Elizabeth Warren ended her bid for president on Thursday. It was the right thing to do after her poor performance coming out of Super Tuesday. She placed third in her home state. The voters have spoken, and the numbers suggest that Democrats weren’t ready to make what many saw as the risk of choosing a woman in the fight against Donald Trump.

For many who had pinned their hopes on Warren's historic run, and the possibility that she would be the first woman president, the news is gutting. It’s hard not to have a bit of 2016 déjà vu at this moment. Here we are again: The most qualified person in the room is no longer a contender to win the election.

And it’s probably because she's a woman.

The statement sounds simplistic, almost ignorant. If I said it on Twitter, I’d surely be torn apart for an inability to understand the very complex dynamics of electoral politics. The “but it’s not about gender” takes are being written in earnest across the internet as we speak. And comparing Elizabeth Warren to Hillary Clinton? How dare you!

It’s true that Clinton was probably not the best person for progressives to pin their hopes on as the first viable woman candidate. But she was the only one in the history of the United States to get that close to the White House. It felt like she could do it all: get the most votes (which she did), beat Trump, and be the first woman president in the White House. For some, that seemed good enough. But it didn’t work. People thought she had too much baggage, too much dirt on her hands; she was really “unlikable.”

But when the right woman comes around, without all the messy history, Democrats will unify around her candidacy. It seemed logical enough. Of course, we all want a woman president!

But if Elizabeth Warren is not that woman, who is she?

Warren was all the things she needed to be: charismatic, peppy, extremely well prepared, a brilliant law professor who had a well-thought-through policy for everything. She owned debate stages. She campaigned on progressive values, she had a track record of success, and she was determined to root out corruption in Washington. She made sense as the Democratic nominee for other reasons too: She was from a struggling family, worked as a public school teacher, and has several brothers who served in the military. She was so qualified it makes you wonder what exactly is required to be electable — until that answer becomes crystal clear.

Warren never stood a chance, and almost all the reasons why are rooted in sexism and the side effects of sexism. Her “electability” was impacted by the idea that a woman is not electable because of our history of sexism. Her “lecturing” nature was a downside — voters don’t want to be “talked down to,” especially by a woman who is old enough to be their grandma! The political calculation that we can’t trust this country to vote for a woman against Trump is an endless circle of chicken and egg. If we don’t keep running women candidates, we’ll never find out; if we are too afraid to run a woman candidate, the naysayers win.

There were, of course, some missteps in Warren's campaign, including the claims to Native American ancestry and the lingering questions about her Medicare for all plan. Conflating someone’s identity with the electoral process is complicated. There are endless criteria and litmus tests that lead to someone getting elected, and being popular or likable is not necessarily chief among them (if our current administration tells us anything, it’s this). And it goes without saying that just because someone might relate to the identity of a candidate, they may not agree with their policy positions or vision for the country.