Traister is amazing, and this piece brings up so many good points, but points that are hard to swallow in some places. Following her assessment of Steinem's op-ed, she says:
"God, it was so embarrassing, so 1972, so Women's Studies 101. What was more embarrassing was that it was so right on."
This is an interesting way of looking at it. So 1972, so Women's Studies 101. A lot of younger feminists, many of us born after 1972, found Steinem's piece to be divisive. Not the whole piece, but the part about the older women turning out to vote for Hillary being more radical than their younger counterparts. It didn't sit well with me at all, and yet yay to Rebecca for making me reconsider my reactions to that. It's much more complicated and nuanced than it seems. There's a major generation gap among the new and old guard, and that stems from the way we react to each other. I commend Rebecca for understanding how something can be both embarrassing and right on, how you can feel defensive around something and yet so want to belong to it, how we can feel like Hillary brings her share of problems to the table and yet want to support her for all the bullshit she's taking on and enduring---and enduring well. I loved watching Hillary kick ass in NH, and I thank Rebecca for tempering what's going on by unveiling some of the underlying paradoxes, and hypocrisies even, around why we support the candidates we support.
1 comment:
Traister is amazing, and this piece brings up so many good points, but points that are hard to swallow in some places. Following her assessment of Steinem's op-ed, she says:
"God, it was so embarrassing, so 1972, so Women's Studies 101. What was more embarrassing was that it was so right on."
This is an interesting way of looking at it. So 1972, so Women's Studies 101. A lot of younger feminists, many of us born after 1972, found Steinem's piece to be divisive. Not the whole piece, but the part about the older women turning out to vote for Hillary being more radical than their younger counterparts. It didn't sit well with me at all, and yet yay to Rebecca for making me reconsider my reactions to that. It's much more complicated and nuanced than it seems. There's a major generation gap among the new and old guard, and that stems from the way we react to each other. I commend Rebecca for understanding how something can be both embarrassing and right on, how you can feel defensive around something and yet so want to belong to it, how we can feel like Hillary brings her share of problems to the table and yet want to support her for all the bullshit she's taking on and enduring---and enduring well. I loved watching Hillary kick ass in NH, and I thank Rebecca for tempering what's going on by unveiling some of the underlying paradoxes, and hypocrisies even, around why we support the candidates we support.
---Brooke
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