海角大神

Hillary Clinton鈥檚 older feminist supporters took campaign smack talk to a whole new level over the weekend, when two icons separately chided young women for supporting Bernie Sanders. Ms. Clinton is her opponent in support among women ages 18 to 34, according to a USA Today/Rock the Vote poll.

At a rally in New Hampshire Saturday, Madeleine Albright, the first female US Secretary of State, repeated what is becoming her most famous feminist one-liner: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a special place in hell for women who don鈥檛 help other women.鈥� This time, she was addressing all female voters in the 2016 election.

鈥淵oung women have to support Hillary Clinton. 鈥� she said in her introduction of the Democratic candidate. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e going to want to push us back. Appointments to the Supreme Court make all the difference.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 not done and you have to help. Hillary Clinton will always be there for you," said Dr. Albright, before predicting what the afterlife might be like for those who don't reciprocate.聽

In a similar vein, Ms. Albright鈥檚 Second Wave feminist peer, Gloria Steinem, made a controversial comment Friday about the young, female voters backing Mr. Sanders. In an interview with the talk show host Bill Maher, the writer and activist suggested that the young women are campaigning for Sanders just to meet men.

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e young, you鈥檙e thinking, 鈥榃here are the boys? The boys are with Bernie,鈥� 鈥� Ms. Steinem said. Even Mr. Maher was taken aback. 鈥淣ow if I said that,鈥� he replied, 鈥淵ou鈥檇 swat me.鈥�

The younger generations are dismayed. Many have taken to the internet to express anger and disappointment over the feminist pioneers that they had once looked up to.聽

But at the heart of this media scuffle between two very different generations of women is a divide that goes beyond campaign gaffes 鈥� rather, it entails evolving landscape of feminism in the past 40 years.

For Boomer-era feminists such as Albright and Steinem, Clinton is a symbol of the ultimate prize at the end of a very long fight: the first 鈥� and for many, the only 鈥� qualified female candidate for presidency.

鈥淔or baby boomer women, in particular, it鈥檚 鈥業 fought this whole war, and now we鈥檙e running out of time, and ?鈥� 鈥� Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, told The New York Times in December.

But for younger women, most of whom identify as feminists, Clinton鈥檚 gender does not seem to make a difference. A generational tendency to participate less in collective politics and an intersectional focus on equality for all have pushed them towards Sanders鈥� socialist camp.

"The reality is when you look at young people, all the data shows that young people are civic-minded in a very different way," Erica Williams Simon, a social impact strategist, told NPR in an article on Millennials鈥� obsession with individualism. "They are , but are interested in social change and finding creative, innovative ways to make a difference that are in a way more effective than the systems of the past."

And Clinton, regardless of her work in gender equity, represents the 鈥渟ystems of the past.鈥�

In addition, these young women grew up in a much more female-friendly society paved by their Second Wave counterparts. 鈥淭hey haven鈥檛 experienced the kind of barriers that their mothers and grandmothers did 鈥� the kind of exclusions from areas of accomplishment,鈥� Mary L. Shanley, a political-science professor at Vassar, told The Times.

In the height of the Second Wave feminist movement in the 60s and 70s, American women were limited in virtually every realm of life. For instance, women could be fired from their jobs for being pregnant until the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. Marital rape was not criminalized in all 50 states until 1993.聽

It was precisely these conditions out of which Albright, Steinem, and to an extent, Clinton, emerged in solidarity. So for them, after decades of political activism, it鈥檚 nearly unfathomable for a fellow woman to turn her back on Clinton鈥檚 opportunity.

As the Washington Post reported in an analysis of modern feminism:

Young women (and, increasingly, men) are still coming to the movement in strong numbers, but this feminism looks different, in many ways, than that of earlier generations. This New Wave feminism is shaped less by a shared struggle against oppression than by a collective embrace of individual freedoms, concerned less with targeting narrowly defined enemies than with broadening feminism鈥檚 reach through inclusiveness, and held together not by a handful of national organizations and charismatic leaders but by the invisible bonds of the Internet and social media.

This feminism stresses personal freedom as much as it does equality and, when infused with the younger generation鈥檚 bent toward inclusion, has the capacity to make room for both Carly Fiorina and Beyonc茅 鈥� even though older generations might permit neither.