There’s a generational tension trend in social movements. First, an older generation complains that young people are apathetic - even when evidence proves otherwise. Then, when young people’s activism becomes too powerful to ignore, the previous generation charges them instead with wrongheadedness and - perhaps worst of all, in their minds - insufficient reverence to their predecessors.

Name any activist, and you’ll find a predecessor telling them they were wrong. Right now, for example, we’re seeing a slew of lefty thinkers paint college students as pampered PC babies who want trigger warnings on everything from syllabi to their lunch and, most recently, a former feminist idol bashing the work that came after her.



Last week, Susan Brownmiller, the author of the 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape derided young anti-rape activists as being a historically ignorant movement that “doesn’t accept reality.” Years ago, the feminist author helped introduce groundbreaking ideas on rape culture that paved the way for current thinking on rape and consent. So when Brownmiller said it’s “a little late” for a woman to say no to sex “after you’re both undressed”, critiqued domestic violence survivors for not leaving abusive partners, and women who “look like a hooker”, the comments were met with understandable disappointment and surprise.

In addition to criticizing young feminists’ methods, Brownmiller claimed: “They think they are the first people to discover rape, and the problem of consent, and they are not.”



In response, Kate Harding, author of Asking for It, wrote: “we have to be ready to let go of our heroes,” and at Slate Amanda Marcotte called it a “case study in the importance of not having heroes.” But Brownmiller’s tonedeaf interview is more than just a lesson in the danger of creating social movement icons; it’s a reminder for those with their heydey behind them that young people do not make you irrelevant, living in your own bubble does.

In 2010, for example, then Naral Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan told Newsweek that the only people fighting for abortion rights were those in the “postmenopausal milita.” At the time, 60% of the employees of her organization were under 35 years old, and there was a vibrant feminist and pro-choice resurgence online mostly founded by younger women.

And last month, writer and 1960s civil rights activist Barbara Reynolds criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for, among other things, holding demonstrations she claimed were “peppered with hate speech, profanity and guys with sagging pants.”

“If this young movement had embraced the well-meaning advice of its elders earlier, instead of responding with disdain, it could have spent recent months making headway with political leaders, instead of battling the disheartening images of violence and destruction that have followed its protests against police brutality in black neighborhoods.”

Young activists do the work they do not in spite of what came before - but because of it. Still, younger people shouldn’t have to constantly pay homage to older generations. The fact that they’re doing the work is tribute enough.

I can empathize with the fear of being made to feel irrelevant to a movement you’ve dedicated your life to. I get it. It’s a strange to thing to go from a young whippersnapper with new ideas to a movement veteran. But just because new or younger activists may use different methods than we would doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Sometimes they are, though, and could use the knowledge that comes with experience. But no young person is going to hear advice that comes with a finger-wagging rather than openness. When we dismiss younger people’s ideas instead of engaging with them seriously, that is the moment we make ourselves a cliche - and yes, irrelevant.

I’m not suggesting some sort of Logan’s Run age cut-off for activists or public intellectuals; I know that I plan to contribute to feminism until my last breath. But while some people’s best work comes from decades of experience, some comes from new sets of eyes. There are many seasoned activists and thinkers who recognize this. Those who don’t are only hurting themselves - because like it or not, the movement will go on without us.