Sexism’s secret gift to Hillary Clinton

Article here. Excerpt:

'Yet women like Hillary Clinton also get big benefits from their gender, too. In fact, one of the main reasons Democrats wanted Hillary Clinton as their candidate is because of the belief that it’s important and appealing to put the first woman in the White House.

Her primary campaign had a notoriously hard time generating much enthusiasm, but to the extent that she did have fervent backers, they were overwhelmingly from the left’s feminist movement and from organizations specifically focused on electing women.

If Clinton were simply a former senator and secretary of state — with a lackluster record of achievement, scandal-plagued past and poor campaigning skills — and not also the first woman running for the presidency, she would at a minimum have had a lot more competitors for her party’s nomination, and likely would have been an early also-ran.'