Saying that feminists are taking this stance because Hillary didn't get the nomination is like saying you oppose global warming because it drives up the price of gas.

Feminists discuss the risk:

I'm trying to take the long view; that is, yes, it is possible that protest votes could give the election to McCain, and if that happens, it will send a hell of a message to the Democrats and the country. Yes, we will have 4 more years of hell, but ultimately, progress does not always get made in a continuous push. Sometimes things go horribly wrong and in order to get them back on track, I see a need to let them get even worse to make the point that we won't just fall in line behind the lesser of two evils. As I type that, I feel horribly callous towards people who will feel very real effects from another Republican administration. But less immediately visible are the people who will still continue to suffer under the lesser of two evils, and will still be suffering in 20 or 40 years (assuming they live that long) unless we take drastic action now to get things fixed. I guess I see it as "avert some suffering now and leave a lot to fester, or suffer in the short term to stop a lot of suffering in the long run." —JW

IMHO if you vote for a third party in a swing state, you have to be ok with whomever wins. You have to know that, right now, the system is not set up for your third party to win so you are essentially giving up your little piece of control over who is going to win. If you were going to vote democrat but now you aren't, you are raising the chances, however slight, that the republicans can win in your state. The example you gave is obviously extreme and scare-mongering and not going to happen realistically (except maybe roe v wade being overturned) but I don't really know what you want to hear.

And I'm speaking as someone who voted third party in 2004 because I could not stand Kerry. If I had to do it over again, I would have sucked it up and voted Democrat, because sometimes women have to do unpleasant things to survive in the P and voting for someone we don't like who will at least not take away our rights in order to prevent someone who does want to take away our rights from having the power to do so is one of those things.—J

I had been struggling with this also. I registered as independent to send a message to a party that I had been an active member of for 38 years. I still get the mail from the Dems and when I do I send it back with a note that I will not be a member of a party that thinks reproductive rights are a separate issue from civil rights. I will still vote for Senator Obama, or if he will easily take the state I will vote for McKinney.

1968 was my first chance to vote. When Hubert Humphrey got the nomination, after the death of RFK and the media destroyed McCarthy, I stayed home.
I won't do that again.
I was one of those responsible for Nixon because I stayed home. I won't be one of those responsible for McCain.—TB

Of course Obama and his fan base aren't responsible for alienating the largest voting block of the Democratic party (women) by being openly misogynous pricks. As always, it's all on the women to take responsibility for the mess that the boyz' behavior created.
I certainly don't want a president McCain. But if there's a big female exile from the Democratic party, maybe the DNC will finally start to get the idea already and stop taking female voters for granted.—W

Feminists respond to your comment: (there are about 5 or 6 people responding below. I haven’t differentiated them much)

That just seems like reductio ad Hitlerum cocktail, with a shot of femi-nazism and a spritz of aborting Beethoven. Delicious. —B

That's another thing they're doing now that their guy's the presumptive presumptive is warning Clinton supporters about the consequences of a McCain administration. Duh! I'd never thought of that before. I wonder if it ever occurred to them to consider the consequences of 4-8 more years of a Republican Whitehouse when they were alienating half the Democratic base with Operation Chaos (this is semi-organized "grass-roots" efforts to bully Clinton supporters at caucuses and Clinton rallies). —W

I'll be doing both. Dropping the party and writing in Hillary. But I know that in a match between McCain and Obama, Obama will get my latte-
sipping district with a good 60% to spare.

My reasoning in leaving the Democratic Party (which I have done, by the way; I re-registered Green last week) is as follows: Right now there's a lot of anger among a certain segment of women. Anger can be mobilized. Perhaps I'm kidding myself (it wouldn't be the first time!), but I don't want to let go of this moment. I think the Democratic Party needs to hear a message from the women who are angry about role that women-hating has played in the primary campaign.

California will vote for Barack Obama. I'm not worried that my protest is going to put McCain in office.(*) However, I AM worried that the anger women are expressing right now will dissipate.

I have a choice: I can continue to support the mostly male-led Democratic Party, accepting that what I really want is never going to happen so I must compromise. Or I can make demands. I think this is a good time to make demands.

The thing that August can't understand is the degree to which women pour their energy into supporting men: men's lives, men's dreams, men's ambitions, men's success. When I see that relationship--women in a supporting role--being played out in national politics, I am ready to say ENOUGH. In part, I know these feelings have to do with the fact that I'm no longer young. The patriarchy has been so damned successful in channelling my energy into benefiting men; it has done this even while I actively resist. The patriarchy sets up so many lose-lose scenarios for me: if I don't pour my energy into supporting men, I may lose hard-won freedoms. If I do, I have nothing left for myself.

Can I live with myself if righty party gets in power by my voting with my beliefs? Well, it has actually happened, in that I voted Green for the last federal election instead of supporting the Liberals, and now we've got fucking Conservative Harper in government.

I do feel justified, however, given the number of times they've rolled over and played dead in parliament over the past two years. They have refused to vote along with party policy in order to not topple the government, because they believed they weren't ready to win a federal election. Therefore, if I had voted for them, they would have voted completely against my wishes in several situations - I would have been livid, and felt my vote was wasted after all. In voting green, however, I feel my personal integrity is intact, even though I have no representation in government.

It's a dangerous game to play, of course, but I have to keep thinking, how much damage can they do in 4-8 years? It takes a long time to change legislation, and it takes a long time to effect the changes. If, for instance, they pass the unborn persons act, it still takes several months to be reviewed by several different levels of government, before it is ratified. There has to be wiggle room in there to prevent that from ever being made law, because the likelihood that an election is called before the bill completes passage is huge, and all bills get discarded once an election exists.

Okay, I'm rambling. My point is, I can live with myself very easily even if the results of the election are not what I'd wished. That said, I have no problem with other people voting however way they want, as long as their reasoning is sound and they know all the facts, and they believe in whom they are voting for. And if their party wins, I have to live with those results anyway. So.