Dear Every Lovely Woman,
It is sad to start this letter with a bad news. A few days ago, in presidential election, the female candidate Hillary Clinton -probably the most influential and clever professional female politician of today- was defeated. I am not telling you about my political view. I am not a US citizen so I don’t care about the president of United States, seriously. However, we should remember this day to be written in history of women’s rights even if you are a white woman, a black woman, an Asian woman, a Hispanic woman, or even any race of man.
We all know that women’s life was much worse in the past, and gender gap is still remaining these days. This is the reason why women have fought for equality and suffrage for a long time, and we believed the world has been changing. However, we can’t deny the reality of gender discrimination has been found in this election. One thing that makes us more painful is that Hillary Clinton is a clever person as a woman. She is a white middle-upper class, was a lawyer who went Yale law school, a post-first lady, a democratic senator, a minister of justice, and finally a presidential candidate. This career and ability would also be rare even if she was a man. She was defeated in the election not because of her ignorance of politics or insufficient career. So what can we think now? It is sad but I can’t stop thinking about gender.
For sure, I think gender is not the only reason she couldn’t win the election. Maybe there are other reasons of her loss, which I don’t care as a foreigner. However, what if changing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s position? Could Hillary become the next president of United States? What if she was born as a billionaire’s fourth “daughter,” became one of the richest “female” real estate tycoon, was a “female” entertainer as well as a business man, married three young and handsome men and had five children from different husbands, also had Mister USA and Mister Universe so she frequently came in to models’ dressing room, had too many sex scandals, had no political experience and foundation in her political party, was well known as rude talks including racism, heterosexism, misandry, and xenophobia, and had numerous records of sexual harassment? Could she be elected as the next president? No, I bet she wouldn’t even be able to be selected as a candidate. Not only because of her action, but also her gender. A funny thing is that everything listed above is what Donald Trump has done, and he was selected as the next president. What is difference between them? Same records, different gender?
Hillary’s loss is a big pain not only for her supporters in the United States but for women all over the world. What is our frustration coming from Hillary’s loss? Hillary is one of the most popular role models for women. But the reason is not either we just put ourselves in her shoes or we believe her success can make us successful. Admiring a professional woman such as Hillary means that women have desire and will of achievement in our life. However, it is nearly impossible for normal women to be like Hillary. Nevertheless, many of us wanted Hillary’s victory because of our possibility of little victory. If a woman with a wonderful career is defeated because of gender discrimination, we, normal people, can’t even imagine hopeful future. We don’t know when we can see the second Hillary, who has blessed ability, and don’t know if it is possible to have second Hillary again.
On the other hand, the fact that Trump was elected means men can win in competitions with nothing but gender. Hillary made a lot of effort and achieved countless success in political field as a woman as well as a human being. But the citizen’s choice was Trump. Even though he is a successful business man, he does not respect his citizen including women while Hillary respects both women and men. Did she have to make more effort than her current career to beat Trump?
Once again, I don’t support Hillary. I don’t totally agree with her political stance and she also has other faults. However, her loss makes me sad because it is exactly what most women have faced for thousands of times. And her loss made me send you this letter because I know you also had similar experiences. How long and many times have we been discriminated in schools, society, professional field, promotion, annual salary negotiations, or suffrage? Many times, even if you made the same achievement, or sometimes, even though your achievement is better than male colleague or peer, your effort was devaluated, or you were evaluated by your appearance. In this election, I saw the similar process. The society is like a steep cliff for women. This election showed us it was steeper than we though. The emotion that men felt about Hillary’s loss was too different from women’s. They may not understand why we are too serious about it. They may think we are overreacting. However, this is our war. Women will fall from the cliff even if we step a little further from the cliff by an accident. This is a matter of survival or life and death.
Finally, what should we do now? What can lead us to succeed in feminism and save women? I think there is one way. To have a power! Also, we should be cold-blooded to gain the power and to succeed. Only the power women get will give real women’s liberation. Women’s power will break the glass ceiling. In Hillary Clinton’s concession speech, she encouraged little girls not to have doubt that they are valuable and deserving every chance to achieve their own dreams. Likewise, we shouldn’t stop thinking that we can change the world. We should not think like “We can’t escape from the reality because Hillary also lost”, but like “Now we can break the glass ceiling because Hillary did well till now.” This fight will take a long time. However, we will finally achieve our goal. I wish you don’t lose the hope.
“Human’s rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights!”
Sincerely,
Da-eun Song
