Gender inequality is currently a hot button issue not just a regular issue (like it has always been). Presidential elections are won on what the population is most concerned with at the time. Obama got in back in '08 on the economy; he stayed in '12 based on issues like healthcare. Dems are pushing gender equality right now because if that's the hot button topic then Clinton will wipe the floor with whoever the GOP can come up. Obama set the stage wonderfully in the State of the Union. The GOP as usual is too concerned with policing marriage and abortion to realize they actually have a fighting chance if they address gender equality by promoting economic reforms that will help women get into the workplace instead of being passed over for men (i.e. high minimum wages making companies choose men over women for a limited number of positions, gender quotas making companies put women into roles with no advancement opportunities because they cannot legally pay them less than men to get them into jobs where they can build up experience and work their way into higher salaries (e.g. hiring men in tech roles and putting women in middle management roles to fulfill gender quotas, instead of paying women less based on their aptitude and getting them into those tech roles and allowing them to learn on the job so they can catch up with men, because men are dominating STEM jobs right now)).

I would be very surprised if Clinton isn't the president in 2016. The Dems are killing the GOP right now on key issues, the population wants to pat itself on the back for not being sexist (I won't draw a parallel to Obama even though a lot of back patting happened back in 08. The reason being Obama was a better candidate than McCain and deserved to win. Clinton does not deserve to be President, she is a decent politician but getting dismissed as Secretary of State is not something the public should have forgotten as easily as it has), and the GOP not being able to put together a candidate who speaks to its entire voter base (in the way Clinton does to the left).