Is Gloria Steinem correct that young women's political preferences are dictated by male approval? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answer by Rebecca Massey, health care professional, woman, on Quora.
Dear Madeleine Albright: If there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women, is there at least a purgatory for so-called "feminists" licking their chops to eat their young?
I see article after article, and hear statement after statement, informing me that I as a woman would be making a mistake to vote for anyone other than Hillary Clinton. The message is loud and clear that failing to help elect Clinton as president isn't just a missed opportunity -- it's outright traitorism to my chromosomes and my sex organs.
Furthermore, there is no shortage of telepaths ready to explain why I might ever make such a rash decision. My relative youth (early thirties) apparently gives them a window into my mind. Because I am young, pioneering feminist Gloria Steinem says that it's because I want to go "where the boys are." Others suppose that perhaps I take the freedoms I have today for granted. Clearly I don't understand what other women went through in the past. I never had to fight their battles, so, they say, I don't have any respect for any of the people who fought them. Hillary Clinton is one of those fighters, but I can't see that her level of accomplishment is special, so I don't have the level of respect that I should have for it -- and for her.
The irony of this line of thought is that its very proposition depends on hubris: the assumption that we've done so well that there is a world where life isn't hard on women just because they're women, and that most younger women were born in that world. It mimics the very same supposition of which women my age are accused: the idea that feminism's work is done. The simple fact that we're even arguing about the concept of "first woman president" should be proof enough of that.
Yes, I grew up with role models and encouragement that my mother couldn't have dreamed of having. Yes, I've benefited from policies and laws and public discussions that came about from the blood, sweat, and tears of women who came before me. I will never discount that truth.
But I won't see my truth discounted either. It is patently absurd to suggest that younger women don't know or understand what sexism is like when every one of us has been accused of receiving an honor or being chosen for a position not because of our accomplishments, but simply to fill a quota; when a disturbed young man goes on a shooting spree because women ignore him, and thousands of people on social media put their real names and faces next to statements fully agreeing that women drove him to this; when more and more of us grow up with sex education that discusses sex only in terms of never having it; when young women are attacked and abused and accused of being "fakes" for daring to even talk about certain hobbies, let alone participate in them; when activists pervert the noble cause of equal rights to instead declare that women are out to destroy and enslave men and must be stopped before they succeed. My generation is the one that's putting off kids later than ever -- or choosing not to have them -- due to the extraordinary strain on our finances and careers, and yet we are told by other women that we don't know anything about pay gaps and maternity leave policies.
And all of the above applies largely to those of us with the opportunity to even make choices about these things. Plenty of terrible things still happen to women and girls, for no other reason than that they (we!) are women and girls. Do our elders really think we young women are so coddled or so dim that we don't see this? Do they truly think we haven't experienced enough sexism to appreciate our position? In the name of the amazing women who raised and taught and served as examples for me, I find it difficult to believe. Yet, nowadays, it screams at me every time I open a news site or a magazine.
(And forget the topic for a minute: When was the last time "Because I know better and I said so" was an effective tactic to convince anyone of anything? To suggest that another party is too inexperienced or stupid to know what they're talking about is no less judgmental or presumptive than suggesting that someone must be wound up because she hasn't gotten laid this century.)
Whatever we may think about the work of feminism, every last one of us is well aware that it is far from complete. We live in the same world as every other woman. If you're going to play the "hurts all women" card, then you have to also remember that every woman you're scolding like a wayward toddler is another woman's daughter. She's not another breed or another species. She too is a woman in this world. Do you want to treat her like a potential ally, or like a declared enemy?
Don't we have enough on this earth trying to hurt us? Don't we already have enough reasons to hold each other back and hurt each other?
Some in the feminist community may feel it's a disaster that younger women fail to recognize the obstacles and struggles that have got us all to this point. But it's no less of a disaster to fail to acknowledge younger women as rational beings capable of making their own decisions and understanding consequences for themselves, just like any other human being.
Isn't that kind of recognition one of the things we've been fighting for all this time?