Cookies and Conformity: Why I’m Standing With Her

In 1992, I was a young junior high school student, full of angst and uncertainty. The solution to this, I believed, was conformity. If only I could be like the most popular kids in my class, I would definitely feel less horrible. I would glide through school, friends flanking my sides, a feeling of unmatched confidence oozing from my miraculously acne-free skin. I studied my peers, hoping to discover through the cool ones the keys to success. Was it the way her silk shirt was tucked into her jeans just so? His willingness to tell off the hall monitor? Was it her interest in soccer or Terminator II that made her so popular?

Being myself, at the time, was an afterthought. I was a huge nerd. Huge. My favorite thing to do was curl up on my bed and read for hours, or go to the library. I had seen maybe one R-rated movie, during a babysitting gig, and I’m pretty sure that was the ever-so scandalous Pretty Woman. I listened to oldies from the 1960s on the radio. I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall, and if I had been, I wouldn’t have had any money to spend or any desire to be there. I was once told by a popular boy, explicitly, that I was not cool enough to come to the other side of the gym, where he and his friends were playing basketball and, I guess, being really cool.

It was against that backdrop that I remember first hearing about Hillary Clinton. In 1992, while campaigning for her husband, she was asked by Family Circle to submit a cookie recipe. In her response to a goading reporter pressuring her on said recipe, along with other issues much more relevant to the political race, she replied, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.”

This was not well received by the public. As a child used to doing what was asked of me, and a preteen dying to fit in, I knew this was not the correct response. Pssst, Hillary, you’re supposed to play along! Tell the reporter your cookies have chocolate chips and maybe pecans to get some traction with the Southern Dems. My mom, thank goodness, had the opposite response. A lifelong feminist, who also was for a time a stay-at-home mom, she was enraged on Hillary’s behalf. Although I don’t remember her exact words, I imagine she ranted something along the lines of, “Here she is, a lawyer. And they’re asking her about cookies! She doesn’t need to bake cookies to be First Lady.”

The cookie story, I believe, helped frame Hillary for so many people. A feminist. Someone who doesn’t conform. A woman who is ambitious and unabashedly so. Essentially, a bitch, or a woman who doesn’t know her place. This character portrait made it easier for the media and political foes to accuse her of overstepping when she legislated health care reform; to paint her as an evil shrew, even when she graciously accepted her husband’s martial failings; and today, to convince many voters she is a liar, when records clearly show otherwise.

When primary season rolled through this last year, I voted for Bernie, who better represented my far left-leaning ideologies. Although hugely idealistic and maybe unrealistic, I was hoping for someone to take what Obama started and continue this progress in an even more radical fashion. For many Bernie supporters, Hillary has represented a settling towards the center that we no longer want. But I wondered this morning, the day after Hillary clinched the Democratic nomination as the first female presidential candidate, if she would have been a more radical candidate before nearly 25 years of attacks on her moral character, her career, and her femininity.

It was easy to stand by Bernie, who, if you lived outside of Vermont, was something of a fresh voice, despite being the longest-serving independent in the U.S. congressional history. This, coupled with his stance on the issues and the efforts he undertook to maintain his campaign’s integrity, was very appealing. Being an outsider, you might say, made these things possible. Sure, true. But what we’ve asked from Hillary for so long is for her to be a conformist in her portrayal of her gender, while her years of service have demanded that she act as an insider. As a public servant, she has been tasked by the American people to uphold our state secrets. As a public figure, she has been taken to task for speaking her mind, in a way that does not happen with the current “cool kid,” Donald Trump.

I feel for Hillary. And I feel fearful for our country. I would like to think that her nomination will mean a rallying for the Democratic base and a boost to all of woman-kind, but current polls are not in her favor. I worry that if Donald Trump represents America’s worst impulses, Hillary may signify all that we culturally turn up our noses at: aggressively accomplished, bookish, and smug. America likes to think that as a culture, it is cool; the kind of cool that drinks a six-pack of beer in the back of a pick-up truck at a barn dance on a warm summer night, or the kind of cool that goes to a nightclub wearing the latest clothing and driving an expensive car. We like the Donald Trump swagger, the Bernie honesty, the Obama ease. Hillary has only made a slight foray into the cool realm, and that was based on a picture of her, not talking, wearing sunglasses, and looking at her phone.

If we can start seeing Hillary Clinton as both a real person and a nominee, and remember the role media has had in creating her image, society will be better off. She has been the victim of systemic sexism, even as she has had more privilege and opportunity than most people. Hillary has continued to strive towards goals even when people have told her not to, or implied that she should have been doing other things with her time. This may make her un-relatable, unlikeable, and uncool to some voters, but she is the only thing stopping us from a man with ties to Putin, a desire to deport our friends and family, and an obsession with a wall.

To my liberal friends who are posting on Facebook that they’re voting for a third party candidate now that “both parties are a joke,” I urge you to reconsider. Hillary isn’t a joke. She is not a victim, either, in case you think that is what I’m implying. She is an accomplished leader. She isn’t someone who makes nice or tries to make you cookies just because you asked. I will be standing with her, and I hope you join me. If we’re voting on character, I think anyone who has ever felt pressure to be someone they’re not, or wondered if their voice would be taken more seriously if they were someone else, may have an ally in Hillary. She has lived it.

On the Family Circle Presidential Cookie Recipe page, the intro reads, “Since 1992, when Hillary Clinton and Barbara Bush bumped spatulas, our First Lady cookie contest has been a terrific tradition and political pacesetter. All but one winner went on to live in the White House.” I’m getting really excited for Bill’s submission.