For Michelle Murphy, who stood waving a Hillary placard outside the debate entrance, the choice was clear. Murphy said she voted for Clinton twice as senator and drove down from her home in Westchester to make her voice heard ahead of the primary.

"I love Hillary, I'm ready for a woman president and I'm not afraid to say that I want her because she is a woman," Murphy said.

She said she remembers the bad old days of being a woman in the workplace.

"I'm a lawyer, you go to court. When I had little kids, if they were sick, you couldn't say that. If they asked: 'Why are you late?' You couldn't say: 'My kid was in pre-K and he threw up.' You had to lie, or get someone to cover for you. That was unacceptable," Murphy said.

Murphy told Refinery29 that her own daughter and her friends who support Bernie Sanders "don't get it."

"I'm here with two other friends. We are in our mid- to late 50s and we all have twentysomething daughters, all of whom are feeling the Bern. And each one of them has said to us individually, 'We know [Hillary's] going to win, and we will vote for her in November, but we like his message, so we just want to make a statement now,'" Murphy said.

"That makes me feel good and I appreciate they feel passion and are a part of this process. But they don't know subtle sexism. If you interview someone my age who has worked in a profession for 30 years, I could give you 100 examples," Murphy said.