Well said, Courtney. I really enjoyed reading this piece.

wonderful. I'm going to print this out and give it to my coworker. We have been having the same generational discussions about this election. She said to me one day "You know you're such a strong feminist, you should be ashamed to choose Obama." I've been furious about that comment for weeks - but your article has made me rethink how I come across to her. Maybe I'm perceived as an arrogant hipster...? Who takes the second wave for granted...? And never really bothered to ask why she likes Hillary...?

Jay-suz! it's hard to imagine how 2nd wavers percieve me.

Fantastic.

Fabulous article! The whole mother vs. daughter idea is so frustrating and doesn't speak to my experiences at all. My mom and both voted for Obama, and I've been chastised for not voting for Clinton by more girls my own age than I have by older women.

I really can't believe that woman called the issue of body image "frivolous." There are just no words.

I am 59 and a life long feminist activist. I was a big Gore fan and hoped that he would be drafted into 2008 ~ that is until a friend said this;
There are countless things that women will not realize until a woman is in the Whitehouse. No matter how progressive a man is, he will not be able to be the ultimate myth buster who makes us just shut up about clothes and hair and hi-heels and tears and hormones and question if a woman can handle the job.
The U. S. ranks 71st in women in governmental leadership positions worldwide. Should Obama win, he will be in for 8 years - whoa 2017 for a woman to lead the US. It really takes my breath away, a very long haul.
I know Hillary is not the peace candidate, the ecology candidate but we need to get this show on the road - that women can lead.

I would like to preface this post by stating my sincere and profound respect for Courtney and all other writers here on Feministing. As a relative newbie to the site, I must first say how important the work you are doing is, and I applaud and thank you for all that you do.

OK.

As a 24-year-old Canadian woman, I just have to say that every time I hear of a young American woman defend her vote for Senator Obama, something inside me starts to hurt. Given that the two candidates’ policy plans and political philosophies are so close, I just don’t understand this Obama movement that has occurred across your country. Perhaps that has a lot to do with the fact that I am not there, and I have not been subjected to the kind of pressures that Rebecca Traister mentioned in her article “Hey Obama Boys, Back Off Already�, and I have not experienced the rallies and the face-to-face discourse and time with the candidates.

I am currently a university student, and a news media junkie, constantly watching both Canadian and American news (and of late, I find myself tuned in to CNN far more often than the CBC). I read the NY Times every day, I listen to NPR podcasts on my commute, I laugh at Jon Stewart four nights a week, and I still find myself dumbfounded as to this frenzy over Senator Obama.

I would give up a lot in my life to be able to vote for a woman to be the leader of my country – a woman as intelligent, inspiring, strong, passionate, devoted and experienced as Hillary Rodham Clinton. Being perfectly honest – this is one of the only times in my life that I wish I was an American. This hidden resentment of American voters may be getting in the way of my being able to see clearly - what you see in Barack Obama.

As a Canadian, I have universal, government-regulated, free, health care – and so when I hear Senator Clinton talk consistently about health care for all Americans, as a fundamental right, and when I look at how much she has fought for that to happen in her lifetime, and when I see that her plan is more progressive than Senator Obama’s - the choice is clear for me.

I understand all the baggage attached to the Clinton name, and even specifically her name, but I remember the 90s too. I remember my parents not being able to take us anywhere south of the border because our dollar was pretty much half of what yours was. I can’t imagine that Americans are buying into Senator Obama’s talking points that gloss over the Clinton years in the white house like they were equivalent to the previous four or the following eight.

The “Hope� or “above-it-all� phenomenon, central to Obamamania, just doesn’t ring true for an outsider such as myself. I think we’ve seen that falsehood come to fruition over the past six weeks (the six weeks that seemed like a decade) in PA. The above-it-all politics that he’s talking about and convincing people he will deliver on, seems fundamentally naïve and misleading. Is it just me thinking this? Sometimes it feels that way.

All of this being said, I do not believe that a woman should ever be pressured into voting for Senator Clinton, by her mother or anyone else, nor should she feel any guilt if she votes to the contrary. I am just trying to understand the inclination of so many of my peers down in the States. Thanks very much for reading. This is my first comment on Feministing, after discovering it just over a month ago. It is now among my many site visits every day. Thank you.

I am voting for Clinton in tomorrow's PA primary. All things being equal between two candidates, I think it's time to have a woman in the White House. I think what's keeping women out of elected office more than discrimination today is that far fewer women are foolish enough to commit to the arduous task of running. While I can't blame them, we are largely limiting our pool of candidates to half the population, and that's not good for a democracy. We really need to make as many elected offices part-time as possible. There's no reason this can't be the case in the state legislatures, and I frankly don't see why Congress needs to be a full-time job. I think we need to explore what's keeping women from running, and see if we can't make adjustments.

As much as I'd like to see a woman in the station of president, I'd rather she not be installed by way of convincing Democratic party leadership to overturn the will of the majority of Democratic primary voters and, in doing so, effectively disenfranchise everyone who has supported Barack Obama in the past several months.

To me, apart from subverting democracy itself, that's really not the kind of victory we want women looking towards as proof that they can accomplish anything.

Thanks--I really enjoyed this piece as well. I was at a conference last week where I was on a panel where we discussed similar tensions and issues. I had an encounter not unlike Meg's in which a colleague of mine said that my vote against Clinton (not for Obama!) was indicative of my political naivete and that once I'd been in the feminist trenches for longer I might have more political clarity. Sigh. Curiously, she has not said anything similar to the feminist colleague of her generation who is Obama-mad.

I think this discussion is potentially fruitful if we learn from it and acknowledge that feminists have a diversity of issues we need to address.

And, as for the "all other things being equal" I'm not sure they are. Foreign policy was the issue that firmly put me in Obama's camp. But the election of either Obama or Clinton would be an historical moment to celebrate and I will enthusiastically work for either in the general election.

Courtney said: "When we engage in "either/or" thinking, when we dismiss and reduce one another, it weakens the movement."

I love that line. I don't understand why everything is "either/or." I do with certain things, but what happened to diversity and respecting others' opinions. The more we fight, the farther the "goal" seems to move away from sight.

Great article.

Zoe Ann:
"No matter how progressive a man is, he will not be able to be the ultimate myth buster who makes us just shut up about clothes and hair and hi-heels and tears and hormones and question if a woman can handle the job."

Wonderful!

I don't have a strong preference for either Clinton or Obama, I will support either one for the Presidency whoever gets nominated.

The best thing I can say about Hillary as a candidate is that she was right on health care, way ahead of her time.

BUT - as a FEMINIST candidate - doesn't anybody have a problem with the fact that she has indisputably risen to power the old fashioned way - by being married to a powerful man?

Lear-

The short and simple? No. I'm not aware of too many male politicians who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, either, and I'm not holding it against THEM.

Nepotism hardly speaks to the idea that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it, though.

nouneux -

I think there's a difference between supporting a spouse and the Clinton thing (refering to both Clintons, whatever you want to call it).

For example, the second most powerful person in the US government, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, gets a lot of support of all kinds from her husband, but nobody is voting for her because of Paul Pelosi's record as an elected official. Nobody can say that Paul's political career gave Nancy her start as a politician.

having a woman in the white house would be fantastic, but not the one running. senator clinton has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians on her hands. think about how powerful it would have been in senator clinton spoke out against the war? we need someone in office that had the correct mindset from the start, with regard to the unecessary cost of war, regardless of whether or not he was in the senate at the time. this war, according to reliable economist, Joseph Stiglitz, a 3trillion dollar war. 3 trillion dollars! before this country can reform anything else (and we have PLENTY to reform), we need to put a stop to the bloodshed in the middle east. woman or man, i will not be voting for someone who assisted in getting us into this mess.

having a woman in the white house would be fantastic, but not the one running. senator clinton has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians on her hands. think about how powerful it would have been in senator clinton spoke out against the war? we need someone in office that had the correct mindset from the start, with regard to the unecessary cost of war, regardless of whether or not he was in the senate at the time. this war, according to reliable economist, Joseph Stiglitz, a 3trillion dollar war. 3 trillion dollars! before this country can reform anything else (and we have PLENTY to reform), we need to put a stop to the bloodshed in the middle east. woman or man, i will not be voting for someone who assisted in getting us into this mess.

I am totally against Obama's idea of lets all just get along. We have to undo much of the illegal things Bush has done and we can't do that if we all "get along".
As for the "he won the popular vote" - It ain't over til its over AND what about Michigan and Florida? Apparently their votes don't count, never mind the ones who haven't voted yet.

Jane, they're not going to count the Florida and Michigan primaries. It wouldn't be fair to since the votes took place with the knowledge that neither result would count, and without Obama's name even on the Michigan ballot.

Meanwhile, the states would never consent to the cost of a revote, even without the question of how to deal with Democrats who chose to vote in the Republican primary because they knew their vote for Clinton or Undecided wouldn't matter.

Furthermore, are you aware that Clinton herself voted against letting either state count, though this was before she knew she could use them both to her advantage?

And yes, if you look at the numbers, Clinton has no chance to win at this point unless she convinces the Democratic Party Leadership to ignore Obama's clear lead and instead go with the candidate in second, democracy be damned.

Damnit! As a 23 year old Clinton supporter, I'm really freaking tired of hearing how apparently "older" women are behind her in such mystifyingly large numbers.

That aside, yes, damnit, yes. Fuck yes. I am so tired of internecine warfare. There is room for debate and discussion. Feminism should be about gender positivity; about celebrating women as individuals and not the monolithic group of vapid, selfish, disloyal bimbos the mainstream has made us out to be. Feminism may have come a long way, but the light is still a long ways off, and there's much to do.

It can't be done if we're all just taking offense at phantoms invented by the mainstream press.

Obama said on April 14 that, if elected he would assign his attorney general to launch an investigation upon Bush and other senior officials regarding corruption in the lead up to the iraq war, the only candidate to make that claim

Given that the two candidates’ policy plans and political philosophies are so close, I just don’t understand this Obama movement that has occurred across your country.

In this country, we're rather accustomed to candidates with virtually identical policy platforms. Thus, it comes down to "qualities". The PR industry spend a lot of time and money emphasising the qualities we're supposed to associate with the respective candidates - much as they do with cars and toothpaste the rest of the time - and the media mostly limit themselves to debating over whose PR offensive is the most successful.

Obama's PR team have done an impressive job of erasing from history his support of just about everything the population here hates about the Bush administration. We're supposed to remember the "dumb war" speech he gave before he was in Congress, but his unwavering support for the war once he was elected to Congress is material for the Memory Hole. Since the only even arguably progressive (by the standards of US official politics) frontrunner has long since left the race, Obama's carefully managed image has come to be identified with dissatisfaction with all things Bush.

Clinton, on the other hand, has been at great pains over the past several years to come out highly publicly in favour of some of the most criminal foreign policy initiatives the Bush administration has come up with. She was a pre-war propagandist for the assault on Iraq, and today she's much more inclined to publicly support an attack on Iran than her opponent (who also supports "keeping all options on the table").

Ultimately, Clinton's bullshit just isn't as effective.

I love this blog (I really do).....

but it's kind of annoying that absolutely none of the bloggers here are pro-hillary. for any regular reader of this blog, its obvious that EVERY writer on this blog is pro-obama. not that there is a problem with that (i will vote for obama once he gets the eventual nom), but seriously, it's annoying that EVERYONE who blogs for this cite is pro-obama

its not that i don't think that there are good reasons to vote for obama, there certainly are, but its been clear for so long that ALL of the bloggers here are pro-obama.

i DO like obama, but sometimes on this blog it is CLEAR that there is a pro-obama slant, and sometimes it is a little difficult to express a pro-hillary response that doesn't sound like i am just an "older woman" or someone who "only looks at gender/sex when they vote" when articulating whey i would vote for hillary. there are reasons to vote for clinton (like the fact that she has experience, she can withstand republican stacks, etc. etc.)

i am an intelligent woman who has thought long and hard about it.....and i am going to vote for clinton in the election.

sorry this seems like a rant, but it IS odd that of all the bloggers on this site, there are NONE that are pro-hillary.

i really, really, really, appreciate you pointing out the sexism in the campaign (thank god SOMEONE will point it out), but it also seems like for those of us hillary-supporters out there, that we are somehow stupid (like the cartoon posted here awhile ago as 'humor' that all hillary supporters are 'old mothers ' while obama supporters are low-jean-wearing, tank-top-breast-exposing, midriff-showing- obama-maniacs).

i'm really not trying to be a troll, and this rant isn't really in response to the post that i'm commenting about (i honestly think that what courney/ann had to say was pretty insightful), but can we at least get SOME diversity on this site and SOMEBODY come out in defense of hillary as a GOOD candidate).

i am NOT stupid, and i'm 22 years old and i LOVE hillary clinton.

i love all the work that you all are doing, but come on, sometimes i feel as though it is somehow ANTI-FEMINIST to vote for hillary because of the obvious pro-obama slant at this blog.

i really love this blog, and i'm not saying that anyone should necessarily be pro-hillary, but when it comes down to it their positions on major issues are 95% the same, so why are all the bloggers necessarily pro-obama?!?!
i don't feel like there is a clear case why obama is "more feminist" than hillary, so why don't any of the bloggers on this cite back hillary?

not tyring to be a troll, but these are some serious issues that i have been wondering about as a pro-hillary woman and also as a feminist.

why are feminists against clinton?!?!?!?! this is any honest question as a feminist, not trying to incite flaming or anyting.....
(and come on, i'm new to commenting on feministing, so go easy on me! :) )

but it's kind of annoying that absolutely none of the bloggers here are pro-hillary. for any regular reader of this blog, its obvious that EVERY writer on this blog is pro-obama. not that there is a problem with that (i will vote for obama once he gets the eventual nom), but seriously, it's annoying that EVERYONE who blogs for this cite is pro-obama

Just to be clear, just because I think that Obama's bullshit is more effective than Clinton's does not mean that I support Obama. Or Clinton, come to that. Their virtually identical policies, which are also pretty hard to distinguish from those of the main GOP candidates, are atrocious. I oppose all of them. That said, I will vote for the Democratic candidate for the same reason I always do: the judges the GOP picks make me want to seek asylum someplace.

H.Beth, actually Feministing hasn't endorsed anyone.

i know that nobody from feministing has 'endorsed' anyone..... but we're not stupid, its obvious from a lot of the blog posts here that all of the bloggers are pro-obama.

am i wrong? if i am, i truly apologize (someone has pulled a fast one on me!), but its quite obvious that none of the feministing gals voted for hillary in the primaries, campaigned for her, etc.

i just went back and read my original comment....most of that was definitely the wine talking (apologies).... and like i said, there is nothing wrong w/ obama, and certainly everyone is entitled to vote for the candidate of their choosing, but sometimes it seems as a young hillary supporter who regularly reads feministing, that sometimes this blog reinforces the 'age gap' between clinton and obama women supporters (like the cartoon posted i referenced).

perhaps i'm also being a paranoid hillary supporter and looking into things too much :)

again, not commenting at all about this particular post, i think it was a great post.

and i'm not saying "feministing must have at least ONE clinton supporter writing for them!"... i'm just saying a lot of the election coverage has been a little biased in favor of obama.
but its your own blog, you can do what you want, and i will continue to read regardless :)

~lonely young clinton supporter who doesn't understand why other young women don't love her as much as i do

dang, b.h... if anything, i'd think it was the other way around. i mean, shoot... there was a hillary sexism watch SERIES for a bit there... there certainly wasn't a barack racism watch series... further, there have been articles about how sexist obama supporters are, etc, etc...

perhaps you're recognizing some trend in the qualities of the commenters, but my understand was that, at least the last time i checked, the staff of feministing was more pro-clinton than pro-obama... i guess it just speaks to their even-handedness that even in light of the trends i just mentioned, you could take them as pro-obama... or perhaps it just speaks to your and my subjectivity in analyzing their leanings.

whatever... do a search for clinton and a search for obama on here... read up a bit and tell me if you notice a general trend... the trend i noticed is that the feministingers are (and have been) pretty split on the issue, but are generally fed up with all of the divisive crap going on in the democratic primaries...

Forgive me this long comment. I asked for posting privileges, as this is a community that matters deeply to me, but Jessica tells me I should comment instead, so.

Whatever your position on this issue, both Rebecca Traister's Salon piece and Amanda Fortini's New York Magazine piece reflected with perfect fidelity what oldster Robin Morgan said would happen: that young women who wanted to support Clinton would be intimidated into silence by their "boyfriends," as Morgan put it. If you are angry, be angry with Traister and Fortini, for validating Morgan's warning and prediction. Or with the boyfriends of the women they interviewed.

But just so the conversation can emerge from the actual texts, here is what "young" feminists wrote and published, which, along with Traister and Fortini, inspired me to weigh in. These are their words, reproduced at length -- no out of context stuff from me.

Here is "Mojo" Mom:
"In the wake of the Morgan commentary we've seen some peace-pipe efforts by women anxious to keep the media from having too much fun with our little "catfight."

But I don't feel ready to drop the issue. This feels like an overdue "Mother-Daughter" power struggle that we need to examine. There is a great deal at stake here, as we face a future full of challenges that will require us to work across generational lines.

I agree with Feministing's Jessica Valenti, who pointed out that when Gloria Steinem recently convened a roundtable to try to heal the race-gender split, there was "nary a woman under 40 in sight" and that this meeting "represents the exact problem it purports to seek an end to: the narrowing of feminist viewpoints."
Over-40 Crowd

In the past year I have been invited to many gatherings of women's rights leaders and have been one of the only women under 40. There is a great deal of potential there, but we have to keep working at it.

We need to honor the idea that younger women can legitimately make different political choices, and it's not because we are fickle, ignorant or swept up in "Obama-mania." Even the eminently reasonable Ellen Goodman described the daughters as "having a lower boiling point or a lower consciousness" when they say "a woman in the White House is fine but not this woman."

Writers such as Linda Hirshman and Leslie Bennetts have characterized the current crop of mothers as unambitious, or uninvolved. But how well have they gotten to know women under 40 (outside of their own rebellious daughters, perhaps)?"

So for all you advocates of peace in the movement, take note that it was Mojo who "did not feel ready to drop the issue." That's fine, but why am I then not allowed to discuss the issue, including the inappropriateness, in my analysis, of generalizing from family relations to presidential politics?

I do not know what Mojo means by referring to my social circle or my daughter. As those of you who know me or my work know, I have never confused politics with autobiography. Accordingly, I did not mention Mojo's intrusion into my family in my politics piece in Slate. But since this thread is in part about legitimate tactics, I will say that even if I were not committed to the objectivity of knowledge, I would go to the stake before I would use, invoke, describe or otherwise deploy my daughter (or my husband or my poodle, even) as part of this or any other political argument. Accordingly, she is anonymous; Mojo has no idea if she is complaisant, "rebellious," feminist, Obamamaniac or in the tank for HRC, blonde, brunette, well or sick, tall or short. Nor should she. I do know that anyone who dares to questions the mojo of these mommybloggers is immediately categorized as a free fire zone, but this is excessive even for that debate. I suppose the response should be "if you can't stand the heat, stay in the kitchen."

Courtney opens her response to my article suggesting that young women should not select a president on the basis of their feelings about their mothers by accusing me of taking her statements out of context:

"using an out-of-context quotation from me as a jumping off point,"

As those of you who read my work know, I have the greatest respect for Courtney's work on eating disorders, a serious and unassailably feminist issue, which she presented better than anyone I have ever read. But this discussion was about how to pick a candidate for President, not the rest of her work.

Although SLATE would not let me reproduce Martin's entire post at Glamocracy verbatim (would have been a little weird), I took her entire first paragraph, verbatim. But for those context junkies, the entire post is completely consistent with the first paragraph I quoted. And here it is.

Courtney Martin said:
"I have a dirty little political secret. I hate to admit it, because it makes me feel unfeminist and silly and a little bit irrational. But it's true and I have to get it off my chest. I'm not backing Hillary Clinton—and that's at least in part because she reminds me of being scolded by my mother. [this is the part I quoted]

Here's the rest:
"Don't get me wrong—I love my mom. But sometimes, when she's feeling that all her hard work is unseen and unappreciated, she can be—as we all can—a little bitter. And I keep hearing that same quality in Hillary—a tired, burned out parent with a never-ending to-do list. I feel myself regressing to a teenage-era eye roll during the debates when she starts reminding us that the country's problems are intractable and require lots of strategic negotiation, compromise, and all-nighters. Thanks, mom.

I know I should rise above the mom-effect. If Rush Limbaugh said that Hillary reminds me of a nagging mother, I'd hunt him down with my fiercest feminist slings and arrows. Rationally, I know it's wrong not to vote for Hillary because she brings out the rebellious teenager in me. I should be looking at her policies, not focusing on my feeeeelings.

But let's face it—politics, especially around election time, are largely about emotions. An Emory University study found that, as much as we like to talk loftily about the economy and healthcare, ultimately we are all heavily influenced by our emotional reaction to candidates when we walk into that booth.

I wish I were a more rational being, sure. I wish that I had the patience to wade through all the healthcare jargon so I could pick my president like a shrewd scientist. But I think we all have to admit the role emotions are playing in this election. We vote our values, our dreams, our outrage, and all of this is rooted in the heart, not the head. If Hillary wins the nomination, she will have my vote. But for now my heart—and my vote—are with Obama. Sorry, Mom.

Are you an emotional voter? Are people who say they aren?t just kidding themselves?

—Courtney"

http://www.glamour.com/news/blogs/glamocracy/2008/04/the-emotional-v.html

Posted by: Linda Hirshman | April 24, 2008 02:47 PM

I love her too, H. Beth! And I'm a young feminist. I identify with her and admire her and feel protective of her.

And I'm disappointed to read what Courtney had to say on the Glamocracy blog.
What an anti-feminist statement.

SarahMC, what exactly about Courtney's post is anti-feminist? Admitting emotions do play a role in election decisions? Admitting HRC has some of her mother's negative qualities?

Seriously, if you're going to pull out guns like "anti-feminist" I think you need to do more to explain why and what exactly you're talking about.

I'm not a fan of the Glamocracy post, either.

I damn well will look into the technical issues underlying policy choices. And I don't think we should be complacent about how are emotions play into decisions, I think we should determine why we have certain reactions, and if it is with good reason, follow them, and if not, abandon them.

But going back to Linda's piece, I think it is pretty damn dismissive. And I think it takes things too literally re: Clinton reminding people of their mother. Linda, I think you should have realized that a lot of this was a metaphor for the intergenerational discussion feminists should be having. I know it is Slate and all, but I think you engage is some pretty damaging, and damn ridiculous, hyperbole.

Taking this statement: "she and the women of the second wave are indeed engaged in 'an overdue "Mother-Daughter" power struggle that we need to examine. [T]he Mothers have the upper hand. They control the largest established organizations, the purse strings of foundation grants.'"
And saying that the speaker was equating "second-wave feminists as overbearing, selfish mothers resemble nothing so much as WASP avatar and '50s icon Philip Wylie's Generation of Vipers, which coined the term momism. Wylie's book sold 180,000 copies. His mother was 'the murderess, the habitual divorcee, the weeper, the weak sister, the rubbery sex experimentist, the quarreler, the woman forever displeased, the nagger, the female miser, and so on and so on and so on, to the outermost lengths of the puerile, rusting, raging creature we know as mom and sis.'"

Seriously? What on earth were you thinking? That pointing out that second-wave women are in charge of organizations and funding is calling them murdereresses and divorcees? As Jessica once said, "for reals?"

And you don't catch that the reason they are probably invoking the whole mother-daughter thing is out of respect and kinship with those who have come before?

Are you utterly tone deaf, or are you just having fun playing iconoclast? I like your ideas, and read your work, but there is always this undercurrent of irritation---does she really think I won't get the intensity of her commitment to her ideas if she doesn't engage in hyperbole and make things all or nothing?

Ack. You could have used what they wrote as a departure point--but instead, you engaged in reductio ad absurdum to score cheap points where you could have critiqued what they wrote and used it to open up the field.

Funny thing happened on the way to publication--I became not such a big fan of my Glamocracy post either. What I pitched was something far more nuanced than what was posted (I'm not going to get into nitty gritty on this).
That aside, what I meant by out-of-context is that I've written so much about my view on the election so it was upsetting that Linda picked out one pithy, unrepresentative post (I'll be more careful about my own process in the future) to characterize my entire approach to the election. In fact, I voted based on head/heart, my identity as daughter/friends/feminist/indywoman etc. etc. I didn't vote for Obama to spite my mom. In fact, my mom voted for Obama if you must know.
That's all for now. Thanks for the dialogue Linda and others. I think I'm done for now.

Ismone:
"scolding, nagging, burned out, bitter"
probably inspired me to remember Wylie's book. But I have been concerned about the revival of this momism business since the dam broke on the intergenerational divide some time ago. Search me about why Mojo's alleged foundation dominating women allegedly want to keep the young 'uns out. I say, the more, the merrier. I was THRILLED to find young feminists when my book hit a couple of years ago, and a lot of them sprang to MY defense of public life against the Mojos of this world. And thrilled to read Courtney's book, which today's feministing post just reminds us is so important. The last thing I expected was to find myself on the other side of this debate. But, maybe because I grew up in the Philip Wylie era, I believe with perfect faith as they say that you cannot build a feminist movement by dissing your (real or ideological) mothers, no matter how you disagree about who the Democratic nominee for President should be.

Linda,

Come on, you can't quote one part of Courtney's post, and then use another part of her post that you don't quote to justify your "momism" smear. That just doesn't hold water.

And with regard to this whole momism thing---it looks like you had this impression that other women were engaging in it, and just pounded the facts to fit that preconceived notion. Instead of opening it up, you labeled. Not your best work.

Also, can you build a feminist movement by dissing your ideological daughters? Because that is exactly what you did.

And Courtney, I recognized the touch of Glamour's editors in the question marks. I know it is hard for writers to transcend what the editors want of them, which is why I am guessing that some of Linda's snark was fitting in with the Slate way of doing things.