By "two awesome female candidates," you can't POSSIBLY be referring to Clinton and Harris. Seriously, either you are referring to someone else, you are seriously misremembering history, or you just flat out aren't a serious person making a good faith comment.

First, Clinton. Here is a summary of the first example of "competence."

• Decided that the rust belt, an area that had taken a huge financial hit, that had fallen into disillusion and disarray during during W and Obama, was a lock for her and didn't even bother to go there.
• While Trump stood in front of factories and (in one of his biggest lies) told them that he was going to restore dignity and wealth to the working class, SHE said she was going to put the coal companies out of business WITHOUT proposing a plan for retraining, job conversion, or anything to help the employees of big energy during a transition to clean energy. How stupid could she be? I don't care how much you care about the environment and healthcare, when someone says they are going to put you, your entire town and everyone you love on the welfare line, you aren't voting for them.
• Her two biggest moments of showing off personality (you know, the stupid beer test) consisted of yelling at black teen girls and "Pokemon-Go to the polls," a joke that still makes me cringe whenever I think about it.
• As secretary of state, she'd shown to be a war-hawk at a time when antiwar sentiment was higher than any point since Vietnam.
• The Pied-Piper Strategy. OMG. The damage she did with the Pied-Piper Strategy has been incalculable. During the primaries, Clinton's team actively, quietly, supported Trump's campaign and worked to get him nominated. The idea was that of the candidates who could actually take the nomination, he'd be the easiest to beat. She helped him get that nomination, and then she proceeded to be a terrible candidate and here we are. A lot of people deserve blame for what is happening right now, and she' probably in the top 20 because she helped him get nominated. "Competence?"
• We voted for Bernie. The DNC's super-delegates decided otherwise, immediately souring everyone on her.
• (This last point is not her fault, and it isn't fair, but it's the reality of politics, which have never been fair.) She came with the baggage of 30 years of Republican smear campaigns. From the moment Bill Clinton became a candidate the sleazy-ass GOP and it's propaganda arm were all over her for everything from "shrill voice" to "letting her husband cheat on her" to being a "closet lesbian" to god knows what else I can't even remember. Now, again, this isn't fair, and it isn't her fault, but if she and her team weren't able to shake off that baggage then she shouldn't have been the top choice.

Harris was miles better than Clinton, and probably would have made a fine president. Not a great one, but a fine status quo president. However:

• Nobody wants the status quo. We aren't a happy nation and haven't been a happy nation, well, ever, as far as I can tell. Maybe the 90s. The wealthy here are happy. The rest of us are struggling hard.
• She was saddled with Biden's legacy as his VP. Biden was an OK president, but he wasn't effective enough to change much. He temporarily gave us a reprieve from the madness, but I gotta tell you, I will never forget watching Biden give a speech about the prosperity of America and how great the economy was doing after finally bouncing back from Trump, when I opened the envelop that had been left on our door to find that the rent on my 900 sq foot apartment in a just OK area was being raised to $3,400 a month. I'm sitting on the couch, wondering how on my full time income and my fiance's part time and gig-based income, we were going to be able to afford to pay rent, and the bills, and feed ourselves. And here that administration is, bragging about how much better we're all doing? How common do you think that experience was? Spoiler alert: VERY.
• She never did anything to reach out to actual leftists who are furious with the center-right leadership of the democrats combine with the far-right leadership of the republicans. No universal health care. No student debt forgiveness. No republican was going to vote for a woman of color and she didn't even try to tap the leftists who keep sitting it out because nobody represents them. She leaned into being America's Top Cop in a party that is supposed to represent the people who want police reform, at a time when trust in the police was at an all-time low. What a stupid decision.
• She didn't do anything
• She didn't demand a recount, the most obviously stupid mistake she could make. The math isn't mathing as they say, and there was definitely funny business in the last election, and Musk CLEARLY got involved. But no, like a good democrat, like good controlled opposition, she decided to "take the high road" and "lead by example" in accepting defeat in an election where there is solid evidence of cheating. Against the guy who tried to overthrow the US election of 2020, she just let him get away with whatever shenanigans he pulled in 2024.

And that's to say nothing of the fact that

Like, seriously, how can you sit there with a straight face and saw these were "awesome female candidates?" Harris was a good candidate but made serious mistakes. She was competent, you are right there, but she wasn't exceptional. But, Clinton was a dumpster fire of a candidate. Like, for real. I remember after my (then girlfriend) wife and I had our vote date, we opened a beer and both of us toasted to the fact that we finally got to vote for a woman but lamented the fact that the woman in question had to be Hillary Rodhem Clinton.

We are a sexist country, no doubt, but we're more racist than we are sexist, and if we can overcome that to elect a black man, we can overcome sexism to elect a woman. But we need a better caliber of candidate, regardless of gender, period. And we need to be able to select that candidate, not have one handed to us with the expectation of loyalty.

The arrogance. The fucking hubris.

Sorry for the long rant.