For decades, Hillary Clinton has served as a litmus test for just how much the American public will accept from a smart, ambitious, assertive, feminist woman: How much she can reasonably hope to attain, and what opposition she will face. Her basic competence has never truly been in question; her “likability,” the ability of society to accept her, always has been. And women have projected their deepest hopes and fears onto her throughout.

The “challenges” alluded to by Clinton have been huge. Her attempts at healthcare reform led to a “Billary” label and caricatures of the president and his wife as conjoined twins. She refused to bake; America panicked. When her husband cheated, people called her too aggressive to keep him happy; when they stayed married, people called her too submissive to stand up for herself. She ran for the Senate, prompting hand-wringing over her power-hungry nature–she was a wife, her husband already had a job in politics, why did she need a job, too? And she won. So she ran for president, which was where the trouble really started.

Fucking whore. Castrating, overbearing, and scary. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She devil. Iron my shirt. C.U.N.T. Beat the bitch.

The amount of overt misogyny aimed at Hillary Clinton during the 2008 campaign, from conservatives and progressives alike, was enough to shock many young women – even Obama supporters like myself – into a new awareness of just how powerful and widespread sexism still was in this culture. In this magazine, Susan J. Douglas accused Clinton of being too much “like a man.” (And, hilariously, pointed to notable dying-wife-betrayer and sex-tape-maker John Edwards as an example of a more truly feminine and caring politician.)

Of course, this is one of the profound ways in which oppression works—to mire us in body hatred. Homophobia is all about defining queer bodies as wrong, perverse, immoral. Transphobia, about defining trans bodies as unnatural, monstrous, or the product of delusion. Ableism, about defining disabled bodies as broken and tragic. Class warfare, about defining the bodies of workers as expendable. Racism, about defining the bodies of people of color as primitive, exotic, or worthless. Sexism, about defining female bodies as pliable objects. These messages sink beneath our skin.

TW: TRANSPHOBIC SLUR, CISSEXISM
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Perhaps I’m a transphobic bigot [trigger warning], but I honestly think waiting a measly 36 months to cut your dick is a sacrifice any father should be willing to make for his 15-year-old son. Call me old-fashioned. Unfortunately, your ex wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice (selfish tranny!), or it never occurred to him to make that sacrifice (stupid tranny!).

Regardless of whatever money and legal troubles the WPS is having, a lot of people are suffering because of this season’s suspension. Current players are out of a job, up-and-coming players who aren’t quite good enough to join the national team are out of the game, and the fans are out of luck. The loss of a professional league is especially rough because of the success the US national team has had over the last year; a second-place finish at the Women’s World Cup is nothing to sneeze at, and it could have turned the WPS into a more legitimate and successful league. The proof is in the pudding: before the World Cup, the magicJack team was playing to crowds of less than 1,000, but crowds of nearly 5,000 started showing up after the national team’s second-place finish. And really, is it too much to ask for a generation of girls to grow up with a professional soccer league that doesn’t end as abruptly as the ill-fated WUSA? My primary emotion is frustration, and my secondary emotion is that I really just want to watch Amy LePeilbet play soccer.

The sex drive of men is something we are all comfortable with in this country. It’s funny and hormonal and slapstick (American Pie), it’s potentially uncontrollable, maniacal/homicidal (American Psycho), it is adulterous and is insatiable (American Beauty), it is fun and social (American Graffiti) and it is entrepreneurial (American Gigolo). But women? No. NC-17. XXXX. Stop it with the moaning.

It is not coincidental that the people behind terrorism aimed at shutting down access to reproductive health care are usually white, Christian, and middle class. That plays a significant role in why their actions, which involve things like threatening people with death, attempting to bomb facilities, and suggesting they have access to bioweapons, are apparently not considered terrorism. Quite simply, a failure to label domestic terrorism as such when it involves white, middle class Christians is a reflection of racism and the other -isms that dominate social attitudes in the US, because you can damn well bet that if the people involved were nonwhite or people of colour, low-income, and/or non-Christian, they would be treated as the enemy, and the government as well as the media would be vilifying them.

Instead, the vile tactics of the anti-abortion movement have been tolerated for an extended period of time, and this has given members of the movement a considerable degree of boldness and bravery. Dr. Tiller was shot in broad daylight in church. This is terrorism. And it’s time for everyone, not just the reproductive justice movement, to start talking about it like it is. This is terrorism. This is terrorism. This. Is. Terrorism.