There has been a lot of discussion on this site and elsewhere about why women support Hillary Clinton to the degree that they do. Some have acted as if it is only a gender thing as opposed to based on positions and policy. This is a false assumption and if you look at Hillary's record on women's issues and her proposals during this campaign you can see why women do support her based on the issues.
Hillary Clinton has been a strong defender of a woman's right to choose and has fought in opposition to the right wing's effort to take away that choice even in cases of the life of the woman, rape, or incest. Her voting record on choice issues has been rated as a 100% every year since she has been in the US Senate by NARAL. She also worked with Senator Patty Murray to get the FDA to accept the findings about and to make the Plan B pill available over the counter.
Hillary Clinton also understands that while women have been doing better in the comparison to men's salary that the equality still does not exist. Recent analysis have shown that women still only make 70% of what men make for the same job and minority women make even less. This is why Hillary Clinton introduced the Paycheck Fairness Act which gives the government more power to ensure that women are not discriminated aganist when it comes to equal pay. She also has funded women owned businesses and made more avenues available for women to get low interest loans or grants to open businesses. Hillary has also fought to help poor women not only in employment and business creation but advanced education and personal ecomonic support as well. The Business and Professional Women USA have given her ratings in the high seventies and eighties for her votes and the American Association of University Women have given her 100% ratings for support of such issues.
Hillary Clinton has taken a strong stance aganist the horror of human sex trafficking as well as other tragic circumstances that women face in many countries and has spoken about these issues both at home and while overseas.
It is a violation of human rights:
when babies are denied food or drowned because they are girls.
when women and girls are sold into prostitution.
when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned because their marriage dowries are too small.
when individual women are raped in their own communities and women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
when a leading cause of death among women 14 to 49 is the violence they are subjected to by their own relatives.
when girls are brutalized by genital mutilation.
when women are denied the right to plan their own families and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
If there is one message that echoes forth, let it be that human rights are women’s rights. and women’s rights are human rights.
Hillary Clinton believes that women should not be penalized for their choices or attempts to be sucessful in their own right. Hillary is a founder of Vital Voices, a non-profit group that supports women in leadership across the world. She also stated in China in 1995, speaking about women's and human rights being the same, that
"Women comprise more than half the world’s population. Women are 70% of the world’s poor and illiterate. Much of the work we do is not valued--not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders. We need to understand that there is not one formula for how women should lead their lives. We must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every woman deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential."
As First Lady Hillary Clinton played a significant role in getting the Family and Medical Leave Act passed which assists women to ensure that they will not lose their jobs if they need extra time for pre pregnancy rest or post pregnancy recovery and both women and men in case they make the difficult (and in my opinion right) choice to put family members with a health difficulty first to feel safe in their employment. She also has been working with other Senators to expand the coverage that FMLA gives as well as adding a paid leave coverage into this protection.
These are the reasons why Hillary Clinton is a strong advocate for women and why many women support her candidacy regardless of gender. I would argue that this is also why all voters should think about what a Hillary Clinton Presidency would mean for their mothers, daughters, nieces, and our country as a whole.