To avoid further pressurizing the situation—and setting Hillary up for massive failure—Clinton supporters (especially women) should try to control their expectations in terms of what the first woman president can accomplish. “You can have a woman in the highest office in the land, but that office is still a highly masculinized office,” said Dittmar, noting that Americans have typically looked for presidents who are “heroic, singular leaders” and somewhat “paternal.” Thus one challenge for Clinton will be to strike a balance between living up to the existing cultural norms of the institution even as she redefines it.

“Institutions hold on to status quo,” said Dittmar. And changing them can be a heavy lift. “It’s going to take work. Just as it took work for us finally to take seriously a woman candidate,” said Dittmar. “Women have been running for president for close to 150 years. And it’s taken all of those women to sort of chip away at expectations that the presidency is only a male bastion of power.”

People should also take care to avoid (even subconsciously) seeing Hillary’s inevitable stumbles and failures through the prism of gender. “The expectations placed on her shoulders in regards to gender are huge,” said Oklahoma State’s Jalalzai. Because of the polarized nature of U.S. politics, she said, “It’s hard for any president to get anything done.” But because Clinton would be the first woman to hold the post, people might see her performance as somehow tied to being a woman. “We don’t do that for men. We don’t ever say George W. Bush was a bad president because he was a guy,” said Jalalzai. “We don’t question men as political leaders because of their maleness.” But women are still to some degree “outsiders” in this role, noted Jalalzai. “Even if Hillary Clinton wins the ultimate prize, she is going to be viewed through that lens as a first and a novelty.” And if her presidency turns out to be unsuccessful? “The parties are not going to nominate another women [for a while],” said Jalalzai.

Worse still, said Huddy, women tend to take on the failures of a woman leader. “If she fails, a lot of women are going to feel that it is a personal failure.”

One of the most annoying parts of all this? It can be tough for women leaders to push back against sexist attacks without inviting even more sneering. “You can try to call people out on it, but you have to be a little bit careful,” said Huddy. “People will say you’re playing the woman card, that you’re a crybaby, that you can’t handle it.”

“Sexism is more socially acceptable than racism,” said Jennifer Lawless, of American University. Multiple women, in fact, brought up a couple of examples from Hillary’s 2008 campaign. One was the low-grade sexism of some in the mainstream media. (MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is still considered the worst offender, with his “Nurse Ratched” crack and gripes about Hillary’s “cackle.”) Then there were the two hecklers at a New Hampshire rally who waved signs and chanted, “Iron my shirt!” Clinton laughed it off, and the incident was reported mostly as dumbass 20-something guys acting like dumbass 20-something guys. But if someone had yelled an equivalently demeaning remark at Obama—like, say, “Shine my shoes!”—the public response likely would have been very different.