is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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cautionary tail. (heh.)

When I was in my early twenties, my friend Liz and I used to drive from Berkeley into the city fairly often to hang out with a group of bohemian-type guys we knew. Poets, skateboarders, slackers, the like. They were fun. They were old friends of ours. We weren�t sleeping with them (though one of them was an ex of mine from way-back). We were all friends.

At some point one of them started dating an older woman. Thinking back, I�m guessing she must have been in her early 30s, mid-30s tops. So it is hilarious, now, to reconstitute her as the �older woman.� But so she was. And oh, how she did not like Liz and I. She found us insufficiently serious. We giggled too much. We liked to drink liquor and shout about things (the way many people in their early 20s seem to do). There were many things going on in this dynamic. Here are two:

1) A divide within feminism, between a humorless and unwavering stance about certain beauty standards and an attempt to reinhabit feminism with miniskirts and lipstick. The divide was about more than that, but that is how it often surfaced, on the surface of things, at the time.

2) A divide made up of those 10 years between early 20s and early 30s.

When I was younger, I used to think that �older women� who were bitter or jealous about how men inevitably gravitate toward insufficiently serious giggling young girls were kind of, well, sad and old. But now I recognize that the bitterness is not so much about other women, as it is about men. How they gravitate toward insufficiently serious giggling young women. It is disheartening. Because it is unsurprising in the world as it is.

Of course I have just made a universalizing statement where it does not belong. Humor me. I do not mean that this is true of every man, every young woman, every older woman, and so on. But these are types. We recognize them, do we not?

But I was saying. This older woman, I think she mistook her disappointment with men (or with a larger cultural situation) for a disappointment with women. It happens all the time, this kind of displacement.

Because, sure, Liz and I loved to laugh, drink liquor, and shout about things. But we were deadly serious about a feminism that did not tell us what we had to do or say or wear in order to count as liberated women. We read. We discussed. We schemed tiny revolution. We were serious. And, yes, we were young.

So, sure, maybe she just thought we were annoying.

It bears mentioning that this still happens within feminism (whatever that means these days!), when someone tries to lecture me on how I�m not a feminist because I�m wearing toenail polish (I�m serious, I�m now in my mid-40s and this very thing happened to me at an academic conference less than 10 years ago, and happens elsewhere in other subtle or not so subtle ways, over topics large and small) while oops, there it goes, sisterhood is not so powerful and PATRIARCHY WINS.

There are so many stories I could tell along these lines. Many of them I've told right here over the years.

I�m not saying you shouldn�t rehearse your disagreements with other women over the substance of what feminism is. Have at it, sister. I would be content if we all just stayed well on this side of the line where feminism ends up meaning trading a world where men tell women what to do for a world where some women tell other women what to do. You know? You know!

And then maybe we won't be living a world were lots of smart and independent young women don't want to say they are feminists.

12:42 a.m. - August 28, 2010
Michael - 2010-08-28 06:30:10
Thank you for this. It's like a regular flashback, but with... subtitles. Or maybe this is the director's cut. But, yes - read, remembered but with more - which is good.
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