First woman president: How great a milestone?

On the day Cheryl Lawson Walker graduated from college, she hadn’t thought much about the future, and the obstacles she might face as a woman.

The place was Wellesley; the year was 1969, and the women’s movement was just emerging as a force in America.

But that day, for the first time, a student had been selected to address the commencement at the women’s school: Hillary Rodham. The two women lived in the same dorm and had chatted over meals.

Rodham’s speech sent a jolt through the class.

“We were just thrilled that she felt empowered enough and articulate enough” to speak so boldly, rebutting the remarks of the U.S. senator who spoke before her, which many classmates had found condescending to them as women, Walker recalls.

The speaker that day — now known as Hillary Clinton — is edging closer to breaking the ultimate glass ceiling as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Her election would surely be a milestone. But not all her fellow alumnae feel the same way about its significance.

To be sure, for some the election of the first female president would be a thrilling moment they’ve been waiting for years to see. “I can’t even articulate all the reasons it’s important,” Sarah Schlesinger Hirschfeld, 56, said. “It’s tremendously important for all women, whether they know it or not, to see a woman in the most important leadership role in the country — and for men to see it, too.”

But to others, the milestone has been eclipsed by other advances — seeing women achieve power in other arenas, or witnessing the election of the first African-American president.

Walker supports Clinton but falls into the latter camp. “I know some people are hugely excited by it,” she said. “I just think it’s a good next step. Certainly not a milestone like when Barack Obama was elected.”

A recent poll found that while three-quarters of women voters felt America was ready for a female president, only about a third considered it very important to see it in their lifetime. (The poll was taken before Clinton clinched the nomination.)