Young People With Daughters Are More Likely To Support Hillary Clinton, Stats Show

Gender politics are having a huge impact on the 2016 presidential race. It was just a week ago that Gloria Steinem, followed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, took major heat for their positions on how women are reacting to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. Now, new polling analysis from The Washington Post confirmed what plenty of parents likely already know: young people with daughters are likely to support Clinton over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to New York Magazine.

There's just something about having a daughter that makes even the most casual feminist stand up and start to take notice of all the ways in which our society tells young women that they're not good enough or not smart enough to take on the boys. There's just a switch that gets flipped, in my opinion, when you stare down at your girl and dream about her future and slowly realize how much harder she'll have to work to prove herself compared to the boys.

That's why it's not surprising at all that pollsters have noticed that younger voters 18 to 29 years old — who are far more likely to throw their support behind Sanders — will actually support Clinton if those young people have a daughter. On the flip side, young voters with no children, or young voters with only sons, are more likely to vote Sanders.

From my own experience, as the mother of a daughter, this makes all the sense in the world. It's impossible to ignore all the hate Clinton gets just for being a woman. She can't even use the bathroom during a debate without being called "disgusting" by Donald Trump. Nevermind all the cheap shots about her "shouting" or the criticism she takes for her husband's shady behavior from more than two decades ago.

That's the funny thing about sexism and misogyny: when you have a little girl of your own that you're trying to protect, you tend to take these things more personally. The thought that she'd ever be treated as unfairly as Clinton, just for being a woman, is pretty awful to think about. And, if throwing your vote behind the first real lady contender for the president of the U.S. is one way to push back, then it's a no brainer.