Hillary Clinton Pens A Goodbye Note To Women’s Humor Site ‘The Toast’

Hillary Rodham Clinton smiles as she takes the stage during a Democratic presidential primary debate, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Hillary Clinton penned a short farewell essay Friday for the last day of the popular women’s site, The Toast, which touched on the importance of women in leadership and of creating spaces for women’s work.

The beloved site with a cult following announced in May that it would shutter after just three years. Readers have taken to Twitter to mourn its demise, sharing their articles and favorite moments from the site which featured women’s writing and art, included everything from personal essays to fanfiction to drawings.

According to an editor’s note from Nicole Cliffe, one of the founders of The Toast, Clinton’s team reached out to the editors and said Clinton was interested in including a piece for the site’s final days.

“Then they got in touch on Wednesday and said she wanted to write something HERSELF (it seems her people show her Two Monks or what-have-you on long campaign days) and I said only if it was funny and they said ‘she was thinking more heartfelt?’ and here we are,” Cliffe wrote.

In the essay, titled “A note on The Toast,” Clinton touched on what a site and space like this means for women, and how spaces for women have been important for her since her days in the Senate.

“My friend Barbara Mikulski famously started a tradition of dinner parties for all the women of the Senate,” Clinton wrote. “Over a glass of wine — okay, maybe three — we’d give each other support, advice, and highly relevant tips to navigate being in such an extreme minority. I’ve always had great admiration for women like Barb who take it upon themselves to create spaces where women can speak their minds freely.”

Clinton congratulated the Toast team, two of which work for her campaign, on three years of success and encouraged them and their readers to believe in their own merits.

“Speak your opinion more fervently in your classes if you’re a student, or at meetings in your workplace,” she wrote. “Proudly take credit for your ideas. Have confidence in the value of your contributions. And if the space you’re in doesn’t have room for your voice, don’t be afraid to carve out a space of your own.”

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: