Suzie talks about the NOW conference to elect a new president:
“Delegates will be choosing between Latifa Lyles, a 33-year-old African-American who has been one of [President Kim] Gandy's three vice presidents, and Terry O'Neill, 56, a white activist who taught law at Tulane University, who was NOW's vice president for membership from 2001-05, and who most recently has been chief of staff for a county council member in Maryland's Montgomery County.”
Suzie then notes that Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com, says young Feminists would prefer Lyles, as NOW stands for white middle class feminism and O’Neill, 56, would be same old-same old. Valenti stated:
"When you think of NOW, you think of white middle-class feminism — 70s feminism…A lot of younger women are tired of seeing the same kind of leadership over and over. ...They're getting excited about smaller, local feminist organizations, more youth-led, doing more cutting-edge work."
Suzie correctly points out that only stated difference is age. Lyles, as part of the current NOW leadership and a current VP, didn’t institute any of the changes Valenti's now discussing, as Patricia Ireland, former NOW president, notes. Suzie nails it:
“I want young women involved in feminism, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea that it is natural for young women to prefer other young women, and that youth = cutting edge. It would be equally insulting for a woman of my age to suggest that older women are better and that older women would be more excited to elect one of their own.”
Intersectionality is allegedly one of the hallmarks of modern feminism. However, as Black Amazon points out, age is an intersectional characteristic: "older woman" is in fact AN INTERSECTIONAL IDENTITY.” And as Daisy lays out, ageism finds yet another home in feminist bloglandia.
As feminists should be aware, the difficulties women face as we age are unique to women. Both the right and the left have used gendered ageist commentary. And we don’t need to look to politics for such analyses. In our lives, we’ve seen men on the right and on the left treat women over “a certain age” as obsolete.
Well, move over guys, plenty of room on the bench for the young women who are hopping aboard to join you.
Forget about the fact that O’Neill was the contender who was NOT part of NOW’s current administration.. Forget about the fact that O’Neill has in her slate a young (younger than Lyles, if the third-wavers are counting) WOC feminist who’s been Policy Manager for the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence, an activist for access to education for poor women, and a lesbian rights activist. And forget about women of color who have played leadership roles in NOW (including as president and founder and some who are still active) who had the gall to be born before 1975.
Apparently for other intersections to count, they have to come wrapped in the right package – as in, a late model year.
I thought very highly of both choices for NOW president, and would have supported either. It’s too bad certain young feminists are “tired” of something that’s not “youth-led.”
Because Terry O’Neill won. Congratulations, Terry.
23 comments:
Ageism within the feminist community and in politics has been made so apparent tom me since 2008. Considering that our population is aging and we will be working into our seventies, maybe this is a prejudice we need to fight forcefully.
I really should say something deeper but
REALLY all i got is
" WHAT THE FCUK ?!?"
70's feminism is why you HAVE A CAREER ?!?!
not to mention how in the blue blazing holy hell is NOW cutting edge?
like that's not just simple careerism this is arrogance and ignorance of your own damn history on a level that makes me HEAD HURT!
Caliban -- great point about the need to work longer these days -- and of course, that goes for women as well. If we're old, tired news in our mid-50s, that doesn't augur well for our need to be taken seriously well beyond that.
BA -- yeah, the ignorance of history is absolutely galling. As I often think when reading the new-wave compilations, much has been said before, by older feminists from a variety of backgrounds, races and cultures, who remain uncited as vestiges of the past. Often I, someone who admittedly hasn't taken women's studies (but who isn't laying claim to expertise) will take a book to my mom, telling her she needs to read it, whereupon she'll inform me it's all in Rich, Walker, Friedan, hooks, etc. As I probably say way too often, those who forget the past...
I have my problems withe NOw
which oddly enough I can get from MY ELDERS WHO WERE FORM THE SEVENTIES
I have my problems with saying that NWO should be involved in ANY progressiveness.
But this thing
This is branding gone batshit.
Young women are tired?
Well then give em fifteen years and there not young then what?
and cutting edge?
I thought we were fighting for things we actually believed in not just being " ahead of the curve"
and since it's the National Organization of WOMEN not YOUNG WOMEN
you know what you don't get to pick and choose what women ( wait a minute that's what many of the ELDER WOMEN OF COLOR WERE SAYING IN THE 70's)
not to mention the quote is so fucking VAGUE
oh yeah LIKE WHAT?
this is one time where I would happily allow for massive backpedaling
because I mean you know me
i don't like much of Steinem etc et al
because for me a lot of it has not had the impact they purport
but to ignore those contributions and then hold up a woman who has performed ALONG those lines
simply because its technology menawhile claiming to have never been in volved
the
WHAT ?!?!?
Yes! The odd culling out of "technology" (which was pretty consistently plugged by both sides) and the automatic assumption that youth=high tech, seems to prioritize "cool sounding" over any need to discuss content.
And yeah, arguing for our own future irrelevance is something women really shouldn't do.
Oh, and check this comment out.
This other (must be young or young-ish, as she complains about 55+) woman is complaining about not wanting another leader with short brown hair! So the problems with NOW have something to do with the lack of a long-haired leader? What's missing is a "makeover"?
With friends like these...
This other (must be young or young-ish, as she complains about 55+) woman is complaining about not wanting another leader with short brown hair! So the problems with NOW have something to do with the lack of a long-haired leader? What's missing is a "makeover"?
Can you imagine any other (predominantly male, since most are) political group discussing a male leader's HAIR?
LOL.
as a young feminist (pretty young even by internet standards that i've seen - just a few months past 21), THANK YOU for this post. your last line? awesome. heh.
and yes to everything everyone has said in the comments thus far - whatever happened to gratitude? i AM a feminist because of my middle-aged mom, who in some ways is waaay ahead of these "young feminists" who, for the record, are all older than I am. OMG does this mean I get to be president of NOW???
I mean jeez, like BA said you know that in fifteen years the same young(ish) feminists who are like "young feminists rawr!" are gonna be writing op-eds all "feminism needs cohesion across generations!!! this new crop of feminists needs to listen to its elders!!! and continue purchasing their books!!!" do they not see where this is going? are they not aware that some of the best feminist voices right now are people on the far side of a midlife crisis? and does no one see the irony in the fact that the longer they continue to advocate for youth leadership at the exclusion of non-youth leadership, the OLDER THEY GET? for god's sake, Jessica Valenti is ten years older than I am (& I'd rather read Katha Pollitt any day), how much longer can she credibly say this kind of thing without agreeing to diminish her own stature for the sake of the movement, or whatever?
and you know what, I do not even want to talk about the Valenti quote except to say - "when you think of NOW you think of white middle-class feminism"? pot, kettle, i think you two will have a lot in common.
Daisy: nope! When I think "more effective" or "better," I don't think "different hairdo." Unless I happen to be at the hair salon.
Isabel: thanks! You're right: it is kind of ironic to carve out a definition of ones own importance that is time-limited (and, time's running out!)
Strangely, after having worked in both "cutting edge" (high tech internet startup) and crusty/old (automotive) industries, the best piece of advice I got was from an older woman at Ford Motor. I had quickly decided I was way too hip for the company, and that nobody there could possibly have anything of relevance to say to me. (I worked there from 22-26).
One woman there, a few levels above me, was probably the best mentor I ever had, but I took awhile to realize it, because she was fifteen years older, midwestern, and Republican. I felt I was too hip, politically and culturally, to really need her guidance.
She gave me a piece of business advice which I thought both obvious and irrelevant, with the result that I never followed it. Looking back, that was probably the stupidest decision (and there were many) I ever made.
Daisy was so right when she said that if today's young(ish) feminists don't appreciate the works and viewpoints of older women now, they can expect the same thing to happen to them when they're on the "wrong" side of 40.
I assume that when that time comes, they won't just gracefully retire and expect not to be on TV or sell any books anymore because hip youngsters have rejected them. But I do think they have the impression that they're beyond such rejection because unlike those old women in the short brown hair and Birkenstocks, they Keep Up With The Times! Yeah. Nobody's ever thought of THAT before.
Meowser, an excellent point.
Last year I hit 40 (so now I guess I'm on the wrong side!) and I admit, I feel a bit young-ish to be put out to pasture *just* yet.
I'm trying to figure out how, exactly, the "graceful retirement" as you so elegantly put it, of 40+ women is good for feminism. I'm sure it will come to me if I think through it (I'm slow that way, with my advanced age and all).
Let's see. Women retire at 40. That means we are unlikely to be able to support ourselves with savings thereafter. We will then need to hitch our wagons to men for support.
This is sounding great. I admit, I've always thought it was best to be self-supporting (even if my feeble ass is no longer really cutting edge) so as to be less dependent on men, with the mixed up notion that this would be helpful from a feminist standpoint. But, apparently not! Wait until MrO returns from work. I will be lounging in front of the TV, informing him that I am now too ancient to be worthwhile in a work environment. True, we will have to sell the house, pull my daughter out of school, and yank my mom's housing, but hey... better to get some young cutting edge gal (or, guy of any age!) into my job, so that cutting edge work can finally happen.
I'm going to check Tivo (of course, we will have to give that up as well... not yet though.)
Octo or someone knowledgeable,
How, exactly, does NOW get it's authority to lobby for women? How many members? Where does the money come from? from the Democratic Party? I couldn't decipher these questions from the website.
Seriously. I'm getting sick of being spoken for in this bullshit fabricated generational catfight by people who think "older" feminists have no business acting like more time might've given them a chance to build up more expertise and experience and shit. Less importantly - 'cuz, oozing youth privilege over here, and so I should probably resist making this about me - how freaking stupid, uninvolved, and lazy do these self-appointed advocates of young feminists think the rest of us are that we constantly need our egos fed with folks who are just! like! us! in charge of every freaking thing? What, does Facebook becomes magically incomprehensible to a lady-brain past its sell-by date? Aren't we against privileging people solely because of unchosen aspects of their identities? Even when those privileges are temporarily useful to us?
what pocochina said
JZ -- nonprofits and private orgs can lobby. I don't think NOW has any formal authority to represent women, though. It has about 500K members, I think, and gets most of its $ thru membership fees.
Pocochina -- I will third that.
I too find it odd that people feel that the idea that time could bring valuable experience is insulting or unfair to the young(er). I mean, we all get old(er) for the most part, so someday they too will benefit from this.
Making assumptions about the inability of the middle-aged and up to parse technology or to be energetic and active is a dangerous thing. I recall when I used to run distance about 10 years ago. I signed up for a 10-mile hill run, saw some older women at the starting pont and wondered (luckily, I didn't voice this) how they would possibly make it.
Later, puffing up a nearly vertical hill, I contemplated quitting. A woman who must've been over 60 passed me with a cheery wave, and suggested I take a quick water break. I did so, and ultimately finished in 70 minutes and 40 seconds, the fastest I'd ever done that distance. When I got to the lobby, though, the older woman was already changed and having a pepsi.
hello... hapi blogging... have a nice day! just visiting here....
I'm always late these days, but thanks for discussing this. I keep coming back to the idea of marketing. If someone is selling herself (or site, book, etc.) to a certain demographic, then she needs to strongly differentiate her demographic from others.
In U.S. culture, old+women doesn't sell, but young+women is a hot commodity.
Suzie - interesting idea. The tension there is that most people try to use career to optimize personal wealth, reputation, etc. I certainly plead guilty to that re my career. But when "career" is a social movement, there is a direct conflict between self interest and what's in the best interest of others in the group.
I am really late to this, but I just want to say a HUGE thank you, Octogalore, for this.
I actually have been very supportive of young feminists' efforts to take a more substantive and central role in the blogosphere, in leadership positions at all levels, and in the general media (after all, the baton does have to be passed to the next generation), and I have learned a lot from them, and I am grateful to them for that.
But I have been increasingly disturbed by a very strong streak of narcissism and entitlement in some of their their writings and the issues they champion, which is manifesting itself in this agesim (as well as a lot of the racism, transphobia, classism, fatphobia, etc. I see among too many of their supporters - read their comments sections - Oy!, or even in their own blogposts or books at times).
Moreover, some of us are experiencing this ageism first hand from people who proclaim to know better. I, as well as too many friends and colleagues of a certain age who are now frighteningly unemployed/underemployed, have noticed a not so subtle change in atmosphere when we go on interviews at so-called liberal or progressive non-profits or other institutions.
We are now often interviewed for jobs by 20 and 30 somethings (male and female - and there is nothing wrong with that, and in fact, I enjoy working with young people very much and am inspired by them). And you can just feel that you are not going to get a fair shake because of your age and "un-hip" appearance (read: "frumpy" because of the toll menopause, pregnancy, and just plain age has taken on many of our bodies and faces) by the way they size you up when you walk in the room, the kinds of question they ask you, their patronizing and even arrogant tone, etc. And I am sure most of them would swear up and down ageism had nothing at all to do with their dismissal of us and our candidacy (at times very disrespectfully so).
I am not claiming this happens every place we are interviewing by any means, but we have all felt this enough recently in our experiences to know we are not being paranoid. We definitely feel like it is a much more of an uphill battle in general to "sell" ourselves because of our age, especially in this economy. What are the young feminists saying about this, and how are they helping us to fight it? One day they are going to be there.
Why have our life experiences and knowledge and skills gained through years of study, activism, and hard work suddenly not become valuable? Should I have showed my tatoo in interviews to be taken more seriously as a "hip" person who would "fit in the culture" at those places?
All we are asking for is a fair chance to keep participating actively in our economy, our culture, our political system, our grassroots organizations, and our communities, and to be treated with respect and decency for the unique value we bring to the table, and not shut out because of our age, (or race, gender, sexuality, looks, disabilities, etc.), just like younger feminists rightly demand from us (I am talking mainly about educated, white, economically privileged feminists here). Working for positive change together would make us all that much stronger, but I wonder about the ability of the younger feminists to actually work for true intersectionality in their activism (and I emphatically agree that the mainstream feminists of my generation have failed miserably on this), when they spout shit about older women like this.
And yeah, what Blackamazon said about NOW in the second comment. But your point about ageism hit a real painful nerve with me. Thanks again.
Frankly, I'm sick of Jessica Valenti acting as the voice for all "young" feminists. I am a young feminist, and I disagree with her a lot. Besides, isn't part of being a feminist critiquing the culture that says women are only valuable if they're "young and nubile?" Most feminists I know are professors who are a lot older than me, but I love being with them because they teach me so much and give me a space to grow as a feminist.
Some young women are driven away from feminism because of the media's stereotyping of feminists as unattractive, asexual, old, etc. but another approach is winning campaigns against cultural sexism, winning legislative battles, beating the patriarchy and continuing to speak out against sexism. I was attracted to feminism at age 20 because of Sassy's Christina Kelly because she was 1) attractive 2) popular 3) smart. Notice where smart falls on the list. I didn't want to be a feminist if I could no longer attract men but the more feminists win campaigns, the more visibility feminists will have and a more accurate, broad representation will follow naturally.
American feminists are angry because they still haven't achieved the Second Wave goals of equal pay, reproductive choice/justice and affordable childcare not for want of trying but because sexist, liberal men, think Blue Dogs, have prevented it from happening. If US feminists won these legislative battles over conservative Democratic men, they would be less angry. We really ARE angry and winning these legislative battles will succeed two fold via legislation and perception.
Kathy -- thanks. You nailed it about the way that age in women vs men is looked at by employers. As you may know, I'm in the placement biz, and in dealing with employers (law firms in my case), they think nothing of making comments about female partners I'm repping who are 50+ that they wouldn't make with men who are.
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