When Obama ran, did he repeatedly suggest people should vote for him because he was black? I don't recall so. I remember him talking about his policies and beliefs.
Hillary's campaign rapidly devolved after the primaries to "vote for me because I'm not Trump and I'm a (in my view) super competent woman". Her supporters slogan became "I'm with her".
The bigger problem though is how the Dems cleared the way for her to run almost unopposed except for Bernie, an independent who didn't give a crap what the Democrats thought. Trump defeated many primary challengers. Where were the D alternatives to Hillary? Apparently the idea spread that it was Hillary's "turn", that after a black man there should be a woman, and wouldn't that be a nice historical motif.
So the Dems tipped the playing field towards one of the weakest, most easily attacked candidates in US history. She can't give speeches. She has few policy ideas beyond starting a war with Russia (NFZ in Syria). She exudes corruption. She epitomises the widely disliked status quo. She has more skeletons in her closet than a medical student. She would have been the continuation of a dynasty. Yet somewhere, the groupthink-saturated world that decides these things decided it was time for a female President and after that her qualifications became irrelevant. Feminists, both male and female, became so transfixed with breaking "the last glass ceiling" that they grabbed the first female to come along and demanded she be made top dog.
Disagree? Give me a better explanation for how the Democrats mysteriously found themselves with an almost empty stable of primary challengers to Clinton.
People and especially women need to stop talking about gender imbalances or the "injustice" of them or how to fix them - it's yesterday's conversation. Trying to "fix" these non-problems by tipping the playing field towards women gives you Trump, a man who is the walking embodiment of not giving a shit about feminists. If the Dems had simply treated HRC as anyone else, they might be in power now.