Hillary Clinton is officially running for president, and that means we can look forward to nearly two years of commentary that's casually sexist, subtly sexist, overtly sexist, and sexist in the way that Hillary Clinton seems to have an unparalleled ability to bring out. But just because Clinton seems to engender some of the most deranged misogyny around doesn't mean everyone who opposes Clinton hates women.

There's already plenty of disingenuous hand-wringing on Twitter about whether opposition to Clinton means you're a sexist. Rest assured: It doesn't (although if you're already obsessing about whether people are going to call you a sexist on social media, it might hint that you have a bit of an issue). If you've never voted for a Democrat in your life and you think anything left of center is ruining America, then by all means, feel free to cast your ballot for the other guy — and it almost surely will be a guy. If you generally support Democrats but you're worried that some of them, including Clinton, are too cozy with the big banks, too hawkish on foreign policy, or so deferential to claims of "national security" that they fail to fight privacy violations and encroachments on civil liberties, question and criticize away (and hopefully you've been just as quick to criticize male Dems as female ones). With all the actual sexism thrown Clinton's way, no one needs to go hunting for more, and no one is going to suggest that a vote for someone else is de facto evidence of misogyny.

That said, there is a lot of actual sexism, but it isn't always obvious. The problem with Hillary Sexism is that many of the criticisms of Clinton are valid ones, but they're lobbed against her with a kind of vitriol, volume, and tone that one has to wonder if there isn't something else, other than a pure disagreement about policy, going on here.

The blatantly sexist comments about Clinton are so common it seems pedantic to repeat them, but here goes: Yes, you are being sexist if you don't like Clinton because she seems like a ball-buster or because you think she's kind of a bitch or if you just don't like her voice or because she just seems pushy. You are being sexist if you resent her because she reminds you of your ex wife. You are being sexist if you're afraid Clinton will make you drown in estrogen. You are being sexist if you feel the need to wax on about how you really hate those pantsuits.

It's the less blatant sexist commentary that's more disturbing, because the people making it surely don't think of themselves as holding sexist views, and so the criticisms they spout come with a veneer of legitimacy. For example, "she's not experienced," a critique already making the rounds. Lack of experience is a reasonable concern for any presidential candidate. But it seems misplaced when tacked onto a woman who has spent the past two decades in the political realm and is both a former senator and secretary of state. It seems especially misplaced when "he's not experienced" is less readily applied to male candidates, and even where it's a concern, it's rarely a deal breaker — politicians who are less experienced than Clinton include our sitting president, for example, and several of the presumptive Republican male contenders.

If Clinton is the only candidate whose lack of experience you zero in on — when, in fact, she brings significant experience to the position — maybe there's something other than "experience" that you have an issue with. Ditto concerns that she's going to raise an "insane" amount of money — the Supreme Court's gutting of campaign finance laws was certainly a loss for political participation and anyone who isn't super wealthy, but the Clinton campaign isn't unique or untrustworthy for noting that winning an election today actually does require an insane amount of money. And even ostensibly pro-Clinton arguments can be sexist when they focus on, say, the benefits of her hormonal makeup post-menopause (try to imagine someone writing, and any legitimate publication printing, a similar piece about Jeb Bush's aging prostate).

The tricky thing about sexism is that it's usually not intentional. There are relatively few people who sit around thinking, I really hate women and therefore don't want one to be president. It's more subconscious, manifesting in a visceral negative reaction to something a woman does that wouldn't be as much of an issue from a man. There is certainly a subset of people — mostly men, it seems, but not universally — who are so deeply invested in their Hillary-hate that you have to wonder how they get much else done aside from their manic frothing; it's these men who led writer Laura Kipnis to conclude that "you can tell a lot about a man by what he thinks about Hillary, maybe even everything. She's not just another presidential candidate, she's a sophisticated diagnostic instrument for calibrating male anxiety, which is running high." But Clinton has also been in the public eye for so long that it's hard not to have an opinion of her, which can make it difficult to suss out what's sexism and what's a more generalized distaste for a public figure. When ideas about what sexism looks like intersect with real, complicated individuals, there may be no bright line between "sexist" and "not sexist." For many women, discerning whether commentary about Clinton is sexist or not takes the form of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's famous definition of obscenity: "I know it when I see it."

To state the obvious, Hillary Clinton is a woman. She is the first woman to be in the position to capture the presidential nomination of a major party, and she is Hillary Clinton — one of the most well known women on the planet, the polar opposite of a political blank slate. And she's also an icon onto whom many pin their hopes and ideals. She could be the first female president, and for the people who should be Clinton's natural supporters (Democrats, left-leaning women and men, women who want to see themselves reflected in the halls of power), firsts that significant come with disappointments and unmet expectations — the desire for a figurehead to embody everything you want her to, and the cynicism when she doesn't. Conversations about Clinton don't just include the hard misogyny of the dedicated few who insist on calling her a bitch, or the softer sexism of those who at least know to use coded language about her "demeanor" or her "entitlement" or that she's "abrasive." Those conversations also include the disappointments and the frustrations that come with the spectacular letdown of realizing your hero is a human woman, and a savvy, sophisticated political animal at that — not a perfect feminist, not the champion of your cause, not the mentor you wish you had. When firsts like Clinton get put on a pedestal, there's a long way for them to fall, and the result can be a particularly venomous anger borne from a deep sense of betrayal. A candidate who looks more or less like almost every previous president doesn't run that same risk of becoming an inspirational symbol and then alienating the inspired when it turns out he was a politician all along. A candidate who looks more or less like almost every previous president has more room to maneuver, to not be perfectly representative, to disappoint without calling his entire platform into question. You can call that double standard sexist or simply sex-related, but the fog of disillusionment already trailing Clinton adds another layer to the complicated story of how Americans respond to her candidacy.

Of course, for plenty of people, Clinton is the ideal champion. And as much as Hillary Sexism is real, so too is the bulldozing of dissent from those who believe that because Clinton is the first, and because there's so much sexism leveled at her, that she deserves unified support, even at this stage. But uncritical unified support is rarely extended to any primary candidate, nor should it be. The best thing we can do is treat Clinton like any other politician seeking to earn our votes: Question Clinton's policy positions, her Wall Street connections, her hedging on potentially controversial positions, the fact that a Clinton presidency will likely be a continued march toward the consolidation of power in the executive branch, and a million other things. If you never support Democrats, you're not sexist for declining to support this one too. If you typically hold your nose and vote for Dems after months of criticizing their positions, great, criticize Clinton to your heart's content. Just don't expect her to be everything you want or hold her to a different standard than that of her male counterparts. And please leave your ex, estrogen, and her pantsuits out of it.

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Jill Filipovic senior political writer Jill Filipovic is a contributing writer for cosmopolitan.com.

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