. He says the same shit I've been saying, and suddenly he's the belle of the fucking ball.

Because my having been in it, at no small cost, for years was the very reason that I was written off as a fangirl who can't be taken seriously.

This is exhausting. It is demoralizing. And it is sexist as fuck.