Are Madeleine Albright and Gloria Steinem, longstanding pillars of feminism, pandering to the very societal stigmas/stereotypes that they’ve spent their entire lives overcoming and condemning?
It would seem so.
This weekend at a New Hampshire rally for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Ms. Albright, 78, who has been hailed by feminist communities as an icon due to her immense achievements, most notably becoming the first female Secretary of State, made quite an impression. In her quest for further progression, Ms. Albright capitulated to cheap publicity tactics at the expense of the very group she has conquered time and time again in the name of.
In a rather patronizing tone, indicative of the glaring generational gap Clinton struggles to close, Ms. Albright announced, “We can tell our story of how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women think it’s done”. She then went on to proclaim, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!
Quite interesting. I do believe Monica Lewinsky is owed an apology.
Ms. Albright has just condemned the vast majority of young women — who statistically are showing a preference for the quite lovable and adorable (if I do say so myself) Democratic socialist contender Bernie Sanders — to the bowels of Hades.
Last time I checked, condemning your target audience to an eternal fiery damnation is probably not the best PR strategy.
But who knows, I’m not in public relations.
But the claws didn’t stop there. Steinem, 81, arguably one of the most notable leaders of the feminist movement, who came to prominence in the 60’s and 70’s, went on Bill Maher to express her opinions as to why she felt young women are shying away from the Clinton vote. Ms. Steinman was no less vitriolic in her sentiments, saying her presupposition was that young women were more interested in their own sexual whims than the societal progression of their gender if they were voting for Sanders. Steinem said, “When you’re young, you’re thinking: ‘Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie’ ”.
Shots fired!
How ironic, these women who have made their names in the advancement of feminism and as a result are held as icons are now shamelessly berating, belittling and condescending the very marginalized group they’ve spent much of their lives on a mission to progress. It is unfortunate, on an epic scale, that these two icons of feminism have succumbed to cheap political tactics pandering to long standing societal stigmas against women.
Dare I say that Ms. Albright and Ms. Steinman are condemning female voters for….having an opinion? For being critical? To denounce young women voters as immature, oblivious and misinformed for daring to be multidimensional in thought is in essence to go against everything they stand for. The foundations of feminism are rooted in a quest for equality and credit where credit is due, not merciful advancement.
Every candidate is where they are today due to their tenacity, ambition and perseverance. The very fact that we as women are trending towards not voting for a candidate solely based on a one-dimensional aspect of solidarity is absolutely indicative of the progression that we have made as women in society.
While I definitely agree we still have a long road ahead of us — Steinem, Albright and Clinton would do better to find a strategy to appeal to young voters as well as address and ameliorate the painfully obvious generational gap that has come characterized her campaign (Hey Hill — I love ya, but Bernie’s talking college loans) rather than exacerbate it.
Leave a response