Perhaps, it's just me, but I'm not entirely sure what feminism means at this point, or perhaps, more to the point, what older and younger feminists are arguing about. Was there a feminist argument against Clinton? Was their a feminist argument against Obama? What specifically are you arguing about?

Finally, I'd love to know why the level of discourse became so vituperative during the campaign. There clearly is/was a great deal of animus here. Why? Where does it come from? Why would it be generational?

I've been reading posts from this section for the last two weeks or so. I think the issue is far more serious than many are willing to believe, and I am fascinated by the apparent lack of interest on the winning side in developing talking points to try to reconcile with those who were on the losing side. I'm not sure the Obama people actually want to reconcile with the Clinton people. It doesn't sound like it anyway.

I'd love to reconcile with the Clinton people, I'm just not sure what they're SO mad about.

It seems to boil down to the fact that Hillary lost.

I'm sure that's an oversimplification, but as it's not my side of the argument, danged if I can clarify. If I could Imight be able to fix it.

But Obama supporters, needless to say, are happy that our guy won. It feels to us as if they'd like us to apologize for something, but overall, I'm not sure what. Obama didn't do anything wrong.

Sure some of his supporters were rude, but then so were some of hers, so that's even right?

The media torched Hillary, granted, but Obama supporters are not the media, so why is that our fault? And they immolated Obama pretty good too.

Thanks theveil for the response. I'm just curious as to what the differences are supposed to be between the generation of feminists of my youth (Steinem, et al.) and feminists who are not so long in the tooth, as it were. There's talk of the 3rd wave or whatever. It sounds as if there might be some theory involved, but I haven't been able to figure out what it is. It would seem strange to be writing about a culture clash between feminists when it's really just a political clash between older women and younger women about which candidate to support.

I think Hillary Clinton got caught in the crossfire on this one.

Many older feminists, not all but many, felt that having a female president was a way to finally WIN the war on um..patriarchy, or the system, or something. (I'm guessing here.)

I guess POTUS is THE job that women have so far never been "hired" for.

And they seem (I'm still guessing) to feel that women who voted for Obama over Hillary are either subconsciously "sexist" or are not supporting their effort to "take" the white house for womankind.

Perhaps they still see it as a male vs. female gender war? I don't know.

Whereas many women who voted for Obama did so because they just like him better. He's younger and so has greater appeal to many of us under 50's in the first place. He's from OUR culture. I couldn't believe it when no one in the Clinton campaign got the Jay Z reference, and became offended.

He did not feel that he had to use the word "obliterate" in order to appear tough enough to be commander in chief. He did not feel that he had to belittle Hillary Clinton's experience in order to appear competent.

He kept himself under control and calm. She really lost that several times and came off as pretty harsh.

I'd have voted for Hillary if she'd been the nominee, but I happened to like Obama better, so maybe I'm not a great test case.