Understandably, the hurt, bitterness and anger linger. So much so that some supporters are threatening to vote against their best interests - and their daughters' best interests - or, worse yet, not vote at all.
"Sexism is rampant and politically acceptable," one woman reader wrote.
"I'm thinking of writing Hillary in," said another aggrieved e-mailer, willing to waste her precious vote to make a moot point.
A step backward
While some may bolt to John McCain, the maverick standard-bearer for women's rights who voted against equal pay for women, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and a woman's right to choose, I'm not buying the threat.
Because our best qualities as women will win.
Reflection is one of them.
Like racism, sexism is in force, of course. A woman ran for the highest and most powerful office in the land and sought to be a first.
And as Hillary fought her way to history, she applied all the lessons that we're taught as girls living in a man's world: Be tough, work harder, don't quit, and - whatever you do - don't cry.
But along the way, she also forgot the best lessons, the ones that universally define us as women, the ones our mothers taught us - and that we only fully understand when we get to be about Hillary's age.
Don't change who you are, don't let a man weigh you down, don't be afraid to admit when you're wrong, tell the truth, be gracious - win or lose.
It's ironic that as she tried harder to compete by men's rules - tough talk, strategic game play, changing personas, and the rules to gain an advantage, not initially embracing her symbolic standing as a woman with the depth she did at the end - Barack Obama beat her at a woman's game.
Following his intuition. Building a campaign around hope, unity, trust and change, actually believing that people would set aside their differences to strengthen the family.
All the strength we thought a woman would bring to the White House.
