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What Young Feminists Think of Hillary ClintonIt’s not quite what you’d expect.By Molly MirhashemAlexandra Svokos was six years old, growing up in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, when she became a Hillary Clinton fan. It was 1998, and Clinton had published Dear Socks, Dear Buddy, a collection of children's letters addressed to the first family's pets. Svokos became so obsessed with the book, she recalls, that she wrote her own letter—not to Socks the cat or Buddy the Labrador, but to Clinton herself. When she got a reply on official White House stationery with the first lady's signature, Svokos was thrilled.Clinton was an early feminist icon for many women of Svokos's generation—long before they even began to think of themselves as feminists. Svokos, who's now 23 and a fellow at The Huffington Post, grew up with parents who called themselves feminists and practiced gender equality in the house, balancing household responsibilities and encouraging Svokos and her two sisters to "fight for what we deserved." Mostly, she says, feminism meant "girl power" to her—and that meant, in turn, rooting for Clinton when she made her first run for the presidency in 2008. Svokos was in high school then, and her ideas about feminism were still pretty simple; she admired Clinton "because she was a woman, rather than knowing much about what she stood for."Eight years later, Svokos's notion of feminism has evolved—and the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming president no longer fills her with unbridled excitement. Svokos says her ideas about feminism began to change when she studied economics at Columbia University, beginning in 2010. As she learned about economic inequality in the United States and around the world, she says, she began to see how gender, race, and class were intertwined—how, for instance, expanding access to birth control can stimulate an economy by enabling women to pursue their own careers.Feminism came to mean something very different from girl power. And Hillary Clinton came to look like the symbol of an older generation of women more concerned with female empowerment—in particular, with white, middle-class, American female empowerment—than with broader issues of social and economic justice. Svokos says she'll vote for Clinton in 2016, but she's not expecting her to make social justice and inequality true priorities if she makes it to the White House. "I find her lacking, in that I realize she's not likely to push for the kind of change I'd like to see," Svokos says. "At the same time, though, I believe she knows how to manage politics and will be more than capable in the position."Among feminists of her generation, Svokos is hardly alone in her lukewarm feelings about Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. I recently interviewed 47 young women, most in their early to mid-20s, who call themselves feminists; they talked about what feminism means to them and shared their thoughts about Clinton's candidacy and public image. While the overwhelming majority of these women said they would likely vote for her in 2016, only about a quarter of them were enthusiastic or emphatic in their support. Jennifer Schaffer, a 22-year-old weekend editor at Vice, summed up a common sentiment among these women: "I'm glad we have a female presidential candidate," she told me, "but it's incredibly difficult to get excited about something that should have happened decades ago." A vote for Clinton, many said, would be a vote by default, because no other viable progressive alternatives—female or male—are in the offing.
