The problem you identify is totally a generational one having nothing to do with sex: Boomer hypocrisy.

They display precisely the kind of arrogance and presumption they criticized when they were young.

Every single symptom of this disease has been identified in your post.

This generation has a King Lear complex to beat the band. Everything you do is a threat to them. When you do something un-wise, hey that's great; evidence they still 'get it' and you don't, but don't take initiative or be authoritative, then you are out to pillage their fields.

Perhaps it's not suprprising for a generation obsessed with holding on to its youth that it ages so ungracefully. Instead of offering wisdom and guidance and playing the mentor role, they're just running interference and telling us to shut up, grasping ever tighter on to their all important status and rank - I guess until they die.

blah blah blah blah blah blah

jerry read incorrectly.

Apologises, edits comment.

I have to say that, as a boomer, I find this a little funny. You mention a Lear complex, I'd mention Hamlet. But, that is addressing your wide generalization in your terms. It's that generalization that I find funny. Boomers are so monolithic.

Jessica: bravo! It sounds like you and some of your sisters are starting to take the steps necessary to grab hold of and take control of movement feminism and force it into the 21rst century. Don't expect it to be easy. The sorority analogy though is pretty facile. I mean Delta Zeta? Whatever ;-)

On edit: Oh rats, I really don't mean to come off as patronizing as the above may sound. I, like jerry, wish you well and I feel that it is critical that new generations step up and start carrying the load. So: Right On!   

To be fair, it isn't just to paint 50 million people with the same broad brush strokes, but when I open a Newsweek and discover "Boomer files" and I'm supposed to consider Giligan's Island of world historical importance - let alone 'news' - well it gets old. I have a boomer boss who is pathologically paranoid that I'm out to take his job - so much he makes concerted efforts to hide important information from me - probably nothing new there.

Generational hypocrisy is not new either - it's just with the hippie generation they were lecturing on hypocrisy to their elders, now their lecturing to Gen X/Y. I guess in telling people what to do and what is right, they haven't changed a bit. Their legendary sense of entitlement and self regard gives them the hutzpah required to duck out of the Vietnam draft and then advocate the Iraq war thirty years later. I can just hear some 28 year old woman in 1969 lecturing to a 'first wave' feminist about how this washed up older generation needs to hear the youthful voice of her oh-so important generation, then thirty years later telling Valenti the same thing in reverse.

But again, it's not fair to characterize millions of people that way.

A distinction should be made between intellectuals (feminist or otherwise), on the one hand, who can have one kind of cultural impact, and who can offer one kind of message to young women and men, and groups (feminist or other activist kinds), on the other, who (as befits a movement with more tangible goals) need to concern themselves relatively more with articulating a coherent agenda in a more unified way. Sure, the two categories can and should inform each other. It’s generally not good, for instance, even in terms of their own goals for major feminist groups to sound scripted or alarmist or doctrinaire.

But the differences between the categories of intellectual and activist are worth maintaining. For instance, while I have major problems with Levy’s insightful argument, her turning women off isn’t one of them. It’s a writer’s job to raise sometimes provocative, unsettling challenges to prevailing norms when the writer notices arguably problematic social trends, even though doing so may irritate people in the short term. I think her argument is overly simplistic in some important ways, but she is raising a real problem.

Of course, writers can be activists, and writing, activism, but playing that role effectively also involves first separating the two roles conceptually and deciding how to integrate them, retaining important elements of each without unduly hindering or corrupting the other.

J. McCutchen

The national officers of Delta Zeta claim to have booted the “undesirable” women because of their inability to attract new recruits to the sorority.

I don't believe that for a minute.

It's all about the boys

Is this satire?

But why do you need to be part of "movement" anyway? Don't bother with it. Find a successful boomer mentor who doesn't have time to bother with movements because she is so busy making a difference.

A boomer mentor?  Isn't the point that, you know, JV is an adult with a perspective on the issues that older generations of feminists are also concerned with (and issues that they overlook), and can think for herself? 

Why does she exhibit "courage" by bringing these gripes up? I think of it as garden-variety complaining about organizational behavior and interpersonal resentments.

"Watch your back??" What kind of dark conspiracies do you think are out there waiting to get JV?

By the way, you don't look like an idiot.

No, really, it's all about money and some people who have "jobs" at the national sorority fearing that they will have to go get real jobs if the sorority fades away.

Good Lord, what a sorry subject.

Among other things I intentionally selected a college in the late 50's that had no sorority or fraternity chapters, and no sports. Holiday Magazine at the time called it a Quaker Workcamp in the woods. Pretty fair. I remember spending the summer of 1957 among classmates discussing whether they were a legacy of this or that on what campus. Aah yes, the advantage of being selected to be an Antiochian in 1957, Same class as Stephen Jay Gould and a few other very interesting characters.

Can we please talk about the quality of our education and all that is related to it? Did you have an argument with Ellie Holmes (she wasn't Norton then) about Little Rock? -- Well I did in Sept 1957. She was one of my hall advisors. We had arguments about everything.

But in the end when Lyndon Johnson addresed the Conference that had long been called for, the
White House Conference on Race, half of the head table were alumni of Antioch. And I was sitting at a table informing the then Archbishop of New Orleans about our connections.

Could we please have different connections elaborated here.

I would allow that we're all standing on the shoulders of giants. In fact, I was just noting to a friend that "Grunge" as practiced by Soundgarden was little more than a Black Sabath tribute.

At the same time, I was a teen during the "Big Chill" era when baby boomers were in full-on navel gazing and nostalgia mode.

Remember "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel? I think it expresses a shade of humility I'd like to see more in baby boomers. It's always like "We were the first generation raised on...TV!" As if listening to the radio as a child is on par with hunting and gathering.

I would also allow that Newsweek is casting about for anything - anything that will preserve the dwingling readership and it does make sense to appeal to this mega-demographic.

Ha, thanks!

By the way, thanks for your compliment on my looks.

It takes courage because an organization that is based on benevolent philosophical issues, especially a philosophy that argues that young women struggling to be respected for the content of their character not their gender, their appearance, their freedom to choose lifestyle and employment roles, and the freedom to think for themselves... should be inclusive towards young women who believe in that philosophy, but may have different life experience and new ideas that apply that philosophy to new and changing times.

If you are arguing that all or even many institutions eventually devolve into "organizational behavior" that puts the unifying philosophy second and the establishment of a cabal or politburo that is more focused on staying in power at the forefront, then JV can expect to receive hostility from those that want to hold on to the power for powers sake.

Those that are relying on merit to stay in charge, have very little to fear from a young and intelligent woman. Whoa,...That last remark could have been used against men 30 years ago,...hmmm.

If that's what you are referring to as "organizational behavior" then I might expect that from other organizations, but I think we have higher expectations from the institutions that are considered the caretakers of the ideal of freedom for women.

Whether you think its complaining or not, It is a valid point and if she is complaining, it is a valid complaint.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

-George Orwell

John, this isn't about me wanting more panel invites.  It's about me wanting the movement to be welcoming to young feminists already involved, and to be interested in doing better outreach to young women not yet interested.

And I'm with you on needing more media-savvy feminists...

Mentorship is, to some degree, about skills and expertise, not about ideas.  What is being discussed here - I think, but it's sort of an extrapolation - is about the provenance of ideas, and the degree to which the split being alleged keeps younger women out of the national debate on women's rights.  To use the academic/research analogy, a good mentor to JV would be one who provided support as she developed her own body of ideas on the subject they have in common.  I take it that she is saying that this is exactly what is not happening.

“As I read the unbelievably pathetic excuses given by the sorority for their actions, it occurred to me that in the same way Delta Zeta resorted to active exclusion as a recruitment strategy, mainstream feminists rely on passive exclusionary tactics to keep the movement “pure.”

Recounting your interpretations on why you might be greeted the way you are, I can certainly understand your feelings. But I don’t think I want you to panel any of my workshops and there are reasons why that I believe she has overlooked. I don’t have anything against her age, we need feminists her age, however, I don’t see her perspectives as being particularly feminist.

It’s not Age – it’s Ideology

You want to make this personal and it’s not personal. One thing that I find young feminists unwilling to examine is their basal ideology. In attempting clarify this, may we pursue your theme (not mine), on feminism and “social justice.” That’s a new phrase, not totally untrue, but largely alien to feminists. In the second wave, feminism focused on WOMEN’S ISSUES, not social justice. Your definition I believe moves women out of the center, and into the margins where patriarchy always places women. The purpose of feminism is to keep the political focus on women. To many second wavers this looks like a concession to the backlash as much of third wave feminism looks like a concession to the backlash.

You go on to talk about many things you don’t like about feedback you receive from second wavers. Some examples you gave had to do with the sexism of your logo. Let’s be more specific because much is lost in the word sexism. Your logo objectifies women and makes women prominent as sex objects and not as people. That’s exactly the opposite of what feminists want and is probably why you are not included as much as you’d like. As I see it, your ideology is not really consistent with feminism.

Maybe, just maybe, some feminists would rather that young women weren’t interested in feminism on a large scale—that way, the movement still belongs to them.

I see this a little differently. I look forward to your participation in feminism which has a core political ideology which seems really inconvenient to younger “feminists”. It’s not you, it’s not your youth, it’s your conceptualization and to be honest, I think that you detract from feminism rather than to add to it. Being even more specific, I KNOW we need young feminists but your liberal/queer/heteronormative ideology isn’t going to help feminism at all. In a real way, you are taking this personally, when the issues are ideological.

The most commonly heard complaint in feminist circles about younger women is that we take our rights for granted, and there’s always talk of young women rejecting the “f-word.” (Supposedly our having grown up with the successes of feminism makes us somewhat bratty and loathe to fight the good fight.)

I think there has been a loss willingness to listen to women who are a more experienced than you are. It also seems to me that there is a generation loss in the ability to observe onself and self assessement. You do seem “bratty” for what looks like an inability to actually dialogue. But these aren’t the things I’d criticize you for. I was there and when I was there, I was thinking exactly about you and the legacy we would be handing to you and how that common shared legacy could help break down a generation gap. I was wrong. It never occurred to me that your generation wouldn’t even bother to read second wave literature. That is a painful rejection when I can so clearly remember, in a zen sense, thinking about your face, long before it existed.

And the newest joke in the feminist blogosphere is about the “feminist police”: feminists who instruct other women about the appropriate way to be a feminist: what to think, act like, even what to wear.

There’s all kinds of antifeminist propaganda. Why not join in? This is really irritating and this is why the two generations have a hard time getting along. Feminism is about a peaceful revolution and social transformation for the liberation of women. Feminists do not see mini-skirts and stilettos are liberating. When that’s pointed out there’s always the reversal of being called the “police”. My question is, do you want a revolution of not? Very often as I look around I get the impression, based on results, that people really don’t want a revolution. Is this joke considered new? I think it’s about twenty years old. But the question again suggests a lack of knowledge on your part.

Life experiences of women is called practice and feminist analysis generates theory on how to change society which is put into practice. Theory also suggests a direction for activism. Garter belts and stiletos will not liberate women. You may want to call this policing but I really want to know how are you going to bring about change? Second wave radical feminists believe in the relationship between theory and practice.

Telling young women that they’re not feminist enough is the same thing as telling them that they’re not good enough for feminism. What young woman wants to be a part of a movement that doesn’t want her?

I think you’re good enough. I just don’t think your ideology is feminist. I understand feminism, I feel you really sell women short when you diffuse feminism with "social justice". Who are you trying to appeal to? Men? To be honest with multiple oppressions theory, feminism has become uncohesive and fragmented which is exactly where patriarchy wants it.

And if that means only accepting and reaching out to young women who are recreating their paradigm, or who fit into their mold, then so be it.

Thank you, that is the feminist paradigm is it not?

But there needs to be more—more feminists, more public faces, more room for movement-building. After all, alienating a generation of women isn’t the stuff social justice is made of.

And here is the finale. Feminism is about women’s liberation and NOT social justice. If you want a social justice movement then start one. What we know is that by the time women are liberated, there will be social justice. But I want feminism to ALWAYS be about women.

One of the problems with young women today is that you seem to make it about everyone else. For once I'd like you to hear, "it's about your ideology and the priority you give to women." There's nothing wrong with you as a woman and certainly you should not be put to work in a stock room, but what you call feminism and what I call feminism are two pretty different things.

Hello devon and thank you for your well considered post.

You brought up a number of issues which warrant a response and then I feel a need to supply some political context. I am a radical feminist and I do not see "progressive" or "liberal" as necessarily being a friend to women.

In attempting to clarify, may we pursue your theme (not mine), on feminism and “social justice.” That’s a new phrase, not totally untrue, but largely alien to feminists.
I understand, in a sense, your point here - that feminism is about women, and should be unwavering in its focus - but in a larger sense, I'm puzzled.

"Social Justice" is perhaps a murky term, but insofar as I understand it, isn't advancing the rights of women a matter of social justice? Does acknowledging that the oppression of women is but one of the profound imperfections of society diminish the force and importance of that observation?

Yes. Very much so and for several reasons. “Social Justice” is a gender neutral term and radical feminist recognize that large variety of sins lubrks in the cloudiness of gender neutrality. To give you a few example, “Domestic violence” is a off the shelf readily available term. However it’s almost like the phrase, “people get raped”. WHAT?!?!?! A woman is raped every four minutes. We feel a need to see say WHO is raping and WHO is being raped. Although it’s not apparent in society men have always inhabited both the masculine and neutral positions. It is very important in radical feminism to avoid gender neutrality for this reason.

Feminists have this nasty habit of counting bodies and refusing not to notice their gender. As applied, the sameness standard has mostly gotten men the benefit of those few things women have historically had-for all the good they did us. Almost every sex discrimination case that has been won at the Supreme Court level has been brought by a man. Under the rule of gender neutrality, the law of custody and divorce has been transformed, giving men an equal chance at custody of children and at alimony. Men often look like better "par¬ents" under gender-neutral rules like level of income and presence of nuclear family, because men make more money and (as they say) initiate the building of family units. In effect, they get preferred be¬cause society advantages them before they get into court, and law is prohibited from taking that preference into account because that would mean taking gender into account. The group realities that make women more in need of alimony are not permitted to matter, because only individual factors, gender-neutrally considered, may matter. So the fact that women will live their lives, as individuals, as members of the group women, with women's chances in a sex discriminatory society, may not count, or else it is sex discrimination. The equality principle in this guise mobilizes the idea that the way to get things for women is to get them for men. Men have gotten them. Have women? We still have not got equal pay, or equal work, far less equal pay for equal work, and we are close to losing separate enclaves like women's schools through this approach.

Here is why. In reality, which this approach is not long on because it is liberal idealism talking to itself, virtually every quality that dis¬tinguishes men from women is already affirmatively compensated in this society. Catharine MacKinnon – Feminism Unmodified

Secondly, when there is gender neutrality it is women who are almost invaribly granted last priority. When is the last time you’ve seen an LBGT Pro-choice demonstration?

“Is your beef here, then, with the kind of intersectionality analyses that have become more prominent in recent years, in response to the (perhaps overstated) allegation that feminism was inattentive to the ways in which race and class? It just seems to me that, while you may be articulating a very real difference between what you call feminism and what J calls feminism, but if this is the issue between you, what J calls feminism is hardly heterodox.”

I’m saying that in patriarchy, women will be assigned the last priority. For example, social justice? Iraq? It’s a mess isn’t it? We want out don’t we? But men created that mess, not women. Women’s issues are on the back burner and will always be in patriarchy, especially when feminism is clouded with the pursuit of “social justice”. Feminism has been the ONE area for women. Is it too fucking objectionable to keep feminism for women? Because I waited through twenty years of physical abuse just waiting for feminism to come. It was “domestic violence” it was male violence and when I was raped, I was raped by a man.

“I would say, of myself, that my first home in progressive politics is as a feminist. I say this as a white man, and if you ask me why I feel this way, in part, it is for reasons inarticulable - it just seems the place I should be. But if forced to articulate it, a partial answer would be this: I care about all the forms of oppression around me, but I can't help but think that there is something fundamental about the ways in which people oppress their own partners and children, and that, in the end, progress in other areas will necessarily be stunted if we don't address this.

This may not ultimately hold water, as an analysis of oppression (it may, further, strike many as off-base, if not insulting in insisting on a primary form of oppression). “

First of all, oppression is a class based phenomenon where the dominant class systematically undermines a subordinated class. Oppression is not a phenomenon of individuals.

“ But it is, at least, one way that one can be, so to speak, a 'social justice feminist' and a feminist first: it is a way that one can seek a form of feminism that places the oppression of women into the larger context of injustice and not diminish the focus on women. I am sure there are others.”

Who benefits from this? Men benefit. Does this proposal work for or against women? It works against women. Those are the two traditional tests for evaluating a proposition. I do not perceive it to be feminist.

I think there has been a loss willingness to listen to women who are a more experienced than you are. It also seems to me that there is a generation loss in the ability to observe onself and self assessement. You do seem “bratty” for what looks like an inability to actually dialogue.

“Let's assume that this is correct; it is plausible (I am with you, by the way, on many of your points about third wave feminism, though I guess I fall within the third wave generation). Okay, fine. Isn't it plausible that the phenomenon that you describe here and the one Jessica describes above are both true, and indeed, that they are mutually reinforcing? “

Yes. It is possible but as to plausible? Mutually reinforcing? No doubt and to that extent, we are both responsible and that's a powerful thing to say, yes, I see where i am responsible for participating in this.

I do not own feminism. I was but a tiny cog and was part of it's creation and Ms. Valenti's understanding and mine are so different and they are different in places where I hurt. I want to see continuity in what I helped start and instead of continuity.... well I see naked, anorexic, long haired women on trapezes. [expletive deleted]

Hello and thank you Devon,

"But I do wonder if there aren't ways, as a feminist, to assume a role in larger social justice concerns without losing focus on women. In light of the many internal pressures in the feminist movement today, I think that it probably isn't viable to fail to do this - the bad feeling around the various fault lines is profound. To some extent, the analysis I offered was intended to do this."

There are several things I need to say here. Feminists have always been involved in social justice and because of our values, I think we always will be.

However I think the question becomes one of definition. Do we define feminism as a social justice movement? Or, do we simply acknowledge that feminists by our very nature are interested in social justice? I believe the former maintains our centrality and creates the freedom for feminists to be active whereever our conscience and energies dictate. The second alternate however, which would be to define feminism around social justice which would give it a gender neutral defintion which should be avoided at all costs. Those are the contexts in which women's issues are lost and prioritized lowly and I think feminism should be the place the women have to return home to because we really don't have a home other than the world.

It's a feminist tradition to acknowledge our privileges when we have them because denying those privileges aligns with those systems of oppression. Once we have acknowledged those privileges, it feels like to me, that it somehow brings us closer to minority women from whom we benefit.

There's a secret to all this and it's not intellectual. The task of feminism is to assist women to deal with the misogynism we have internalized so that we can love each other. When that's a possibility then so is the collectivism that is so needed.

There's a really good article available on the net by Barbara Epstein called What happened to the women's movement.

She discusses basic shifts in this society from my generation (the boomers) to current times and observes that we have become colder and more materialistic as a society. We are more interested in ourselves as opposed to building a new or better society as was the investment of the boomers. Feminism REALLY needs to address these issues. Feminism needs to confront capitalism and i mean really confront it. Maybe we need a movement to support Mom and Dad businesses instead of corporation which would also help restore the middle class which republicans have been gutting. We need feminism to support community between women and we need fucking weaning from technology.

This is going to hurt but since you've asked me, I do not own an IPOD or music player or a cell phone and I like it like that.

So a point is... we need a peaceful revolution, so when are we going to start being revolutionary?