“Generational tension” rhetoric hurts repro rights

Another one of these came out again. While the setup of the oft-reported generational divide in the feminist movement is unmistakably familiar, let’s break this article down. Elder feminist offers “back in the day” testimony about the lack of access to abortion rights. Then comes quote after divisive quote from presumably elder feminists that affirm the sentiment that young women “take for granted” the rights they fought for, that our sense of urgency is non-existent. And of course, we will have a young woman speak out against her own.
We’ll have the sensational modifiers. One even comes complete with an aside about the motivations behind the last name Freewomyn. Yet, the run-of-the-mill feminist, the Jane Does in a full suit or ripped jeans and a clean t-shirt are left to our imagination. All the while, the non-feminist reader is probably so laughing so hard over the fact that someone would self-identify as being in the “the menopausal militia,” they’ve likely forgotten why this piece has been touted by the New York Times as timely. In closing, the article wraps up with a mother who seems surprised that her daughters share her anger in this political hour.
What’s really eating my grapes about the mainstream media’s umpteenth rendition of second wave vs. third wave is this then-and-now business and how this tired ass refrain invisibilizes the experiences of low-income women and women of color. What’s not to be missed about the comfortable distance middle class women enjoy as they reminisce about the story of an anonymous friend from the 50s are the real places that exist today where women have access to abortion that is akin to an insurance coverage ban.
Where are the narratives of Jacksonian women in Mississippi? They currently live in a state where pharmacists have been known to ask to see wedding rings before completing a purchase for birth control, where TRAP laws are so alive and well there is only one, ONE, abortion clinic in the entire state. And what of the stories of low-income women for whom abortion coverage bans are not a threat but a promise that has been fulfilled by the Hyde Amendment? Underneath this generational divide coverage, is the tendency to use the stories of some elder feminists to assert the opposite of their intention, that abortion restrictions are a thing of the past.
This countless rehashing from elder feminists that never get around to the atrocities of the millennium isn’t just a slap in the face to young women all over the country mobilized for change. It does the movement a disservice by dating abortion restrictions to the pre-Roe era as if post-Roe isn’t fraught with multiple sites of decreased access. If it is truly the intent of elder feminists to sensitize an American public that is neutral or oppositional to issues of reproductive healthcare, they should switch their personal accounts from past to present tense. But, most of all, they should yield the floor to the countless low-income women and women of color of reproductive age on medicaid who have much to testify about.