Tuesday’s nomination of Hillary Clinton for president is a sign of how much the status of women in politics has changed over the past 40 years or so, a San Diego State University professor said.
And the 68-year-old Clinton will be a good candidate to face Republican businessman Donald Trump because “people have been beating up on her her whole life,” making her stronger, said Doreen Mattingly, an associate professor of women’s studies at SDSU.
Clinton became the first female presidential nominee of a major U.S. political party when she received the support of a majority of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
“We’ve been so caught up in the details of this crazy election year, I think until the nomination was official it was easy to forget the historic nature of a woman being nominated by a major party, and how much things have changed since the (Jimmy) Carter administration, for example, when having a woman adviser was a major accomplishment,” Mattingly told City News Service.
Mattingly is the author of a book on the late feminist Midge Costanza, a top White House adviser to Carter. Carter’s initial cabinet included two women. President Barack Obama’s included four.
“(Clinton) is a woman and she’s a feminist — she’s a woman who has spent her life fighting for the rights of women and children,” Mattingly said.
“I think that it’s great that a woman has broken through but I think it’s much more significant that it’s a woman who has made a career fighting for the rights of other women and for their families — so for me, that’s what makes it a particularly sweet moment.”
— City News Service
