Hillary Clinton takes to Facebook to discuss sexism, critics' claims that she's 'cold'

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is providing a rare glimpse into her personality, including how she has dealt with sexism, in a "Humans of New York" Facebook post.

The secretary of state and former first lady and New York senator recalled Thursday how, as a college senior, she was one of the only women in a room taking an admissions test to attend law school at Harvard University and how a group of men began harassing the women.

"(They) began to yell things like: 'You don't need to be here.' And, 'There's plenty else you can do.' It turned into a real 'pile on,'" she said. "One of them even said: 'If you take my spot, I'll get drafted, and I'll go to Vietnam, and I'll die.'"

Clinton said episodes like that forced her to learn how to control her emotions.

"And that's a hard path to walk," she said. "Because you need to protect yourself, you need to keep steady, but at the same time you don't want to seem 'walled off.'"

She also addressed how that could, today, cause people to see her as "aloof or cold or unemotional."

But she's willing to own it.

"If I create that perception, then I take responsibility. I don't view myself as cold or unemotional. And neither do my friends. And neither does my family," she said. "But if that sometimes is the perception I create, then I can't blame people for thinking that."

Clinton's comments come as she and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump continue to exchange barbs about how the other is unfit to be the commander in chief, and as the race in battleground states tightens.