Young, college-aged, women, are you feeling the Bern? If so, this one’s for you. I’m voting for Hillary Clinton. Please hear me out. It’s important that women get this.

I’m not voting for Clinton because it’s her time. I’m not voting for her because it’s a historic first for a woman to be president.

I’m voting for her because women’s rights are getting trampled. And she will be our fiercest protector. We need her.

Why? Do you realize that women don’t have equal rights under the U.S. Constitution? The battle for an Equal Rights Amendment failed just short of ratification over three decades ago. This translates into lower pay, workplace discrimination and — taken to its extreme — sexual slavery.

Every battle you face — and you will face them — will be that much tougher because of your gender. You do not have the same rights as men under the law.

Women outpace men as college graduates and comprise nearly half the workforce. But despite these gains, women are paid about 78 percent of a man’s salary. You may be smarter, but your male peers will still get bigger paychecks.

The threat to women’s rights permeates our lives — even when we thought the battle won. Take reproduction. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized a woman’s right to end a pregnancy 43 years ago. Abortion became safe and legal after a century of dangerous and illegal back-alley procedures.

But fast-forward to the 21st century and abortion rights are under attack. Not just threatened, but, in some states, practically banned.

In Oklahoma, state lawmakers passed a bill making it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion. Any doctor convicted of this “crime” could end up in prison for one to three years. The state’s female governor vetoed it days later. But several other states have laws that are just as harsh, only, instead of punishing the doctor, they punish the woman.

In Indiana, 33-year old Purvi Patel is serving a 20-year sentence for ending her own pregnancy. Her lawyers appealed her case just this week. Altogether, at least 17 women nationwide have been arrested or criminally convicted of so-called “self-induced abortions,” according to a legal team led by a UC Berkeley Law School research center.

In Texas, lawmakers cut two-thirds of the state’s family planning budget in 2011, forcing about 100 health care clinics to close. This was part of a strategy to hurt Planned Parenthood and gain political capital among conservative voters. But who really got hurt? Women.

What if you start a family? You and your spouse may want to take time off from work when the baby is born. Tough luck, because the United States is one of just two industrialized countries that doesn’t offer paid family leave — the other is Papua New Guinea.

Only one candidate is talking about these issues on the campaign trail. Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump? He wants to punish women who have abortions. Sanders lumps women’s issues together with all the other movements for change.

That’s why I want Clinton in the White House.

Don’t get me wrong. Hillary’s not for women only. She’s smart and substantive on foreign policy, gun control, climate change and more.

Is she perfect? No way. But none of the candidates are. And for the first time ever, someone — in the most powerful office in the United States — will speak up for you.

You have one constitutional right that your female forebears fought for: the right to vote. Use it.

This op-ed first appeared in The Mercury News May 26, 2016