FOR most of her career, Hillary Clinton suffered for being a feminist.

Retaining her last name helped cost her husband the governorship of Arkansas in 1980 (after that, she became a Clinton). She was mocked in 1992 for saying she wouldn’t be “some little woman standing by my man,” and for asserting, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession.”

(Outrage at her “bitchiness” — a standard put-down of a strong woman — was such that Clinton tried to mollify critics by participating in a bake-off sponsored by Family Circle magazine. That must have stung. But hold on: Clinton’s recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies then triumphed over Barbara Bush’s cookie recipe, upholding the honor of career moms everywhere.)

Even when Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, there were put-downs, like the two men from a radio show heckling her, “Iron my shirt!”

So it’s a measure of how much the country has changed that these days Clinton is running as a feminist, after decades of skirting the issue. In 2008 she barely mentioned her gender; now it’s a refrain. “This really comes down to whether I can encourage and mobilize women to vote for the first woman president,” Time quoted her as saying. She even said she’d be open to choosing a woman as her running mate (go, Amy Klobuchar!).