This election is a referendum on how America values women.

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

I've got a new essay up at Shareblue about how this election is, at its core, a referendum on how this country values women:

Donald Trump is so explicitly sexist, and Hillary Clinton is so explicitly feminist, that the choice made by the majority of voters will send a very clear message about the value of women in our country.

I suspect that I am not the only woman who is having feelings about that.

To grow up a girl in a world that believes girls to be less-than is to be discouraged, over and over again. It is to live a life of learning that there are people who think you are worth less, people who will try to hold you back, people who will hate you and hurt you because you are a girl.
To greet lesson after lesson exposing the sometimes cavernous divide between what little girls are told their lives should be, and what little girls want their lives to be.

To have to be indomitable in the face of that discouragement; to confront each day the limits of other people’s imaginations about what girls and women can do, can be.

“Strong woman” is a superfluity. There is no choice but strength, in a world that conspires to weaken your resolve, limit your opportunity, and subvert your self-worth.

Millions of women — even many who do not like Clinton, and who may not vote for her — are watching this election and the stark choice that is before us. Cringing at every grossly sexist emanation from Trump and his surrogates. Angry at the evident double standards by which Clinton is judged.

Because of the particular dynamic of this campaign, the Sexist vs. the Trailblazer, many women (and I count myself among them) cannot help but feel as though votes are being cast not just for a candidate, but for affirmation of their position on womanhood. On women.
On our very selves.

There is much, much more at the link.

This is perhaps one of the most important things I've written this cycle. Please, if you enjoy it, share it far and wide.

True Story: While Trump was up in the wee hours tweeting horrendous garbage about Alicia Machado, I was up writing this essay. @Shareblue

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) September 30, 2016