Preface: This is not meant to be an anti-Sanders statement. I understand perfectly why people are so excited about Sanders. This is meant to explain why Gloria Steinem said what she said the other day about young women following Sanders because that’s where the boys are.
Here follows the explanation:
I often see articles declaring that Hillary Clinton represents the same old thing and Bernie Sanders represents new ideas. Every woman who went to any leftist activity in the 60s knows that this is not true. Bernie Sanders represents positions he has stuck by for 40 years, which great, he’s principled. But it also means that Bernie Sanders behaves just like the self-styled radical boys of 40 years ago who held the megaphone at rallies and confidently proclaimed their understanding of the state of the world. I always wondered how some 20 year old from the suburbs could know so much about the nature of Imperialism, the plight of farm workers, the politics of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, the way international banking works, the lives of the Working Class, the ways to overcome neocolonialism, the history of rural poverty in China and how Maoism overcame it, the best ways to teach relevant college courses and the cure for racism. I wondered how they could be so sure they were right when they had so little experience and explained so little about how we would actually get the Workers to stop screaming about hippies and start organizing for a revolution. Women were not generally welcome to seize the megaphone, and it seemed clear that in order to be heard at all they had to look like Gloria Steinem, not be shrill, not seem indecisive while also not seeming like a know-it-all, and then if they did feel they had gotten into a position of power it would turn out that it was just because some powerful man wanted to sleep with them.
Hillary behaves the way a woman had to behave to get ahead. In the 70s, putting her career ahead of her husband’s was out of the question. She kept her own last name until her husband ran for office, and if she had not changed it in the 80s, he would not have been elected. If she had been less hawkish in the 90s, her career would have been over because she would have been “weak.” If she EVER talked the way Sanders does, her career would be over because she would be “shrill.” If she advocated radical programs with no plan to implement them except “we’ll have a revolution”, her career would be over because she would be “ditzy” or “crazy.” If she fought back against the ridiculous claim that she “has no accomplishments” and “the Clinton years in the 90s were a disaster for African Americans” by continuously spelling out her many accomplishments, her career would be over because she would be “arrogant” and “out of touch.”
So, to some women of a Certain Age, Sanders comes across not as a breath of fresh air but as an exact replica of the way we remember the leading leftist men of the 1960s. Steinem knew then that following those men who seemed so sure of what they were saying was a way to power, and indeed she was given a voice because she was attractive to men. She knows that. So I think what her subconscious was saying was “It’s extremely discouraging that after all these years, the leftist boy with the megaphone is the one with real power.”
Because people like Steinem took the best advantage they could of the voice they were given for whatever reason they were given it, and because people like Hillary walked the only path possible for them and pushed past so many barriers, it is no longer impossible for a woman to become president without being propelled by a man. Women can believe they deserve equal power and respect regardless of whether they act like others think they “should” act, and the range of ways that a woman can act without being shut down has vastly increased. So it’s actually extremely encouraging that young women don’t feel any need to support Hillary just because she’s a woman. It’s just a wee bit heartbreaking to watch the boy with the megaphone reaping the benefits of 40 years of older women’s hard work