Hillary Clinton recounts harrowing sexism she experienced while applying for law school

Updated

Brandon Stanton, the photographer behind the wildly popular Humans of New York blog and Facebook page, sat down with Hillary Clinton, who took a step back from hot-button political issues in favor of more personal matters.

In her interview with Stanton, Clinton got candid about opposition she faced as an ambitious young woman pursuing a career in politics, highlighting a particularly harrowing exchange that took place right before her Harvard Law admissions exam.

"I was taking a law school admissions test in a big classroom at Harvard," Clinton began. "My friend and I were some of the only women in the room. I was feeling nervous."

Right before the proctor entered the room, however, a group of men began to heckle Clinton and her friend, hurling insults at them, she said.

"While we're waiting for the exam to start, a group of men began to yell things like: 'You don't need to be here.' And 'There's plenty else you can do," she remembered. "It turned into a real 'pile on.'"

%shareLinks-quote="One of them even said: 'If you take my spot, I'll get drafted, and I'll go to Vietnam, and I'll die.' And they weren't kidding around." type="quote" author="Hillary Clinton" authordesc="" isquoteoftheday="false"%

Rather than let it shake her concentration, Clinton said she "just kept looking down."

"It was intense. It got very personal," she recounted. "But I couldn't respond. I couldn't afford to get distracted because I didn't want to mess up the test."

Clinton linked the to her notoriously-perceived "cold" persona, saying that she had to learn as a young woman to "control her emotions."

"And that's a hard path to walk," she continued. "Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don't want to seem 'walled off.'"

Ultimately, she owned up to her public image, but made it very clear that she does not agree with the way she can at times be perceived.

"If I create that perception, then I take responsibility," she said. "I don't view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family. But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can't blame people for thinking that."

Stanton has previously used his blog to speak out against Republican candidate Donald Trump, criticizing his rhetoric during the presidential campaign in March.

Photos of Hillary Clinton through the years:

Advertisement