Quote of the Day:

Feminism is the hydra-headed monster stalking Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president.

-Suzanne Fields, The Washington Times

An interesting article by Suzanne Fields explores how changing feminism has thrown the would be first female president's campaign off course, at least for the time being. Clinton always expected that the votes of women would elevate her to the presidency. Something has gone wrong. Fields writes:

Second wave feminism sought a level playing field with men, equals in work and sex, and led to an expansion of women’s rights in education, property, the trades and professions and the writing of radical changes in the rules of engagement between men and women. The initial cry in Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963 emphasized the demand for a woman’s right to explore her options and opportunities, just like men. Exactly what those options and opportunities should be, however, quickly diverged, depending on a woman’s social, ethnic and economic background.

The latest wave of feminists are digging up the playing field, leaving it scarred with the potholes of varying points of view, which makes it particularly difficult for older feminists to avoid tripping on a landscape that keeps changing under their feet. That’s how and why Gloria Steinem, the 81-year-old dowager bunny, once the Playboy Club sexpot in rabbit ears and a cotton tail, on a mission to expose sexism and male chauvinism, misspoke this week when she misread the motives of the latest generation of women on fire for Bernie Sanders.

Older feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright have a sense of earned entitlement and such thinking simply doesn’t resonate with young women, nor does it dictate their politics. Defending Madeleine Albright on “Meet the Press,” Hillary stressed the importance of going back two decades, reminding the new generation of young women that “this struggle, which many of us have been a part of, is not over.”

Fair enough, but that’s a reinterpretation of partisan positioning, and a lot of young women aren’t buying it. They’re not interested in “gender politics.” Many of these young women judge candidates by a longer yardstick than mere sexual determination, and describe Bernie Sanders’ “straight talk” as more in tune with their sensitivities than Hillary’s strident belligerence. Trustworthiness was a bigger and more important factor in New Hampshire. Hillary won the women’s vote in Iowa by 11 points, as measured in the exit polls, and Bernie Sanders won them by the same 11 points in New Hampshire. Sixty-nine percent of women under 45 voted for him.