The Center for American Progress has already begun a body of work that seeks to expand the literature of women’s leadership in terms of race and class. But women cannot come together for a cause that does not feel inclusive. Structural change requires collective action. To meaningfully promote women’s leadership-that is to say, the ability of all women to achieve maximum political, economic, and personal empowerment-the social structures, political roadblocks, and policies that hold women back have to change. The need to confront such issues of voice and identity has been especially glaring in talk and writing about women’s leadership, which tend to focus on individual women and their private pathways to power and leave less empowered women out in the cold. That discussion also has given rise to an important parallel conversation about who American women are, who speaks in their name, and whose perspectives and experiences dominate their storyline. The past few years have been a particularly heady time for discussion of women’s advancement-or lack thereof-in American society. It is a gap further exacerbated by the diversity of women and their lived experiences. There are many who would agree with Faludi’s observation that there is a vast generational divide in the women’s movement, characterized by discord bordering on rancor. – Susan Faludi, “American Electra,” Harpers Magazine, October 2010 … The contemporary women’s movement seems fated to fight a war on two fronts: alongside the battle of the sexes rages the battle of the ages.”

“No one who has been engaged in feminist politics and thought for any length of time can be oblivious to an abiding aspect of the modern women’s movement in America-that so often, and despite its many victories, it seems to falter along a ‘mother-daughter’ divide. See also: Fact Sheet: 4 Generations of American Women by Emily Baxter and Judith Warner

Female age progression stories