Stealth Vote Salon

Last night, I wrote a post about why I believe there hasn't emerged a massive "Women 4 Hillary" movement among Hillary's substantial base of women voters. Tom Watson and Lance Mannion have each written great posts in response. Blue Girl was early in on the same topic.

Lots of good reading there.

I'd also like to share a comment left by Shaker MPinSC on my post, that evokes more succinctly and poignantly precisely the concept about which I was writing:

I went to a meeting of Hillary supporters last night to arrange some phone-banking, etc.

What struck me was two women there who hesitantly referred to their now open support of Hillary as coming "out of the closet" for Hillary. That is honestly how they felt, that they had been a silent supporter, but had previously felt actually *shamed* to say so, and were beginning to fight back against that.

I have had women (even Republican women) tell me that if she makes it to the general, they plan to vote for her and *keep it secret* from their husband, boyfriend, pastor, etc.

Yes, that is a real phenomenon regarding our first viable woman candidate, and there is something badly wrong with that picture. Badly.

Indeed.

And I want to stress that it's not just a function of women voters themselves being shamed into silence by accusations of "vagina voting" (whether Hillary's being a woman is a factor they're considering or not), but also a result of Hillary's womanness being the weapon most frequently wielded against her, inevitably having the (desired) effect of causing women supporters to feel as though they are a liability to their candidate. Meanwhile, women who don't support her are being used against her, too. This is a perfectly encapsulated case study of the patriarchy at work—a woman candidate is undermined both by women who support her and women who don't. Priceless.