"Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten thestatus quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her."

This is a direct quote taken from the essay, and it makes me sick. I am a 23 year old, highly educated, politics-obsessed, very well informed woman who strongly backs Obama. And I fear nothing about what my boyfriend, coworkers, or family would think if I backed Hilary. I don't hate her, but I do, as cliche as it sounds, feel inspired by Barack Obama. It is not just his rhetoric (as poetic as it might be), but it is the fact that he resonates and moves people of all ages and backgrounds. I believe that he is genuine and motivational, and at a time when our country is so deeply divided and bitter, why not have a person who can stir up deep emotions? Everyone is quick to judge the Democratic-majority Congress for little-to-no action in the past year, but has anyone stopped to consider why they have failed? PARTISANSHIP! If we have the opportunity to elect a leader who actually has a CHANCE of uniting our country, how can I stray away? I understand that Hilary now totes "change", but her name says it all....Clinton. And that name carries deep and unwaving partisan and divisive behavior, which I do not attribute to her, but to the general sentiments in Washington. I support Obama. And I am not afraid to say it. And feminists who think that any woman who does not vote for Hilary is trying to revert back to the 50's and play the dumb role, I say screw you. Everyone has their reasonings. Do not tell me who to vote because of my gender.

thank you, a clear mind in the confusion...

We are not where we are because of partisanship. We are where we are because we have had 6 years of thoroughly Republican governance, and because the Democratic congress has rolled over repeatedly for the Bush administration. Our country is not "deeply divided" by partisanship - at least, not by DEMOCRATIC partisanship. If you want to expand the tent - that's a great idea - but you need to sell Democratic leadership and ideas in order to expand the tent, and I don't see Obama selling Democratic ideas and ideals - I see him selling "unity" and "change" and running against Washington in the same way that politicians have done since time immemorial, without articulating any position that is actually 'transformational.' Washington has defined "Democrats cave to Republicans" as "bipartisanship" and "Democrats do not cave to Republicans" as "partisanship" for far too long. I think that Obama's rhetoric - to date - plays into that formulation. I've yet to see anything from him that might convince me that he could flip those longstanding formulations on their head - and because of that, I think that he would be a less effective president than HRC over the next four years.

clear mind?! she took a quote that said some young women might think it was cool to not be feminist, and said that because that wasn't the reason she liked Obama, the entire idea was ridiculous.  That's idiotic.  I'm 22 and I have a job that requires lots of hours.  If someone said "goodbye to 22 year olds working high paying jobs they don't want in order to pay off
college loans" and I said, I work long hours but I don't have college loans, that doesn't mean none of my friends are working jobs to pay off loans.  They are.  No one $160,000 in debt becomes an elementary school teacher, you have to be a lawyer or work on wall street for a few years first.

 As a male, I can vouch for the fact that if a woman is asked if she's a feminist, the "cool" answer is no.  I've only met one girl in my entire life that actually said yes to that, while there's tons that agree with all the issues, but wouldn't label themselves that way.  From the people I know, I think the sentence you quoted was spot on.

mgee:

We are not where we are because of partisanship. We are where we are because we have had 6 years of thoroughly Republican governance, and because the Democratic congress has rolled over repeatedly for the Bush administration. Our country is not "deeply divided" by partisanship - at least, not by DEMOCRATIC partisanship. If you want to expand the tent - that's a great idea - but you need to sell Democratic leadership and ideas in order to expand the tent, and I don't see Obama selling Democratic ideas and ideals - I see him selling "unity" and "change" and running against Washington in the same way that politicians have done since time immemorial, without articulating any position that is actually 'transformational.' Washington has defined "Democrats cave to Republicans" as "bipartisanship" and "Democrats do not cave to Republicans" as "partisanship" for far too long. I think that Obama's rhetoric - to date - plays into that formulation. I've yet to see anything from him that might convince me that he could flip those longstanding formulations on their head - and because of that, I think that he would be a less effective president than HRC over the next four years.

"I see him (Obama) selling "unity" and "change" and running against Washington in the same way that politicians have done since time immemorial, without articulating any position that is actually 'transformational.'"

" I've yet to see anything from him that might convince me that he could flip those longstanding formulations on their head "

I agree, yet I have serious issues with Hillary too.

Well, I myself wondered why she took the essay so personally. I like Robin Morgan as a writer and I thought it appropriate to remind people of the true history of the struggle for voting rights, civil rights, as pertains to women and also minorities. Nowadays it is retold by legal theorists--many of them at Harvard and Yale, sadly--who have historically mangled the 1960s and managed to claim political activitists' creativity as some sort of dead legal theory that law professors invented in the 1980s and retaught to law students afterward.

No wonder younger women are reluctant to claim a label that brings them both a sense of being has-beens and also brings upon their head the sort of overt community hostility that out of the closet women leaders get.

Amen. And the irony of all this is that Robin Morgan is writing about the Clintons as if she missed the entire decade of the 90's. Bill Clinton was the man that taught a generation of young American women that their proper place was on their knees. Even my doctor, a brilliant, feminist who gives hours to rape crisis and our community calls it the "Clinton effect."

i disagree that bill taught a generation of young women that their place is on their knees...if any message was sent out by the lewinsky-clinton affair and has had a continued impact on both sexes, it is that oral sex isn't sex and therefore isn't cheating(not that that idea wasn't out there before--bill's actions just solidified that definition for what seems to be the vast majority of americans). this flexibilty in the definition of cheating on someone harms both men and women. i certainly don't get on my knees unless i want to...
both hillary and barack suck. politically, their differences are mainly skin deep.