One Way or Another, Women Will Decide It

The tattoos on her chest make her look tough. But underneath, the 36-year-old is afraid.

Many men don't respect women, she said, and that worries her when she thinks about voting one into the White House at a time when the country is at war and suicide bombers are blowing themselves up overseas.

"Now we need a symbol of strength to display to the rest of the world," Ramirez said. "To handle [that office], she would have to be a hell of a woman. I know that sounds bad coming from a woman, but I'm scared to death of [war] coming to our land and hurting me and my family."

"You want the torso really gruesome, right?" she asked her client.

"Yeah, yeah," he said.

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Clinton's Austin Headquarters -- Ali Gallagher calls it a cat tag -- "dog tag" just isn't feminine enough. She tugged on the one around her neck, embossed with the name of her great-grandmother, who didn't get the right to vote until 1920.

"It couldn't have been easy for educated women to sit there and be silent," said Gallagher, 53, a lawyer who has volunteered in a back office of Clinton's Austin campaign headquarters for the past two weeks. "My bias is toward my gender, and unapologetically so."

She watches, feeling sad and angry, as Clinton tries to revive her candidacy. Women are still earning 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, Gallagher said. A cable network is comfortable using the word "pimping" to describe how the campaign is using Chelsea Clinton. Race and gender are being played against each other.

"It makes my stomach turn," said Gallagher, who is white. "A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, 'My ancestors came to this country in chains; I'm voting for Barack.' I told him, 'Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I'm voting for Hillary.' "

Gallagher said this campaign will be marked not only by Clinton's and Obama's historic runs but by the blatant sexism it has uncovered.

"What's going to come out of this race is that it was open season on women, and they fought back. It's the beginning, whether she wins or loses," Gallagher said. "Women are so close. They are ready to win it. If not this time, then next time."