Women146;s support for Hillary rises

Even Democratic women with no intention of voting for Clinton found themselves drawn into the debate and shaken by what briefly seemed like a humiliating end to the most promising female candidacy in American history.

The process seems to have changed a few minds, at least for now.

8220;I was really pained by the thought that her campaign really was over,8221; said Amy Rees, a stay-at-home mother in San Francisco who will vote in the California Democratic primary on February 5. 8220;I kept thinking that the truth is, a woman 8212; even a woman of her unquestioned intelligence and preparedness8212;can8217;t get even a single primary win. It really stung.8221;

Rees had favored Senator Barack Obama of Illinois; now she is thinking of voting for Clinton.

Until a few weeks ago, Clinton, of New York, hardly seemed like someone in need of defending8212; from sexism or anything else. She was the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was a Clinton. And as a former first lady, she was a complicated test case for female achievement. By losing the first presidential contest, Clinton may have succeeded in getting more women to see her as she presents herself: not a dominant figure of power, but a woman trying to break what she has called 8220;the highest and hardest glass ceiling8221; in America. 8220;I do want Hillary Rodham Clinton to take the White House, but until she lost Iowa, I didn8217;t realise how much, or how much it had to do with her being a woman,8221; said Allison Smith-Estelle, 37, director of a program against domestic violence in Red Lodge, Mont.

What bothered them as much as the Iowa results, said several dozen women in states with coming primaries, was the gleeful reaction to her defeat and what seemed like unfair jabs in the final moments before the New Hampshire voting.

Michelle Six, 36, a lawyer and John Edwards supporter in Los Angeles, said she was horrified to hear Obama tell . Clinton she was 8220;likable enough8221; in a Democratic debate on Saturday. Six said she found the line condescending, and an echo of other unkind remarks by other men about women over the years. At work, Six said, she listened to male colleagues make fun of Clinton for choking up at a campaign appearance in New Hampshire. 8220;She8217;s over,8221; one chortled, Six said. With that, Clinton 8220;may just have earned my vote8221;, Six said, adding, 8220;I don8217;t know if I was super-conscious8221; of the gender factor in the race before then.

Other women mentioned how they were shocked to see how the only female candidate was perceived by some voters. For Jodi Cohen, 31, a recruiter in Orange County, California, it was the relative who recently told her that he admired Bill Clinton but would not vote for his wife because she had stayed with her husband after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Priya Chaudhry, 31, a lawyer in New York and a supporter of Clinton said she heard that criticism all the time. 8220;They punish the woman who stood by him,8221; Chaudhry said, 8220;but forgive the adulterer himself?8221; Some women said Clinton8217;s teary moment, which many women said they found moving, seemed to bewilder skeptical husbands, sons and male colleagues. 8220;There8217;s probably not a working woman over 40 who hasn8217;t found herself in a similar situation, where her work performance is being questioned or challenged and she feels so strongly about her actions or vision that she wells up,8221; said Lisa Goff, a freelance writer,8220;Hillary handled that moment the way we all hope to, by remaining articulate and not breaking into tears.8221;