Liberte, Egalite, Sororite

Not so long ago, it was possible for women, particularly young women, to share in the popular illusion that we were living in a postfeminist moment. Many women believed we had access to the same opportunities and experiences as men… should we choose to take advantage of them (and, increasingly, we just might not). There was, of course, the occasional gender-based slight to contend with, but to get worked up over these things seemed pointlessly symbolic, humourless, the purview of women’s-studies types. Then Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy, and the sexism in America, long lying dormant… yawned and revealed itself. Even those of us who didn’t usually concern ourselves with gender-centric matters began to realise that when it comes to women, we are not post-anything.

It was hardly a revelation to learn that sexism lived in the minds and hearts of right-wing crackpots and internet nut-jobs, but it was something of a surprise to discover it flourished among members of the news media.

Any woman who has spent time in the workforce likely understands what a powerful, defining force gender can be. “We used to have a saying in the women’s movement,” says Leslie Bennetts, author of The Feminine Mistake. “It takes life to make a feminist.” The real divide among women of voting age is between those who have encountered gender-based hurdles and affronts and those who have not: between women in their twenties and women who have worked at a job where something is at stake.

Excerpted from Amanda Fortini’s ‘The Feminist Reawakening’ in the latest New York Magazine