The presidential race is heated and is encompassed by an aura of tense rhetoric from both sides. Emotions are high, people are on edge, and many fear for the future of America. Along with many who are fiercely backing their chosen candidates, Gloria Steinem (81) and Madeleine Albright (78) have the clear agenda of supporting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and are determined that she will prevail in lieu of her loss of the democratic presidential nomination in 2008 to bring her one step closer to representing women as the first female president of the United States. Though both feminist idols emitted statements that caused profuse offense to young women and feminists everywhere, their motives for saying the things they did, as well as the variable of the age gap between the young women siding with Senator Sanders should be examined.
On the fifth of this month, Steinem appeared on Bill Maher's show and proclaimed in the form of an ask and answer question "Where are the boys?The boys are with Bernie" in response to Maher's comment on Clinton's noticeable lack of young women supporters when compared to Sanders. It goes without saying that many young female Sanders supporters as well as women in general were acutely affronted by Steinem's demeaning comments blatantly saying their political decisions were governed by the desires of their id . One such Sanders support, Maiti Rooth, a college freshman at Seton Hall University, stated concerning Steinem's statements that:
"When Steinem said that young women support Bernie Sanders to basically get boys I feel that she was insulting my intelligence by saying I can’t make decisions purely based on the presidential candidate him/herself...She believes that because I am young, or a woman, or both that I cannot look at the issues and make an informed decision for myself. I have researched both Bernie and Hillary’s policies and stances on issues and have watched both republican and democratic debates. I did not go into this election thinking about how to get a boyfriend out of it. I went into thinking about who I believed would make the best president of the United States..."
In response to the uproar to her comments on Maher's show Steinem issued an apology over Facebook saying:
While some of those she insulted are accepting her apology, others are still in shock that such a standout figure in the feminist world would say such a thing about young women. Similarly, the first female Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, offended female supports of Sanders on the sixth of the month, the day after Steinem appeared on Bill Maher's show. Albright was attending a Clinton Rally in New Hampshire at which she proclaimed, “We can tell our story of how we climbed the ladder, and a lot of you younger women think it’s done. It’s not done. There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other!” Her statement seemed to imply to young women that they must support Hillary simply because of their shared gender, and that if they do not they will face the serve repercussions. Such a forceful assertion did not appeal to logic or heighten many young women's desires to support Clinton; it only insulted them. A college freshman at Centenary College of New Jersey and Sanders supporter, Lily Passaretti, was among those to react to Albright's assertions at Clinton's rally and stated in defense of her chosen candidate that:
"Bernie has also fought for civil rights throughout his lifetime and political career, where as Hilary has not. She backs out on her word- and her campaign is based on what she thinks the people want, rather than what she believes. I also think feminism is very different than it used to be, and that we need to make decisions not based on feminism but what is best for our country as a whole."
Passaretti is not alone in her reasoning for why she has chosen Sanders over Clinton, but a point that she made and that others have made as well is that the feminism that Albright and Steinem know is far different than the one millennials identify with today. This was noted by Rooth who wrote:
"I am not going to vote for someone purely because of their gender. I think that being a feminist means that while you must help bring up other women it also means you cannot be bullied by other women into doing things you don’t believe in. A strong woman makes decisions based on her own beliefs and doesn’t let anyone tell her otherwise. Which is exactly what I am trying to do."
When on the Bill Mahr Show, Steinem made a comment on how when she joined the feminist movement she was part of a group of "12 Crazy Ladies" , and how now almost every female identifies as a feminist. Steinem started out with a feminist agenda that could be applied to only a minority and now it is a majority. It seems that her statements came out of a place of desperation, as having Clinton in the White House would be one of the biggest accomplishments of the feminist movement that she has worked so long on. This seems to be a similar situation for Albright who stated in her apology via The New York Times that, "The battle for gender equality is still being waged, and it will be easier if we have a woman who prioritizes these issues in the Oval Office and if the gender balance among elected officials reflects that of our country." She also discussed how her famous line about women helping other women is one she stands by, but one that was not used in the appropriate context within her speech at Clinton's rally. Ultimately, Albright's apology was more eloquent and retrospective than Steinem's and both explains her intentions when making the claims she did while also trying to understand how what she said made other women feel. These two women's desire to have a female president is not unfounded, however they way they tried to promote that idea is the perfect example of situations when diplomatic and rational conversation about politics become too irrational and extreme. In the end, Albright acknowledge that and stated in her OP-ED post that, "If heaven were open only to those who agreed on politics, I imagine it would be largely unoccupied" which leaves one with a takeaway that politics are not everything, but being a considerate human being is.
