What a week, what a week. The proverbial glass ceiling obtained quiet the crack last Monday night, when Hillary Clinton became the first woman ever to win the Iowa Caucus. For some, this crack was reason alone to celebrate - yes, this was something that had never been done by a woman in the history of the caucus. For many Democratic voters, however, the victory's less than one-point differential was not only an equivocal tie, but less of a crack than a dent. From where I stand (which is the photo above is immediately next to Hillary) the Iowa Caucus was about security, and voter momentum. It was about stats and numbers, and the bolstering of my candidate.

While the week started as a numbers game, the week culminated, in New Hampshire with a very different tone.

On the one hand, is what I consider to be a feminist betrayal: an arguable matriarch of the Women's Rights Movement and founder of Ms. Magazine, Gloria Steinem, alongside legend and first female Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright purported that all women should vote for Hillary Clinton merely on the premise of her biology; "[i]t's not done," said Albright said. "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other."

*SHAKE ME HEAD...* Oh, Secretary Albright, a leader whose words I've clung to.

On the other hand "bros" and "Courageous Christian Conservatives" (whatever that is, Ted) implying that of course, my being female is the only reason I'm voting for former Secretary of State, and NY Senator, Hillary Clinton. I swear, if I hear/see the phrase "voting with your vagina" ONE MORE TIME...

The female voter is now being pinned for her vote from within her party, and simplified by her vote by those outside of it. WHAT. THE. HECK.

The irony is all of this? Clinton is struggling to capture young female voters, a demographic that politicians are realizing is politically active, carrying weight, and deserving of their plight for care and attention.

For all of the "white feminism" (id-ed by mainstream first wave feminism, with concerns exclusive to the white middle-to-upper class educated elite... body hair, changing ones married name, etc.) that purportedly waves Clinton on, the young white voter is exactly whom exit polls in New Hampshire showed she was missing.

So, at the end of the day, when it comes to analyzing the Steinem-Albright-Clinton angle, I get it, she needs our votes. But, this - this was not the verbiage to accomplish that goal. In analyzing Trump, as the GOP front runner's interest in my vote, calling me an idiot isn't going to get that accomplished either.

Hillary Clinton, although she'll be receiving my vote, is not the recipient of such merely because she's female. To say so, or to say that's why she's deserving of my vote, is to demean her experience, dismantle my own intellectualism, and to diminish what it truly means to climb the ladder, to crack the glass.

I will also be the first to say that I was outstandingly disheartened by two idols of mine, standing on stage in New Hampshire, proposing that female-voters backing Senator Bernie Sanders were only doing so because "that's where the boys are." Not only was this insulting the generations of women who look up to Steinem and Albright relative to forging new trails and engaging in exhaustive discourse, it was embarrassing, and belittling to young voters, to female voters, to LGBT and gender variant voters.
I outstandingly disapprove of the message that was sent, that women, somehow "owe" their vote to Clinton, or any other candidate for that matter. I outstandingly disapprove of the message from the other side that insists I must be stupid, accepting the "women's card" and the voting equivalent of "girls rule, boys drool." 

If anything, this display of three older, privileged, white women telling young women who to vote for in one direction and the disrespectful dialog surrounding female voters and their place in this election in the other shows the imperativeness of intersectionality, and the how critical a commitment to intersectional feminism is. And so, I push back. I push back at my own party and my own candidate's strategy. I push back at the other candidates who "blame" my voting preference on a desire for a Lady's Luncheon.  

If Hillary, or any other candidate wants "the Womens" vote, they can earn them, for there is not a single candidate in this race that is owed them. And how can my vote be earned? How should candidates seek "our" votes, in my opinion? By showcasing platforms that don't exclude the non-heteronormative, non-white, non-middle to upper-class. By showcasing how their politics will fight for working-women, economically vulnerable women, queer and transgender women. They can show how members of our community that are experiencing life through various identities would be implicated by their policies and practice. Because if Hillary doesn't do that... and if no other candidate can do that, than for many Americans, it won't matter who is in the White House. 

From the blue side of the aisle, it's quite easy to shout "WE'VE COME SO FAR! LOOK, we've got a lady AND a Jew" while tossing flowers of "diversity" from little white baskets. But the reality is, racial equity, gender parody, poverty, and they way they fit into main-steam party politics are so much more complicated.

To be in the political mainstream and to practice intersectionality at the same time - is outstandingly complex, if not juxtaposed. Voters are asked to accept, or at minimum identify, a viable candidate, to navigate "how much is too much" and "what's not enough."

For example, Hillary Clinton, as a woman, is painted as inherently radical in her politics - merely by nature of being a female (and Oh jeez, we've never had one of those before!!). When, she is in fact the more conservative Democratic candidate. A similar picture was painted of now-President Barack Obama... being a man of color made him a radical liberal - and while I'd identify as an Obama supporter, eight years ago, I remember thinking I wish his economic plights swung more to the left. But, "is that possible?" I thought - to have someone black AND progressive in the White House? Would that have been just too darn much for white middle America to handle? Seemingly so.

And so, when we look at the Democratic front-runners, when we look as the crowded GOP stage, we must challenge ourselves to be highly critical. Yes, there are female candidates in the race.  Yes, there's a non-Christian candidate. Sure, there's even a guy who was born in Canada. But how will life change for all Americans with any of these individuals in the White House? Yes, Bernie identifies with socialist practice, and sings sweet nothings into my ear as a student with a significant amount of student-loan debt, but really - how would his term affect persons of color? Hillary, the woman for whom I would leap at the chance to serve as a devout hype girl, how would her term affect Americans living in poverty?

These challenge are not to be applied in terms of what is politically sexy or high profile, and they should not be accepted as accomplished when candidates use phrases like "prison pipeline" or "police brutality" nor my biology matching that of the candidate for which I cast my vote.