In the perspective of this 14-year-old girl, the 2016 election is not looking the way it did four years ago. As I do not like any of the candidates vying for a spot in the office, I am worried to see who becomes the next President of the United States. It’s currently looking as if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are going to be the nominees for their parties, but America’s hatred for both of these candidates is undeniable.

As it is one of the first times a woman is running for president, I would expect citizens to be feeling a mixture of emotions—happy, excited, maybe even angry, but definitely ready to experience something new. I would also expect women to be ecstatic for a fellow woman, but this is not the case for many.
Out of all of the feminist accounts I follow on social media, a definite majority of them are against Hillary Clinton. When I first found out about some feminist’s hatred for Hillary, I was blown away. I really had no opinion on whether or not I liked Hillary, but, because Hillary is a woman, I expected other women’s rights activists to support her because of her gender. This is exactly the thinking that these feminists do not support.

These feminists are the polar opposite of major companies, like Planned Parenthood, who have shown their full support by endorsing Mrs. Clinton. They feel that because the whole point of feminism is for both males and females to be seen as equals, if people were to like Mrs. Clinton just because she is a woman, that would be contradicting what they’re fighting for—equality. They don’t want to feel like it’s their obligation to vote for her because a woman has never been president, they want to vote for the person they think will be the best.

One of the feminists accounts on Instagram, “feminist101,” posted a photograph of Hillary Clinton saying that you can be both a “feminist” and “pro-life” and captioned it: “Oh yes you can totally be a feminist and claim to advocate rights for women while simultaneously trying to take away a woman’s right to her own body [rolling eyes Emojis].” The extreme sarcasm in these words shines through, and so do the obvious conflicting views with Hillary’s.
Looking back on my previous thought that women are “required” to vote for another woman, I cannot believe how naive I was. There are abundances of photographs poking fun or dissing Hillary Clinton, and it’s apparent that many people do think that Hillary is using her gender to try to boost her popularity.

On April 26, Donald Trump, in his victory speech, accused Clinton of playing “the women card.” “She’s got nothing else going,” he said. “And frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote.” Although Trump put his words bluntly, almost cruelly, it could be one of the rare occasions in which some feminists agree with him, and I do too. I don’t think Hillary would have gotten much of the support if she were a man, and I think she knows that and uses it to her advantage. This does not mean that she is a bad person, just that she knows the benefits she has over her competitors.
So in what position does this leave America? The two most probable candidates also serve as the two most hated candidates, so whoever wins will leave his or her many opposers in a position where they’re stuck with someone that they don’t want to be president for four years.

It’s difficult to tell what the outcome of this race will be, but one thing is for certain, whatever happens, someone will be unhappy.