As a tail ender boomer and an independent woman, I cringe, get tired of and frankly wish these old boomer feminists would just go away.

You are not allowed to criticize, vote for who you want or express your feelings about Hillary without them going into deep heavings of outrage.

And with the old feminists coming out of the retirement home to write endless rants about how everyone is sexist and hates women, blah blah blah, you understand why everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they went away the first time 30 years ago.

I would love to vote for a woman president but, lord, not when it brings out this endless garbage and whining, foot stamping and paranoia like it has with HRC's campaign. I'd much rather it happen when women can be treated like a man and not bring out the sob sisters and their faux outrage. If this is how they act with a woman candidate then we are not ready. It will be when paranoid thinking, imagined slights and the bullying stops that we will be ready. When it no longer raises eyebrows and supporters and surrogates of the woman candidate stop ticking people off all the time.

And much sooner than you think, you'll be an old person yourself!

Maybe if you canned the 'old feminist' crap, other people wouldn't go into 'deep heavings of outrage.'

I think what turns a lot of people off is the conflict mentality which shows up. This isn't unique to some areas of feminism-- we also see it with the Ann Coulter crowd, for example....

Not everything has to be about one singular cause be it feminism or right-wing politics.

Racism and sexism may be on their way out, but ageism is alive and well and kicking! :)

I want to live to be in my 90s just for spite!

"whining and foot stomping"?

Your argument might have held some water if you hadn't gone into this sexist rant, depicting women as children throwing a tantrum...

As an approaching middle age (liberal) Black man I see a lot of similarities between the old style feminist and the old style civil rights leader: Sharpton, Jackson.

This "any argument to win"; "I'm the real vicitim here"; tribalism is going the way of the dinosaur.

Our country will be a lot better off when we get past their tactics and (oftentimes) baseless accusations.

I think what upsets people about 'old school' anything is that, on some matters, the old schoolers are right. For example, OS feminists did pave some roads, as did black activists. The idea that they deserve some respect galls some younger people now, just as Booker T. galled some blacks back in the day. (There's another older, I believe deceased black writer, WEB Dubois, who also ticks off young blacks, but I can't remember why).

Why is it so hard to give props to the old? I dunno. I was raised to respect the EFFORTS my elders made, even if the end result wasn't total success. Remember that old line, "Attention, attention must be paid to such a person!" from "Death of a Salesman?" Attention must be paid to the elderly. With any luck, the young ones will one day be walking in those aged footsteps.

I think, generally, the issue over "old school" and "new school" has less to do with younger people resenting older people being right, but more that younger people grow fatigued with the old.

But more specifically crucker, in this discussion: how are the old school feminists right? You mentioned that they paved roads for today's women. But does that mean we should vote for them (her)? Are their arguments about betraying the gender (if you don't vote Hillary) right? Was Gloria Steinem right that "gender is probably the most restricting force in American life"?

I am methodologically conservative. I think we need to promote stability in society, law, etc. That methodology also leads me left-of-center which is something a lot of people don't understand.

The big thing is that often you have to justify a change. The old school civil rights and feminist leaders came from a day when this appeared at least to be a zero-sum-game, where it looked like there were clear winners and clear losers. Hence a conflict mentality made a lot of sense.

The problem is, we are beyond that point now. Yes, this was important then, and was the right tool for the job, but I think it is actually an obstacle to resolving the last of the issues in both cases.

I firmly believe that the last of the gender and race equal rights issues are so heavily interconnected that they can only be solved by everyone working to help everyone else out. This mean that the fathers' rights movement and the feminist movement need to see that they are working towards the same goals and get rid of the conflict mentality which prevents that cooperation.

So while I can respect the accomplishments of the individuals who have used the conflict mentality in the past, I think that it is a bad tool for the present.

'Was Gloria Steinem right that "gender is probably the most restricting force in American life"?'

That is probably an overstatement which says more about the author than the country. There are still cases of (sometimes serious inequality), though. I suspect that this cuts both ways and there are at least as many cases where men are severely restricted than women.

For example, I, as a man, was in a relationship where I was the subject of domestic violence. My cohabiting girlfriend at the time would threaten me with knives repeatedly, attack me with blunt objects, etc. And she would also inflict wounds on herself. I couldn't go to the police because I knew I would be the one arrested and charged even though I was clearly the victim of the abuse.

In that case, was I protected at all under the law?

I'd say money is the most restricting force, but gender is definitely on the list.

Completely agree einhverfr, but I would add that not only are the old school civil rights/feminist arguments/tactics in need of broader coalition building to accomplish their (our) goals, but rhetorically their (our) arguments are tired.

Does a woman or ethnic minority born into an upper-middle class lifestyle REALLY need affirmative action (and I say this as an affirmative action supporter)?

Do we REALLY need to vote based solely (or even primarily) based on identity?

Is an off-color remark REALLY grounds for employment termination?

Conservatives have come up with some clever counter arguments (colorblind equality over affirmative action for example, how am I supposed to argue AGAINST colorblind equality and still support affirmative action?).

Progressives need to (and do) need to come to the table with more thoughtful responses and arguments and I think Barack has been so popular because he seems to get this.

Also in re: domestice violence against men. I wrote a paper in law school about domestice violence in same sex relationships. It is a real and significant problem and it complicates our notions of "sexism" and gender inequality in ways similar to those you've mentioned as a male victim of abuse in a heterosexual relationship.

One last point: your recourse under the law would be battery, but you make a good point that if you were a woman being abused by a man you would likely have more options and you would certainly be taken more seriously by the authroities. This is also one of the problems in same sex domestic abuse - police and the judicial system don't take it seriously.

Given that she tended to cut herself or bruise herself with the same weapons she attacked me with, I think I would have been the target of any actions from the authorities. This is why I didn't go to them.

Eventually, the relationship ended without tragedy. But it was a tough time in the mean time (especially because I was concerned about her depression and suicidal tendencies).

Since I was only injured once most of the real serious issues would have been things like assault with a deadly weapon (the knife attacks, and the time she swung a sharp sword at me). These would have been difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt....