Big Girls Don't Cry (book)

Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women

First edition cover
Author	Rebecca Traister
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	U.S. politics
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Free Press
Publication date	September 14, 2010
Pages	352
ISBN

Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women is a 2010 non-fiction book written by American journalist Rebecca Traister and published by Free Press. The book discusses women's contributions to and experiences of the 2008 United States presidential election. Traister places particular focus on four main political figures—Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama and Elizabeth Edwards—as well as women in the media, including Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. She also describes her personal experience of the electoral campaign and her shift from supporting John Edwards to Hillary Clinton.

Traister began writing about the presidential election while working as a political columnist for Salon; her coverage for Salon provided much of the book's content. She aimed to write an account of the election from a feminist perspective, focusing on events that she felt were otherwise underreported in the media. The book was generally well received by critics.

Rebecca Traister described the 2008 presidential election as "a completely gripping narrative" during which "everything in America was busted open", but was disappointed by the way it was covered in the mainstream media. She felt that some "big stories"—such as Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman to win an American presidential primary—had been underreported, and that many misogynistic and racist remarks made by commentators had gone unnoticed. By writing the book, she wanted to defend the feminist perspective of the election against its Democrat and progressivist critics "who continue to write off concern with these issues". Asked about what she intended for readers to [take away from] the book, Traister said: