Hillary Clinton says she struggles with appearing both tough and likable while being the first woman nominated by a major party as a presidential candidate.
“I think it’s really hard to be honest,” she said in response to a question from singer Mary J. Blige on her Apple TV show The 411.
“Do you think it’s hard for a woman to be both tough and likeable?” she asked.
Clinton says women have struggled for tens of thousands of years with different societies and cultures defining how a woman should act, pointing out that it was still a struggle for women to lead in business, entertainment and politics.
“It’s still is not fully understood because there’s no blueprint for doing it,” she said. “Everybody comes to it differently, so people are always judging how we look and how we talk and all the rest of it.”
Clinton said she was running for president because she wanted to break the “highest and hardest glass ceiling” so that both boys and girls could realize they could succeed in whatever they wanted to do.
“I hope, though, that by running this campaign and by I hope winning this campaign, it’s really going to change a lot of people’s minds, and it will open doors for a lot of other people too,” she said.
She also fired back at her critics, who she accused of manufacturing details about who she really was.
“I really am against people who try to maintain division and point fingers and scapegoat others,” she said.
Clinton says it’s difficult to live in the public eye, but relied on her faith, her family, her friends, and the “circle of people who I can trust 100 percent.”
She explained that it was important to take criticism seriously, but not personally.
“Don’t take it personally, don’t let people own your heart, own your mind, really under the pressure you feel, turn yourself into someone that you’re not,” she said.
Blige flattered Clinton, telling her that she looked “phenomenal” while she was wearing white and had perfect hair, makeup, and earrings.
At the end of the interview, Blige sang Hillary a song about African-American parents sending their kids to school, knowing they could face discrimination or death from police officers.
Clinton appeared taken aback, but promised to do everything possible as president to raise the issue.
“There needs to be a greater opening of our hearts to one another, we have to put ourselves in each other’s shoes, feel the pain that a mother and a father feel when their son and daughter can go out the door and don’t know what’s going to happen to them,” she said. “I particularly want white people to understand what’s that like, and to feel like they must be part of the solution.”
She encouraged Blige to sing in every interview.
“That was so touching to me … it was so moving to me … it’s so emotionally powerful, Mary,” Clinton said.
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