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The American Prospect:

More Than a Mother-Daughter Debate

Feminists inevitably lose when they take a reductive approach to generational rifts, such as the current fracas over whether or not to vote for Hillary Clinton. It's time for a more complex conversation.


Courtney E. Martin | April 21, 2008 |


Linda Hirshman, the sharp-tongued author behind the most contentious battles of the so-called "Mommy Wars," has now set her sights on younger feminists and their views of Hillary Clinton. In a recent Slate article titled "Yo Mamma," she laments the "'Mother-Daughter' power struggle" playing out in the primaries, using an out-of-context quotation from me as a jumping off point, and then going on to make fun of a few other young feminists.

Her framing of young women's electoral choices as a mommy complex is reductive. Yes, I did admit, in a post on Glamour magazine's Glamocracy blog, that Clinton sometimes reminds me of my mother in her I'm-feeling-unappreciated moments. Whether we like to say so or not, we're all swayed by our emotional experiences of the candidates -- which is one more reason why I wish we saw a bit more of Clinton's wide-eyed Wellesley self. I hardly intended 350 words from that post to sum up my views on the election. (Hirshman must have missed the 20,000 or so other words I've penned on Clinton and Obama.)

In any case, Hirshman's spuriously simple piece represents a sad trend during this primary season -- intergenerational potshots. The media loves a catfight, and over the last six months or so, feminists have provided no shortage of finger-pointing, name-calling, and stereotyping. I don't intend to rehash the firestorms here, but suffice it to say that more than a few bridges have been burned.

The tension between second- and third-wave feminists was evident far before Obama became a household name, but primary season has certainly provided a Rorschach for our intergenerational disconnect. My interpretation? That the Clinton-Obama debate -- and no, not all young women are voting for Obama and not all older women are voting for Clinton -- has revealed something tried and true about intergenerational feminism: Our interactions are most useful and enjoyable when they acknowledge the complexity of our feminisms and lives. I can vote for Obama in the primaries and still support Clinton's right to a fair run. I can care about so-called personal issues like body image and political issues like the Iraq War. I can know my history and still reinvent feminism. And while there will probably always be generational misunderstandings within feminism, keeping these complexities in mind helps ensure that the dialogue stays productive.

In fact, as all of this controversy over Clinton and feminism has been playing out in print, I've had some fascinating "real life" experiences as part of a touring panel called "WomenGirlsLadies: A Fresh Conversation Across Generations." As the proverbial "daughter" on the panel, I've been chastised, dismissed, lectured, and humiliated by older women. I've also been respectfully challenged, constructively criticized, moved, and celebrated. And the differences between those types of treatment shed light on larger dynamics playing out across the feminist movement. ...