When Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, announced her presidential run on Stephen Colbert’s Late Show this week, the American public was exposed to something that they hadn’t seen since the 1972 presidential run of Shirley Chisholm: a contender for the nation’s highest office who is a committed and vocal feminist.

Gillibrand’s presidential bid comes against the backdrop of her decade-long record in the Senate, where she has advocated for women’s rights with a tenacity and persistence rarely seen in that body. She has drafted bills that would provide mandatory paid family leave, so that workers can afford to take time off for pregnancies and to do the tasks that are disproportionately done by women – things like childcare, or tending to sick family members.

Gillibrand has called on Donald Trump to resign over the sexual assault allegations against him, and she wrote and passed legislation that changed the way that Congress handled its own sexual harassment lawsuits, ensuring that taxpayers would not be on the hook for settlements or hush money meant to cover up a congressman’s bad behavior. She has worked to elect more women to office, and she makes a point of talking about other Democratic women’s accomplishments in public. She supports legislation that would ban forced arbitration in sexual harassment cases, an issue that many feminists see as a primary obstacle in the fight against sex discrimination in the workplace. And she has been outspoken about the need to reduce the rates of maternal and infant mortality, which are higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country, particularly for black women.

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Gillibrand has not always been consistent in her policy positions: she used to represent a conservative rural district in the House of Representatives, and as a congresswoman her positions on guns and immigration were far to the right of where they are now. But her feminism has remained a constant: she has always been looking for ways to reduce the kinds of suffering and indignity that women are subjected to because they are women. In 2013, asked why she spent so much effort on women’s issues, Gillibrand turned the question around. “Well, why do you focus on issues that pertain to 52% of the population? It’s pretty important.”

Gillibrand became the object of ire and vilification by those who wished that Franken could remain in the Senate

Of course, it is her feminism that has created controversy around Gillibrand, and attracted the particular strain of virulent hatred that is reserved for women who stand up to sexism. In particular, as soon as she announced her presidential campaign, critics were quick to condemn her 2017 call for the resignation of Senator Al Franken over allegations of sexual abuse.

Gillibrand was not the only one of Franken’s colleagues to call for his resignation: about 30 Senate Democrats, beginning with women, publicly stated that he should resign over the course of one day in December 2017. But Gillibrand was the first, and she became the object of ire and vilification by those who wished that Franken could remain in the Senate. People on Twitter decried what Gillibrand “did to” Franken; they said that she had “thrown him under the bus.” There was a lot of anger by Franken supporters after he finally did resign, and most of that anger has been directed at Gillibrand; very little was directed at Franken himself.

That’s notable, because the allegations against Franken were numerous, credible, consistent and gross. Three women who encountered Franken in a professional capacity say that Franken kissed them abruptly, without invitation, and with physical force; one of those women described the kiss as “wet, open-mouthed”. In one instance, when confronted, Franken is alleged to have claimed that the forced kiss was his “right as an entertainer”. Four other women say that he groped their asses or breasts, and one of those women says that Franken asked her to follow him into a bathroom. (Parts of these allegations Franken has denied; others he has hedged on or claimed not to remember.)

Much of the controversy surrounding Franken centered on a photo of him, where he can be seen with his hands over the breasts of an unconscious woman. He grins wildly at the camera. Defenders of Franken have responded that the photo is just a joke, and this is true. It is a joke where the punchline is the idea that women might have dignity. If I had to put money on it, I would bet that Gillibrand didn’t laugh.

Ours is a culture well practiced in shifting blame for men’s choices on to women

The ire directed at Gillibrand over Franken’s behavior is misplaced, but it is not unusual. Ours is a culture well practiced in shifting blame for men’s choices on to women. Women are blamed for the things men do to them or the things that men do to others; they are blamed because they didn’t say anything, and they are blamed when they do say something.

Some feminists have pointed out that this logic does a disservice to men, implying that men are either too corrupt, too stupid, or too incompetent to be held accountable for themselves. And this is indeed an insulting and unrealistically low estimation of men’s faculties. But the ire directed at Gillibrand does not come from a presumption that Franken could not have stooped himself to doing the things he is accused of, and it does not come from a presumption that Gillibrand could have, or should have been able to stop him herself. Instead, what provokes this anger is the idea that our shared commitment to women’s equality might be more than just a polite pretense; that the idea that women have rights and dignity, and that those rights and dignity should not be violated, might actually be enforced.

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This misogyny will hurt Gillibrand’s presidential hopes; it will be used to divide Democrats among themselves over a contentious social issue and to flame a sexist backlash to the #MeToo movement. George Soros, the billionaire and major Democratic party donor, has already said that the incident makes him wary of Gillibrand as a candidate. Many of those who have attacked Gillibrand on this issue allege that she used the allegations against Franken as a way to further her own career, but in light of these severe and predictable setbacks to her presidential ambitions, this doesn’t ring true. A more plausible explanation for Gillibrand’s choice to call for Franken’s resignation is that she saw a choice between principle and convenience, and chose the former.

It’s not the first time that Gillibrand has suffered retaliation for her feminism. She has consistently taken these stands for women even when they are deeply unpopular, even when she has to stand alone. This was the case with her work to curb sexual harassment and assault in the military. The effort is a longtime passion of Gillibrand’s, one that she has been more committed to than any other lawmaker in Congress. And it has cost her. When she proposed new rules that would make it harder for the military to conceal or ignore sexual violence, or to retaliate against personnel who complained about it, Gillibrand faced fierce and public pushback from a Pentagon that is slow to take women’s rights seriously and quick to reject oversight. She stood her ground. I hope she does the same now, too