by Connie Schultz
"Whew," the collective sigh will sound. "Glad that's over."
Don't pop the corks just yet.
Last week, I was invited to celebrate the opening of the new Women's Center at Ohio University. About a hundred people, mostly female students, gathered for me to say a few words and then for them to share what's on their minds.
The young women didn't waste any time on happy-face pretenses, as one after another stood and asked questions.
"How can you be a strong woman and not have others call you a bitch?"
"How do you keep going when others ridicule you?"
"Can you really be a strong woman and still have men like you?"
One woman stood up and, in a halted voice, managed one sentence before the tears started to fall: "Someone gave me a Hillary nutcracker as a gift."
The room fell silent. A friend grabbed her hand, and several older women in the audience started wiping their eyes.
"I can see that felt personal and that it hurt you," I said slowly. She nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
I looked out at that room full of young women and felt the stomach-clenching certainty that these were no ordinary storm clouds swirling overhead. We have only begun to feel the damage of the punch-and-pummel pundits who couldn't wrap their limited minds around the first woman to win a presidential primary, again and again.
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