Joan C Williams and Hillary Clinton have a lot in common, though Williams is much the better speaker. “I’m a deference-challenged woman,” she says, in brisk authoritative tones. “So is Hillary. We’re just the same, this generation of white feminists.” 
Both of them have spent their married lives with men who came from the white working class (WWC). Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump distressed Williams. But when I ask how the Democrats can win next time, Williams replies: “I tell you, I would not support another white woman. Why would I do that? I care too much about women to support a white woman for president.”
This is something a lifelong feminist is not supposed to say. Williams, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, now in her sixties, emphasises: “I’m a race-gender person. I’ve been working on race and gender for 40 years.” She is an expert on women in the workplace. But lately she has become something of an apostate among American progressives.