cambridge, mass. <u+2014> it was visceral. women felt gutted, shocked, appalled, afraid. the prospect of celebrating the election of the nation<u+2019>s first female president had been crushed by a man whom many women viewed as sexist. in this liberal enclave, where mrs. clinton won 89.2 percent of the vote over donald j. trump , one of her strongest showings anywhere, molly hubner, 33, said she was having difficulty explaining the result to her 6-year-old daughter. <u+201c>we had told her that he wouldn<u+2019>t be a good president because he<u+2019>s not very kind,<u+201d> ms. hubner said, pushing her young son in a stroller as she jogged down a leaf-covered sidewalk. after the election, she said, they told her it is important to be kind to people <u+201c>and that our country is o.k., it<u+2019>s still a safe place to be.<u+201d> women across the country who supported mrs. clinton are just starting to process their feelings about the long roller coaster ride that in their view ended in disaster. the shock they feel that a man whom they describe as sexist, misogynistic and boorish was elected has overshadowed some of their grief about mrs. clinton<u+2019>s loss. like so many of the other rivals in his path, they say, the most famous woman in the world has been reduced to one more piece of collateral damage. and these feelings have morphed into a genuine sense of foreboding. <u+201c>i woke up in a strange country,<u+201d> said jill laurie goodman, a lawyer who lives on the upper west side of manhattan. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m about hillary<u+2019>s age. i went to law school about the same time she did, coming out of the antiwar and civil rights movement.<u+201d> she had believed that society was moving forward, ms. goodman said. and yet, <u+201c>i woke up yesterday feeling as if everything i thought 45 years ago was wrong, that i had just gotten it wrong.<u+201d> in berkeley, calif., hope friedman, a 62-year-old retired nurse, said she was also stunned by the result. <u+201c>i was a big hillary supporter, but i am not in love with hillary the way i was with obama,<u+201d> she said of the president. <u+201c>my motivation for being active in the campaign was much more about being terrified of a guy that says and does the things that trump has said and does.<u+201d> as she described her reaction to mr. trump<u+2019>s victory, she wept. <u+201c>it kind of felt like being punched in the stomach,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>it feels like when you get a cancer diagnosis and you are sick to your stomach and you can<u+2019>t believe it and your mind is spinning.<u+201d> sally waldron, 69, an adult educator here in cambridge, finds that her sorrow is rooted more in the dread she feels about a man with attitudes like mr. trump<u+2019>s becoming president than it is borne of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s loss. <u+201c>part of me thinks this should be about the first woman losing,<u+201d> ms. waldron said as she watched her grandson play in a sandlot. <u+201c>i would have loved if she was the first woman president, but that<u+2019>s not where the disappointment is for me,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>the disappointment is in the values that won and what it means for lots of people.<u+201d> even in the more conservative south, clinton supporters expressed the same kind of disappointment and dread. <u+201c>i<u+2019>m horrified because i have two daughters,<u+201d> kelly cobb, 40, said as she bought slices of cake near emory university in atlanta. ms. cobb, a stay-at-home mother, said she believed that mr. trump had managed to define mrs. clinton in the public imagination as a criminal and that he had benefited from gender stereotypes. <u+201c>i think there<u+2019>s huge disdain for her because she<u+2019>s a woman, but she<u+2019>s also been in politics for a long time,<u+201d> said ms. cobb, who also said she was uncertain what mrs. clinton<u+2019>s defeat signaled for other women seeking office. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t know if it<u+2019>s hillary clinton and who she is, but i have to think it does have something to do with the fact that she<u+2019>s a woman,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>people are just unaccepting of that and judge her to a much higher standard than they would a white male.<u+201d> jessica leeds, one of the first women to allege that she had been groped by mr. trump, said she cried tuesday night as the results came in. she said she was stunned to discover that large numbers of women had voted for mr. trump. <u+201c>apparently they just dismissed it,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>they bought the line that it was just locker room talk, that it didn<u+2019>t matter.<u+201d> and, she surmised, <u+201c>there are a lot of women who couldn<u+2019>t bring themselves to vote for a woman.<u+201d> women did not turn out for mrs. clinton in the numbers that her campaign expected, said celinda lake, a democratic pollster. the electorate was 52 percent female, slightly lower than the normal 53 percent. she was strongly supported by white, college-educated women; black women; and latina women, but white, blue-collar women and white, non-college-educated women sided heavily with mr. trump . [ women who voted for trump believed he spoke for them ] her failed bid raises the question about whether mrs. clinton<u+2019>s experience will discourage other women. did she break a barrier, or did she inadvertently reveal how high that barrier is? women began entering government in bigger numbers in the 1970s, but any rush has stalled. the number of women in congress is about 19 percent. research has shown that women are such a minority in government not because they are less likely to win <u+2014> they are just as likely, over all <u+2014> but because they are so much less likely to run in the first place. political scientists say this so-called ambition gap is because women are less likely to be encouraged or recruited to run, underestimate their own abilities, assume they need to be more qualified than men and view politics as sexist. now, mrs. clinton<u+2019>s loss may lend credence to those doubts. <u+201c>because there was general consensus on both sides of the aisle that she was the most qualified presidential candidate we<u+2019>ve ever seen, and she lost, it reinforces the notion that maybe it<u+2019>s not even enough to be twice as good to get half as far,<u+201d> said jennifer l. lawless, a professor of government at american university who studies gender and political ambition. caroline elkins, 47, a professor of history at harvard, said she was profoundly disappointed and could not separate the outcome from mrs. clinton<u+2019>s gender. <u+201c>to think that gender wasn<u+2019>t a factor would be ludicrous,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>you<u+2019>d be hard-pressed to find someone more qualified than hillary clinton, in my view, and yet she was scrutinized above and beyond any male candidate we<u+2019>ve ever seen.<u+201d> that mrs. clinton<u+2019>s flaws were <u+201c>thrown into a hyperbolic relief,<u+201d> she said, suggests that being highly qualified for the job was not enough, that a woman still has to be <u+201c>twice as good and half as threatening<u+201d> as a man to succeed. ms. friedman, the retired nurse in berkeley, who made phone calls on behalf of mrs. clinton, was convinced that gender was a factor. <u+201c>i underestimated the level of misogyny in the country,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>which is surprising, because usually i see it where it<u+2019>s not.<u+201d> but during her calls, she was sometimes met with crude responses. <u+201c>i forget how much people hate women,<u+201d> she said. mary jane judy, 35, a lawyer in kansas city, mo., said mrs. clinton lost more because of herself than because she is a woman. <u+201c>i think the baggage with her as hillary clinton over the course of the years was just stuff that people couldn<u+2019>t get past,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>i<u+2019>ve heard people say, <u+2018>anybody but hillary.<u+2019><u+201d> in belfast, me., anita zeno, an innkeeper on the pristine atlantic coast, knew mrs. clinton had flaws. but when she voted, she felt a rush. <u+201c>i was surprised at how good it felt to be voting for a woman,<u+201d> said ms. zeno, 70. but on thursday, as ms. zeno examined the shallots in a farm store and cafe, her eyes welled with tears at the very mention of mrs. clinton<u+2019>s defeat. she was worried about the country, the fate of the affordable care act and climate change. and one more thing. <u+201c>at my age, it<u+2019>s now likely i<u+2019>ll never see a woman elected president,<u+201d> ms. zeno said. <u+201c>and that really mattered to me.<u+201d> katharine q. seelye reported from cambridge, and claire cain miller from portland, ore. reporting was contributed by jess bidgood from belfast, me.; alan blinder from atlanta; and anemona hartocollis and megan twohey from new york. for breaking news and in-depth reporting, follow @nytnational on twitter. a version of this article appears in print on november 11, 2016, on page a1 of the new york edition with the headline: <u+2026> and those with dreams that were crushed. order reprints | today's paper | subscribe
female clinton supporters are left feeling gutted
katharine q. seelye claire cain miller