I turned on NPR this morning while getting ready for work, like I always do. First thing I heard was David Greene announcing that Hillary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination, becoming the first woman to top a major party ticket. Quite unexpectedly, I burst into tears.

Not because I was surprised; I was interested to see how the Sanders contingent would weigh in in Philadelphia, but I didn’t think Bernie would ultimately be nominated. Not because I am particularly excited about Hillary; truthfully I’m pretty lukewarm on her, but I have nothing like the vitriol some do for her.

I remembered my first lessons in American history and civics as a little girl. The parade of men from Christopher Columbus to Thomas Jefferson to George Washington to Abraham Lincoln to FDR to JFK. One man after another, each of them piling into a mass of world-changers and nation-builders. I remember thinking, where are the women? I expressed some thought like this to some dumb boy on the playground and he said girls couldn’t be president. 

There were women mentioned here and there—Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Hellen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt—and they were always someone’s wife or mother, or if they weren't it was explicit in their story that they were unmarried and/or childless. Meanwhile, all the men were just themselves, their wives and children or the absence thereof never mentioned. 

I remember when Geraldine Ferraro was running with Walter Mondale in 1984. My grandmother said something about how exciting it was that a woman was running on a presidential ticket; and my grandfather snapped at her and told her it was ridiculous—a woman’s place was in the home with her family, not in politics.

I remember growing up determined to go toe-to-toe with boys. I tried to run faster, hit harder, climb higher. I scooped up blue-bellied lizards and garter snakes out of bushes and held them up defiantly as if to say, see, girls can do this too.

I remember during Bill Clinton’s presidency when, as first lady, Hillary had taken on the heady task of health care reform. I was watching the news and I saw a clip of an embittered man disdainfully protesting—he’d voted for Clinton, not Clinton’s wife.

Just few days ago on the news some pundit was asking people if Hillary Clinton were a family member, who would she be? The news being that no one thought of her as a mother—but mostly a scary aunt—and wasn't that so worrisome? I thought about what family member Donald Trump would be. Definitely the creepy uncle who you don’t want around the teenage girls. But I’m sure no one is asking anyone that question, because we don’t think about male candidates that way. 

I burst into tears because now no one can tell a little girl on the playground that a woman can’t be president. Because now no matter what goes down in November, history will be forced to recognize that it took until fucking 2016 for America to seriously consider a woman to be the leader of the so-called free world. I burst into tears because maybe, if she wins, all daughters everywhere will stand a little taller, have a little more confidence, have a crucial counterpoint to Kim Kardashian et al. They will be able to simply be themselves in their own context, instead of someone else’s. 

Just maybe.  

Then again, considering how many front pages seemed a little confused about which Clinton it was who won the nomination, maybe not.