After spending the weekend at the NOW national conference in Nashville, I was shocked to read NOW President Kim Gandy quoted as saying: "We have enormous appeal as a movement to young women and it's absolutely critical to grow that emphasis."
Did we attend the same conference?
If NOW was really focused on including and recruiting more young women, their national conference would have had affordable housing available at Vanderbilt University dorms, structured opportunities for intergenerational dialogue, and nighttime entertainment alternatives to aging folk singers. (Sleater-Kinney happened to be in town that weekend, but I certainly didn't hear about it from NOW.) Young women would have been represented proportionally among the speakers— not primarily shunted into panels labeled as "for young women." A concerted effort would have been made to ensure young women were not just NOW members, but were credentialed to vote. At the very least, there would have been more opportunities to speak with our supposed liaisons to the NOW leadership, the Board-appointed Young Feminst Task Force.
I did have a great time meeting many active, intelligent and politically savvy women. And I realize my criticism of NOW in an open forum is giving the Right some ammunition. But this weekend was overall a negative experience for me and for many others in the under-30 age bracket. Older attendees (or at least the ones who shared my shuttle to the airport), on the other hand, seemed to have an overwhelmingly positive weekend. Clearly, there's a disconnect.
Next time, Kim, please put your conference where your mouth is. In 2006, the theme is "young feminists," and hopefully things will be different.
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Is it so shocking??
lets face it the old guard never relishes the moment when their grasp and relevence begins to slip, and the younger generation begins to usurp their power and prestige in the ferment of life's battles. It is just human nature, don't blame them. But never fear, the younger generation always wins, for obvious reasons.
it's a shame that you had this experience. i've also had similar experiences in the past both at the national level and local level of organization. this really has to change soon....
I'm a former NOW intern (2002), and I can vouch for their complete inadequacy to relate to and engage young feminists. As an intern, I was poorly supervised, disengaged from the greater mission of the organization, often left with too little work, and not provided the opportunities to grow as a feminist that they promised in the internship contract.
NOW is caught up in the 1960s method of feminist activism - gather the usual suspects, who are now all in their 50s or better, march on Washington, and write an angry press release. Hooray to you for pointing it out.
I just read your statement in the above-linked Salon article, and I just wanted to tell you how RIGHT ON you are. Humanist, my ass.
I've also noticed a big difference between "normal" feminist conferences and those explicitely for younger feminists. I wish NOW would work with Southern Girl conference organizers or other younger women.
Older feminist here.
Ann, sorry your experience was less than positive. (and too bad I didn't get a chance to meet you, wonder how many other bloggers I missed) I'm going to pass your criticism on to the organizers here in Tennessee - who had the best of intentions and worked very very hard to make the event a success.
I can say that if more young feminists were involved here in this red state, your concerns would have likely been addressed.
Here's hoping that when you guys are older, you won't have this problem.
Thia is so depressing. I noticed all of the above at the Feminist Exp 2000, as happy as I was to see so many younger women -- and that was during Clinton, when a measure of complacency was inevitable (if unjustified). Now, it's just bizarre.
Some of the oldest women might even remember what I've only read about: that Gloria Steinem was in her early twenties when she stood up at the Democratic Convention in Miami (in her miniskirt) in 1972 -- a 20something leader!
Of course, the lack of affordable housing shuts out a LOT of people. And in fact, the lack of a *real* class oonsciousness has likely hurt NOW even more than the age issue.
Ann - Let's talk offline. I'm plotting again.
Ann,
You are SO RIGHT. (This is coming from a 16 year old feminist)
Now, don't get me wrong. I think Kim Gandy is freaking Spartcus, Latfia Lyles is amazing, Olga Vives is my idol, and Melody Drnach is a good friend of mine.
I was at Nashville, and although I had an amazing time, and did connect with a ton of young feminists--we had to connect on our own.
I live in Albany, so I'm going to be doing a TON of organizing for the 2006 conference. How can we make it better?
Send an e-mail to youngfeministsnow@hotmail.com--that's my chapter that I'm the prez of.
I think I know who you are, too--Did my friend Ally try to get into the Sleater-Kinney concert with you?
~Liz