IN 1973, my mother’s first husband was killed in a car crash in downtown St. Louis. My brother, Jason, was nine months old. In swift succession, my mother lost the following things: the father of her first child; access to a credit card; her car insurance; and the ability to take out a loan. The first was terrible luck. The other things were taken from her because she was a single woman — with a son, to boot — it was the 1970s, and, as she put it, “you were not considered legitimate at that time unless you had a man in your life.”
Four decades later, my mom is looking forward to having the chance to vote, she hopes, for this country’s first female president. She and Hillary Clinton are a year apart in age. Though my mom’s experiences are so different from my own, they serve as a constant reminder to me of the work it’s taken for Mrs. Clinton to get where she is today, and the force of society’s attitudes about women, and their value, that she has been pushing against.
My mom described to me the day she got the call about the cancellation of her car insurance. Because of her husband’s accident, the insurance company simply took it away. Even at the time, this wasn’t legal, but it’s what happened. She panicked and cried and pleaded. Without car insurance, she couldn’t safely drive her car, so she couldn’t get a job. She called three different insurance companies until finally, she got on the line with a kindhearted agent — the same one she loyally uses to this day. He advised her to get into her car and drive carefully to his office, so he could see what he could do.
She got the insurance. So now she could get to work, if she had a job. Before her husband died, she’d been taking care of Jason during the day, and going to school for her college degree at night. But now she needed an income and when she got to the final round of interviewing in a research department at a local university, she felt hopeful.
In their final face-to-face meeting, the hiring manager told her that while she was perfectly qualified, they were going to give the position to a man instead. He had a family to support, after all.
“But I have my son to support,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “he has a wife and child. So we’re going to give the job to him.”
She’d worked in labs at the university before, so when a friend told her about a part-time job with a young doctor, she leapt on the opportunity, even though what she needed was full-time work.
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The young doctor was a flirt. She was civil enough to him; at 24, she knew that the power dynamic in such a situation would not allow for any complaints.
Part of the job was using an electron microscope to examine specimens in a dark room that locked from the inside, so that no one would come in and ruin your work with a flood of light. One day she and the young doctor were using the microscope together, which wasn’t so unusual. But then he asked her if she knew where he could get some pot. She said she hadn’t the faintest idea (my mother was just about the only person not getting high in the 1970s). He was incredulous. A minute later, he grabbed her high up on her inner thigh and growled something vulgar in her ear.
Her shock propelled her from the room. Of course, there was no one she could tell. Two days later, she was let go.
Once she went to buy a couch on credit. The salesman asked her, “What’s your husband’s income?”
She replied, “He’s dead.” The store’s policy held that she couldn’t buy anything with a loan unless she could state how much money her husband made. “But he’s dead,” she repeated.
“Well, what was his income?”
Once she supplied her dead husband’s monthly income, the couch was hers.
Recently my mom and I were talking on the phone, and I asked her how she was feeling about the election.
“I always feel good about Hillary,” she replied.
For the first time in her life, my mom sees someone who can directly relate to her own experiences in a strong position to become president. Mrs. Clinton has led so many charges during her political career that have supported women, including fighting relentlessly for reproductive rights and speaking up for women and girls worldwide when she was secretary of state.
At a town hall a few months ago, a young man asked Mrs. Clinton why young people lacked enthusiasm for her.
She sounded a bit wounded, but she tried to explain what she’d been up against for so many years. Despite all the criticisms, she said, over the course of several decades in the public eye, all she could do was continue to stand her ground.
I think of my mom, and the obstacles she faced every day as a single mother. And yet she put one foot in front of the other, and got jobs and did her best to keep them. Eventually, she even put herself through college.
She survived the 1970s. She reveled in the days of Ms. Magazine and the women’s liberation movement. She met my dad, who adopted Jason and loved him like his own son. They continued to build a family together, and my dad supported her getting a graduate degree while they raised four kids.
Political decisions and opinions are personal and emotional — maybe more so than they are ever practical. Our identities are tied up in our choice of candidate in any given election cycle. This person represents me. It’s never been a question that Mrs. Clinton would be my chosen candidate. For me, it’s not just that she’s a woman who fights for women. It’s her giant heap of experience in governing — a heap so much higher than any other candidate’s.
And yes, I also love that she is always the last woman standing. She has survived ceaseless attacks. It must get very tiring, and yet she never flags. She has been called a bitch and a witch and characterized as Lady Macbeth. She’s shrill, she shouts, she barks. She’s uninspiring, she’s unlikable and she’s not exciting the base. Sometimes I think that many people in this country are still scared to see a powerful woman. But I am more ready for her than ever.
In the years when my mom was a single mother, people commented on her lifestyle with alarming frequency. Why wasn’t she living with her parents, they wanted to know. Wasn’t she worried that if she didn’t marry again soon, her son would grow up to be gay? Her landlord came over after her husband died, hemming and hawing, saying how sorry she was, but also that she was hoping my mom might move out to be closer to family, which would probably be better for everyone.
Well. My mother persevered. She smiled politely and bit her tongue and did what she had to do to survive those rough years.
Remind you of anyone?
