I recognize I am not a typical millennial. I spend an inordinate amount of time watching and reading news and policy. I have been involved in local politics and voted in every primary since I turned 18. I got lucky with a career track that has allowed me to "pull myself up by my bootstraps" (notice I use the term "luck").
But what I do have, is the experience of growing up in the post-Reagan era where our country has moved toward an oligarchy and where the middle class has disappeared. When my dad died back in the 90s, I watched my mom struggle to stay afloat. She ultimately lost her home, her health, her retirement due to the market crash and runaway medical expenses and crushing student loan debt for her kids. Every month, she survives off of the remaining two thirds of her social security after a full third goes to parent plus loans — and will until she dies.
About 50% of my friends are unemployed/underemployed with college degrees. They live with their parents or in squalor. They struggle with the decision of whether to pay their heating bill or a medical bill. They beg friends for antibiotics instead of going to a clinic because the co-pays are too high and they need to feed their children. They choose to pull a tooth instead of capping it because they have no dental insurance.
When Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright spoke ill of women in my generation, it infuriated me. Steinem's net worth is 3 million. Albright's worth is 10 million. What they fail to understand is that the biggest issue facing women isn't that female executives are paid 30% less than male executives, or that they are outnumbered 10 to 1. Sure it pisses me off. The biggest issue is that even my guy friends can't support themselves, find a job, or even think about having a family while all these executives, BOTH men AND women, are paid hundreds of times what their employees are and they are telling me why my opinion isn’t informed. I'm less concerned about gender inequality than I am about sheer survival for my generation. It hurts to watch my friends suffer in this America.
Millennial feminism is about nurturing and success for everyone; it HAS to be. Nurturing starts with everyone having education, healthcare, and living wages. And nurturing means having a planet that our children can survive on, clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. So if we want to turn feminism into a policy discussion, let's discuss what really matters to women. And from where I sit, the oligarchs are too disconnected to know. That includes Steinem, Albright, and Clinton.
