Hillary Clinton officially announced that she is running for president Sunday with a YouTube video posted on her website and Twitter.

Clinton went very broad with her appeal in the video, featuring single moms, immigrants, a gay couple, young college graduates, older retirees and new families, pretty much encompassing everyone in America.

Naturally, due to the bipartisan structure of American politics, Hillary is receiving a lot of flack. More importantly, so are her supporters.

Social media has blown up with Hillary haters, saying things like “You’re just voting for her because she’s a woman.”

Just because women everywhere are showing support for Hillary doesn’t mean they are voting for her based on the fact that she is a woman. Would the same women vote for Sarah Palin for president? Likely not, as the two candidates have very distinctly different takes on many issues.

A similar thing happened when Obama ran for president as white people everywhere claimed that all the black people were voting for Obama just because he is black, which is funny because there were probably many people voting for John McCain because he isn’t black.

Just like how there are probably many people out there not voting for Hillary because she is a woman.

No one would accuse a man of voting for Hillary “just because she’s a woman.” Accusing women of doing so grossly discredits a woman’s ability to make a decision. The argument sounds like it is coming from people who would probably be on the opposite side of the women’s suffrage movement.

There are many reasons women are showing support for Hillary, one being the fact that she is very pro-woman in her stances on women’s issues. If a man were to have the same stances, he would have the same support from women.

Voting for a candidate based on a superficial aspect of their being like gender or race is not the best way to choose no matter who is running. Examining the issues is the only way to choose what candidate to vote for.