I got my back up a bit with "this younger generation" yesterday. It was during Up With Chris Hayes, and the panel discussion was about women's issues, and the current fight for women's reproductive rights. Gloria Steinem, my hero, was there, and Marlo Thomas, representing my generation, and after a brief interview, they were joined by a couple of youngsters, the ever-self-referential Melissa Harris-Perry, and Serita Gupta.
This discussion was extremely important because in fact we continue to fight the battles over Roe v. Wade, even to the point of fighting for the right to birth control.
What caused me to growl at the panelists was when Gupta referred to herself as a member of the "sandwich generation," and then explained that these are the women who are now responsible for the care of their elderly parents and their young children.
Excu-use me, but when I was too young to recall, my own mother was taking care of her elderly parents, my grandmother a wheelchair bound stroke victim, and a three-year-old me and one-year-old younger sister.
Gloria, in response to that sandwich business, reminded us all that back in her day, women were home, and not considered to be "working." The care was free, because the women in the household were the unpaid invisible workers.
And I do realize that just as these younger women need to be aware of the battles that came before them, we had warriors fighting before us. Women were risking their lives so that we could vote and Hollywood was portraying the independent working woman.
And here we are, in the 21st century, our daughters taking up the charge to fight for the human rights that are their due.
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