I'm not ashamed to say it.

I wanted Hillary.

I didn’t love everything about her (I didn’t love any of the Democratic candidates, for that matter – they were all flawed, though each a thousand times better than the dangerous fool we’ve suffered for seven years). I came to my decision after a lot of soul-searching. I can never forgive Hillary for voting for the Iraq war – and then not apologizing for it. I think her campaign advisors failed to portray her as a true candidate of change, at a time when our country desperately needs it.

But to me her decades of experience – fighting the good fight for women and children, establishing herself as a non-partisan team player in the U.S. Senate, and yes, her experience in the White House, plus her blazing intelligence (named one of the Top 100 lawyers in America, twice) made her the stronger candidate. More Presidential. I believed she would beat McCain more easily than Obama would. I cheered her dogged refusal to give up despite the outrageous misogyny she faced – and just because screeching, irrational pundits said she should (despite her stunning wins in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and all the rest).

But perhaps most importantly, I imagined the psychological difference it would make to every little girl in this country – and around the world. American women only gained the vote in 1920, after decades of struggle. Feminism has made our lives better and easier in so many ways. We fought for Title IX, and girls’ sports are no longer ignored and under-funded. We face fewer obstacles in education and the workplace (but are making slow progress in changing the mostly male bastions of commerce and government). It is less common for “man,” “he” and “his” to stand in for all of humanity – male and female – in textbooks, journalism and even in church. But women are still the disproportionate targets of sexual violence, and girls still absorb the message that it is better to be hot than smart.

A woman in the White House – a strong, brainy, experienced, Democratic woman – would have been a beacon of hope and a role model unlike any other, to girls and women everywhere.

Obama, for all his inspirational speechifying, his promises of change, his good looks and charm and undeniable intelligence, and not least his skin color, is just another man. And that doesn’t feel like much of a change at all.