an interesting read imo: "Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30"

[Tumbulu]

Last edited Sat Feb 25, 2012, 10:10 PM - Edit history (1)

from an article I read from the Mother Jones site.

Hope I am doing this correctly- have never posted a link to an article before.....

"I'm not talking about reverence, I'm talking about a thirst for the kind of knowledge that will help in the battles all your responses claim to be fighting so diligently for. Here's my final example: I take seriously the chidings of people who've been dead for as much as 150 years."

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/dont-trust-any-feminists-under-30

[Warpy]

1. I'm on message boards with some rather rabid feminists

in their 20s and 30s. I approach things from a "this is what we tried and this is why it didn't work when we tried it" approach. Most of the time it works. A few times I get flamed because immortal and highly resilient youth just doesn't believe things are going to change and that they're likely to follow me down the road to dilapidation and cynicism.

I'm not as kind as poor Jim. I am likely to say something churlish like "You'll find out, just have about 15 more birthdays" when some idiot in his or her 30s tries to nag me about going to a gym.

[saras]

2. Not all but some...

I run into "feminists" all the time in school, who have all been indoctrinated with "it's a good thing we got rid of that radical feminist stuff in the seventies, you know, the hairy armpits for rich white women. Because that's all it did. They weren't against sexism, they were against sexy."

You simply cannot explain the difference between 1965 and 1975 to them. Stonewall? Whatever. The ERA? Didn't pass. Rape laws in the sixties? Whatever.

[Neoma]

3. You highlight the words you're quoting...

Then press on the 'excerpt' button.

[Tumbulu]

10. thanks for the tip- it worked (nt)

[JoeyT]

4. Feh.

"Get off my lawn" arguments aren't impressive.

Let's all sneer at the younger generation, then six months later we can complain about how none of them support the cause. Either way they can't win.

[Remember Me]

5. Yah. The only kinds of arguments that are impressive to

know-it-alls are their own.

And the younger generation NEVER sneers at the old fogeys who did all that stuff they don't want to hear about which is exactly what gets us to the point we're in now:

It's not that the older generation of women want THANKS for our efforts; it's that we don't want our work flushed down the toilet by those who can't be bothered to give a damn so that while they're busy dissing 2nd wave feminism, we 2nd wavers are seeing the desperate, urgent need to fight the damn war all over again. IOW: Forget advancing the cause. The younger generation couldn't even be bothered to hold the territory we gained.

The real truth is this: the younger generation NEVER supported the cause adequately, so we can hardly complain that they've gone slack because of our complaints about them.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. "The only kinds of arguments that are impressive to know-it-alls are their own"

I suppose if one spends an inordinate amount of time talking to oneself, that might make sense.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. I don't see how this sort of generational divisiveness is at all helpful to feminists, or anyone for

that matter.

If I can make a generational generalization of my own, what I see expressed through this divide as well as in many other areas in our society, is a Boomer Generation that is used to thinking it is the central fulcrum around which all thought and social change pivots, now uncomfortably finding itself out of touch in many regards.

[REP]

8. I just don't see this in meat space, either

I'm 47. Many of my friends were born around the time I was in middle school; I have some that were born after I graduated college. I also have friends who are older than I am. We don't fight about who's more feminist or which generation has done more. We're more worried about what needs to be done.

[JTFrog]

11. Right.

Is that why you discourage the generational divisiveness in your thread in the Men's group?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1114305

Bit hypocritical if you ask me.

But then I guess that's to be expected.

[Warren DeMontague]

12. That thread is not about generational divisiveness.

Why would you expect me to discourage generational divisiveness in that thread, when that thread is not about generational divisiveness.

Nor does it encourage generational divisiveness, unlike the article linked in the OP of this thread.

[JTFrog]

13. Of course. n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. i agree

[tammywammy]

7. Jezebel replied, as did Courtney Martin from Feministing

Update: Blogger Now Annoyed By Drunk, Pole-Dancing, Arrogant Feminists Under 30

---
According to Ms. Dickerson, any critique of her piece, in which she painted all young feminists with the broad brush of uninformed skankhood, is exactly like mocking a middle-aged man with a heart condition. She wishes she could apologize to Jim - since deceased - the way that those who dared critique her will someday apologize for having the hubris to be offended at the suggestion that all young feminists are doing is "pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives." Yes, we'll be apologizing.
---

http://jezebel.com/5172472/update-blogger-now-annoyed-by-drunk-pole+dancing-arrogant-feminists-under-30

Courtney E Martin's response was to the article Dickerson posted before this. See that one here: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/03/future-abortion-providers-0

Feministing's Courtney E. Martin Guest Blogs on "Pole Dancers"
After Debra Dickerson caricatures young women as pole dancing, attention-starved idiots, she then quips: "Harsh, you say? Uninformed? OK. Tell me exactly what today's feminists are doing for the struggle."

Glad you asked Debra, because it's clear you haven't had the benefit of knowing a real, live, breathing, thinking young woman and you're really missing out. Indeed, some of us like to blog about the political and social issues of the day (as it appears, do you). We actually see this as part of the struggle—an effort to speak on our own behalf about issues that affect us in a corporate conglomerated media landscape that too often trades in stereotypes like yours.
---

We are providing support and shelter for former teen prostitutes. We are training to be abortion providers and midwives and social workers. We are mentoring low income girls to write about their experiences. We are falling in love with feminist men and women and having our hearts broken and doing it all over again. We are running shelters for LGBTQ youth who have fallen through the cracks of a homophobic society. We are educating one another about STIs, STDs, and reproductive justice. We are doing community organizing. We are rebuilding New Orleans. We are going dancing all night with our girls. We are, indeed, protesting in the streets. We are starting organizations to provide support for women veterans of Iraq, 15 percent of whom have been sexually assaults. We are drinking beers on Saturday nights with our friends and talking about feminism. We are donating money to causes we believe in, voting for leaders we respect, getting political and media training. We are queering gender and getting sex change operations and delighting in our sexuality on a spectrum. We are dancing burlesque downtown to demonstrate our rejection of oppressive beauty standards and explore our sexuality on our own terms. We are writing op-eds. We are painting and break dancing and making documentary films and writing on one another's Facebook walls and refusing to let our friends date assholes and reinventing or rejecting marriage all together and speaking out at Take Back the Night and deluging corporate email accounts when they use sexist advertising. We are honoring our mothers and grandmothers with our wide-eyed, creative, tenacious spirits. We are feminism.
---
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/03/feministings-courtney-e-martin-guest-blogs-pole-dancers

[CreekDog]

9. I think not trusting people on the basis of their age is a form of discrimination

and to do that towards people willing to call themselves feminists, creates a divide and does a disservice to the movement.

[msanthrope]

14. Yeah. I'll get off her lawn, too...nt

[iris27]

16. So, what, I am untrustworthy today, but automatically become so tomorrow (my 30th birthday)?

We have enough divisions in feminism without adding more. The feminist blogosphere has reached incredible numbers of women, and it is largely run either by women under 30, or those who are over 30 now, but were younger when they started their sites.

Edited to add: Just because the author was a jackass to older people in her own youth, doesn't mean all younger people are the same. As someone who's been fat for most of my 20's, I've been the one explaining the way that women who aren't deemed "fuckable" by the patriarchy are rendered invisible to the same. Those who have been most befuddled by that concept are women who are older, but still considered "hot" by virtue of slender bodies and extreme devotion to their appearance.

[Son of Gob]

18. Happy Birthday!