Hillary Rodham Clinton, My Feminist Hero

Photo Credit: www.literaryagentblog.com

EVER SINCE I was a kid, I have always looked up to one of America's most popular and powerful political couples: Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. I was amazed at how they were able to pull it together through all the political crises - and personal scandals - they had to face during their time and stay in the White House. In particular, I came to admire the fortitude and steeliness that Hillary Rodham Clinton displayed through all these stuffs. As a matter of fact, alongside our very own and dearly beloved icon of Philippine democracy, President Corazon C. Aquino, then U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was one of the women in politics that I looked up to with deep respect and reverence. And as the years went on, from her stay in the White House to her foray into the U.S. Senate, I came to admire Hillary Clinton all the more.

That was why when she declared her intention to seek her Democratic Party's U.S. presidential nomination in 2008, there were no second thoughts on my part on who I would be rooting for in the race for the White House. Even if during the US primary season, many people (including my friends) began to be attracted by the charisma and appeal of the equally formidable and great Democratic candidate Barack Obama (who I later rooted for when he became the nominee against the Republican John McCain), I stuck it out with Hillary Rodham Clinton from the first primary and caucus in Iowa in January 2008 (where she disappointingly placed 3rd) to her first place comeback in New Hampshire and up to her historic and gracious concession speech to Obama in June 2008 at Washington, D.C. 

Though I am not an American or a U.S. immigrant or national, I was very much hooked into the primary race between Clinton and Obama. Although Obama was far more eloquent and oratorical than Clinton, I was more moved by Hillary's clear vision and strong determination to serve her people and restore her country's diminished standing in the world as a result of George W. Bush's 8 year-leadership in Washington. I also liked how she conducted her campaign with courage, perseverance and grace, in spite of all the attacks hurled at her. Most of all, I was very much touched by how Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign appealed to American women, wives and mothers. Even though at first, she did not want to play the "gender card" during her campaign, millions of American women responded and warmed up to her and canonized her as their crusading Joan of Arc and took it upon themselves to see her elected as America's first woman president to finally break the glass-ceiling against them in U.S. politics, once and for all.

Despite this, Hillary Clinton's campaign received not just criticisms but even unnecessary and uncalled-for sexist, misogynistic, chauvinistic and bigoted remarks and ridicules from different quarters in U.S. society.  As someone born and raised in a country where women are given high esteem and a country that already had two successive women presidents in just a short span of 15 years, I was really appalled and disappointed, and to think, that Hillary is running for president of the United States, the world's most powerful, progressive and liberal country in the world. Her campaign, on the one hand, made me realize that though there have been gains in gender equality throughout the world, discrimination and stereotyping of women are still persistent. It somehow reminded me of stories here at home on how during the 1986 snap presidential election the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos sarcastically dismissed and pejoratively ridiculed then opposition candidate Corazon "Cory" Aquino as a "mere housewife" who had no experience and as a woman whose only place in Philippine society is the bedroom. To which, the saintly heroine Cory Aquino retorted cleverly that it was true that she was just a housewife who had no experience: no experience in killing, stealing, cheating and assassinating political opponents. And like my first and other feminist hero, Cory Aquino, Hillary Clinton also responded with grace and strength to all the attacks, political, sexual and personal, that were hurled against her.

And at the time that Hillary Clinton was running for president, I was also in my last year in college, preparing for my undergraduate thesis. As such, these circumstances that Hillary's campaign faced, coupled with my realization that gender equality is an issue that is so often neglected, overlooked and underestimated, helped me a lot in deciding that my undergraduate thesis shall focus on the condition of women in the workplace. Though it may sound exaggerated for some, I believe that this decision was one of the most important decisions and choices that I ever made in life. That decision to choose gender equality as a topic for my thesis not only opened my eyes to social realities and inequities that were unfolding right before my eyes but also radicalized my view on women's rights and welfare. Ever since then, I have taken and made gender equality my personal cause, advocacy and commitment in life, which some of my friends find unlikely and quite surprising especially since I am a guy. And I am happy to say that in in my current work where I do researches and policy studies on labor and employment, I am able to fulfill this commitment by always making gender equality between women and men very much a part of my research agenda and studies. In a way, I credit both women - Cory Aquino and Hillary Clinton - and their life stories for awakening the male feminist in me.

Photo Credit: blog.zap2it.com/pop2it/2008/08/hillary-clinton.html

And somehow, I know deep down inside my heart that I owe my renewed and full-fledged male feminism to Hillary Rodham Clinton and her historic bid to become America's first woman president. The seeds of feminism in my life were planted in me unconsciously by my mother who told me stories about Cory Aquino and how she inspired millions of Filipinos to liberate themselves. Eventually, these seeds finally grew, sprouted and blossomed when I came to witness and marvel at Hillary Clinton's epic campaign to become the first woman president of the United States. In as much as Cory Aquino's story touched me, Hillary's quest also moved me. 

Looking back, somehow, even if she did not succeed in her quest to become president, I can say that her campaign was a campaign that truly made a difference not just in America but around the world - a truly historic campaign that made an impact not just to women but even men like me, as well. And for that, I will be forever thankful and grateful.