Reading Time: 8 minutes Hillary Clinton and her directness in those First Lady days were a bit unsettling for me as well; nonetheless, the backlash felt unfair—in a double-standard sort of way—and whether I “liked” her or not wasn’t the point. I defended a woman’s rightful place to be smart and determined and capable and a leader! And yes, she, and many other women making their way in business or politics would be called “pushy” and “hard to work with” or much worse—as we saw and heard years later during the run-up to the 2016 election. “Brace yourself,” Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s director of communications during her presidential run, wrote in Dear Madam President, “nothing draws fire like a woman moving forward.”