A response to Courtney of Feministing.com writing about Geraldine Ferraro.
Younger women want to speak, breathe, and live intersectional feminism--the idea that social change emerges at the crossroads of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability etc. Some older women are stuck in a second-wave conception of feminism as wholly focused on gender and championing women no matter what the context or complexities. We see this divide showing up in women's organizations. We see this divide showing up in media coverage. And we see this divide showing up in the interpersonal, every day struggles between feminists of different generations who want to see one another and do good work together.
First, let me say thank you for saying, "Some older women are stuck in a second-wave..." You are the only one to qualify this disturbing fact with the qualifier of the word, "some." I am in the most peculiar of circumstances of being 59 and having one foot in each of the self-imposed label of waves. My grey hair is in the 2nd wave, my clothes are, rightly so, in the 2nd wave but my conscience is in the 3rd wave.
My hope has been to be a liaison, explaining one to the other and this election has really ripped through my soul. There is a piece coming out in the Nation, Morning in America, (trying to not hammer the reporter for talking about muffins and good china - I can't translate that to men meeting in the AM), I highlighted one sentence late last night, "...media descriptions of white women as the sole inheritors of the feminist movement and black men as the sole beneficiaries of the civil rights movement." I had to pause and really survey the context of my political activism.
I don't want to choose one movement over another - the goal has always been to eliminate oppression in all forms. Is this Sophie's choice? - I hate that. A mother who has twins, carried for 9 months, and gave birth to her children ~ choosing one or the other is one of the few things that can destroy a soul. I think it explains why this election is eating away at my, and so many others', very fabric.
And then there is the anger that, what began as so much good news, has turned into dropping one of my political alliances and banners in my lifelong march for liberation. And in some cases being told that I am no longer welcome with one group where I had been celebrated. I still want what I want – but how that wanting became harming another, whom I am drawn to protect, is unexpected, unimaginable, and, at the moment, unsolvable.
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