For young feminists, 2016 primary signals end of identity politics

On last week’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, legendary feminist activist Gloria Steinem claimed that Hillary Clinton is losing support among young women, because “when you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘Where are the boys?’ The boys are with Bernie.” She also asserted that men become more conservative when they age, while women become more radical, apparently explaining why 63 percent of women over the age of 45 support Clinton over Sanders, according to NBC News. Although she has now issued an apology, Steinem’s original statements reflect a pervasive view among women over 30, Madeleine Albright included, that young women are bad feminists if they don’t support Clinton. And even taking into account her rapidly backpedaling Facebook post in which Steinem says that young women are actually “activist and feminist,” Steinem still fails to consider what Hillary’s lack of support among young women really means — the feminist movement has evolved.

Steinem was right about one thing: Hillary Clinton has lost the youth vote. In Iowa, Bernie Sanders won 84 percent of voters under 30. This cannot be attributed to the condescending assertion that young women are trying to please men or the unsupported claim that younger women are just not as radical. Rather, Clinton’s lack of support among women under 30 marks a very important shift in the feminist movement. Young feminists are simply not interested in identity politics.

Identity politics is the idea that political beliefs or movements are formed around a person’s identity — their race, gender, class or other identities. While this can create important networks of support for people from similar backgrounds, it has one serious drawback — people cannot be boiled down to one aspect of their identity. This problem was toxic for the second wave feminist movement, which often ignored other aspects of women’s identities, such as their race or sexuality or class. Second-wave politics may partially explain Gloria Steinem’s statement.

Steinem was a crucial figure in the feminist movement of the ’70s. But her comments about the 2016 election serve only to illustrate just how far the feminist movement has come since then. While she may believe that there is something inherently radical about a female president, younger feminists aren’t buying it.

A female president is no longer equated with a feminist victory in the minds of women under 30. This does not mean young women are less radical or less likely to be feminists. In fact, it points to a more comprehensive, more inclusive view of politics and progress. After the second wave, feminism means something more than supporting women. It means supporting LGBT women. It means supporting undocumented women, poor women and women of color. It means tackling the roots of oppression that not only cause misogyny, but also cause ableism, racism and transphobia.

So, when Hillary Clinton claims to be a feminist, younger feminists look to her record rather than her gender. And when women under 30 find that she was against gay marriage until 2013, voted for the Iraq War and has a Super PAC largely supported by Wall Street, these factors outweigh her self-proclaimed feminist label.

All of this is not to say Hillary Clinton has not faced sexist attacks while running against Bernie Sanders. Any comments about her “shrill” voice or her appearance are surely misogynistic and point to a culture that is still uncomfortable with powerful, women leaders. But dismissing Clinton’s lack of youth support as sexism or ignorance only prevents an important discussion about the role of identity in politics.

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in 1989. Riki Anne Wilchins wrote the essay “Why Identity Politics Really, Really Sucks” in 1997. Feminism has changed — and mostly for the better. Gloria Steinem can continue to ignore the revolution that feminist politics has undergone in the last 30 years, or she can attempt to genuinely recognize that young women are concerned with something beyond the gender of their president — they’re concerned with ending discrimination and oppression in all of its forms.