"The true feminist”" & mother's "scolding"

Fair warning before you read this post: it may leave some of you laughing and others wanting to cry.

Excerpts from an AP report follow, after which my comments are below the star line.

The AP begins - - -

No constituency is more eager to see a woman win the presidency than America's feminists, yet — despite Hillary Rodham Clinton's historic candidacy — the women's movement finds itself wrenchingly divided over the Democratic race as it heads toward the finish.

At breakfast forums, in op-ed columns, across the blogosphere, the debate has been heartfelt and sometimes bitter. …

At times, Bravo, 64, has been dismayed by the harsh criticism directed at women like herself from pro-Clinton feminists.

"I felt it was an ultimatum — vote for Hillary Clinton or you're betraying the women's movement," Bravo said. "It's very self-defeating and alienating, particularly to younger women who, regardless of who they support, don't like to be told, 'Do this. Do that.'"

Clinton supporter Gloria Feldt, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, accepts that the women's movement is not single-minded, yet worries that the Obama-Clinton rift is eroding whatever clout it might have.

"We're squandering an opportunity to be seen as a voting bloc that turns elections," Feldt said. "Unless we are working together, in a strategically thought-out effort to vote in our own best interests, we are in danger of never having another election where people will say women can determine the outcome." . . .

Gloria Steinem, a Clinton supporter and icon of the women's movement, riled some younger, pro-Obama feminists with a New York Times op-ed suggesting that [younger feminists] were in denial about America's persisting "sexual caste system."

Ariel Garfinkel, a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College, wrote one of the many counter-arguments in an online column. She and many other young feminists supported Obama because they perceived the Clinton campaign as trying to capitalize on racial divisions and to impugn Obama's patriotism.

"This pattern of old-style politics and adherence to un-feminist values is part and parcel of the campaign Hillary Clinton has run," Garfinkel wrote. "In this race, Barack Obama is the true feminist."

New York-based author Courtney Martin, also an Obama supporter, wrote on Glamour magazine's blog Glamocracy last month that she was not backing Clinton "in part because she reminds me of being scolded by my mother." . . .

The entire article’s here.
***************************************************************

Comments:

Do you see what I mean about laugh/cry?

Sen. Obama’s now “the true feminist.”

But haven't feminists said for years Sen. Clinton's a "true feminist."

What's changed so that now Hillary reminds some feminists of their mothers' scoldings?

And speaking of mothers' scoldings: I can remember when saying something like that was considered sexist. It was worse than saying your wife was a wonderful "gal."

Do the PC Speech Police know about this AP story?

But I don’t want to take all this too far, especially as it’s Mother's Day weekend.

Will someone please pass the Glamour magazine?