Anna Quindlen on young women and feminism

Yesterday I went to the More Magazine Reinvention Convention, where one of the keynote addresses was given by Anna Quindlen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times columnist and bestselling novelist.

Quindlen was interviewed by author and Good Morning America contributor Lee Woodruff. At the start of the interview, Quindlen said that she would never have been able to do the work she did – at the Times, especially – had it not been for the women who came before her and laid the groundwork to make it possible (Quindlen joined the paper in 1977, shortly after a class-action sex discrimination lawsuit had been filed against it).

Toward the end of the interview, Woodruff asked Quindlen if she was concerned that young women today didn’t acknowledge the progress that had been made before them, and the privileges they enjoy relative to previous generations.

As the question was being asked, I held my breath, preparing myself for yet another “young women don’t call themselves feminists/don’t care about feminism/don’t realize how good they’ve got it” answer. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Quindlen say:

“I don’t want to hear anyone talk about how young women today aren’t this or that. Millennial women are the coolest, most capable, most together women ever.”

So there you have it, young feminists and young, supposedly complacent women: Anna Quindlen’s got your back.