22 Things You Can Only Relate To As A Woman Trying To Run For President

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1. Your relevant political experience doesn’t mean all that much.

2. How often you’re seen smiling matters more.

3. Remember: you can’t show your emotions. It makes you seem weak.

4. But also, you can’t entirely hide your emotions either. It makes you seem cold.

5. So, yeah, find a perfect balance of showing your emotions that isn’t proving that you have them but also doesn’t make people think you’re a robot.

6. Dealing with the emotion thing is really hard.

7. But for some reason, a good chunk of your campaign is trying to prove to the public that you’re a real fucking human. Which is a strategy you don’t remember your husband using when he ran.

8. You can’t show your passion for the job. It makes you seem crazy.

9. Actually, maybe you should try to show a little passion? Because otherwise you seem walled off.

10. And don’t seem too excited, because you’ll be dismissed as overeager and that’s scary to a lot of people.

11. Be a strong force. But not too strong. You don’t want to seem threatening.

12. Have your voice be heard, but don’t be so loud about it.

13. When you express that you are proud that you personally decided to follow your career instead of, say, baking cookies, you will get destroyed by the GOP over it.

14. And eventually you will be coerced into publicly baking those cookies you said you were proud you chose your career over.

15. Which is confusing because you weren’t saying baking cookies was bad, but that it’s annoying people forget that women can choose to not bake them too.

16. You know the country needs change. You know the people want change. But people are, for some reason, scared of a woman who can create that change—even if they won’t admit it.

17. That’s why only you, a woman, could be up against a man with no experience, no solid plans, and who says outrageous and, more often than not, pretty offensive things, but still be fighting neck and neck with him in the polls.

18. Getting sick during your campaign will somehow be used viciously against you. Despite the fact that FDR had polio, Kennedy had Addison’s, Reagan showed signs of Alzheimer’s during his second term, Cleveland had mouth cancer, and Eisenhower had a heart attack just over a year before he was elected. To name a few.

19. You’re alone. You’re looking at a long line of men who held the position before you as role models.

20. “Pantsuit” is the second option that pops up when you google your name.

21. A lot of people don’t want you to be president. That’s fine. But let’s not pretend that a noticeable amount of them specifically don’t want you to be president because you’re a woman.

22. A lot of people do want you to be president. That’s even better! But let’s not pretend that those people who support you will be condemned and bullied for “only liking you because you’re a woman.” Even if that isn’t at all true. It sucks.