THE PROBLEM WITH EVERYTHING

My Journey Through the New Culture Wars

By Meghan Daum

Here’s the problem with Meghan Daum’s electrifying new book, “The Problem With Everything: My Journey Through the New Culture Wars.” It’s a critique of feminism’s “fourth wave,” a social media-driven movement articulating not just the rights of women, along with microaggression concepts like “mansplaining,” but also the fuzzier tenets of “intersectionality,” a hitherto hidden matrix of privilege and oppression. But trickily for readers in today’s age-striated world, three (approximately) generations encounter this feminist movement — and the broader culture wars of which it is a part — in at least three different ways.

First, baby boomers. Think someone 70-plus, like my friend Peggy, happily retired, living in a leafy enclave, who wears Native American jewelry without irony (she’s from Pennsylvania). She sends her grandchildren Apple products and money for their college tuitions from a comfortable distance. Typical gently amused exclamation, regarding nonbinary pronouns: “‘They, them, their’? Please. It’s not even grammatical!”

Second, Gen Xers. Around 50, or about Daum’s age, they’re the sweet spot for this collection. Or sweet-sour, if you will, caught as these aging Gen Xers are in the culture wars’ saw blades. Many have children in their teens and 20s, so they mis-gender at their continual peril. Their workplaces, particularly if at cultural institutions, have become professional minefields: In these fraught times, linguistic slips involving any kind of race or sex or “otherness” can trigger a layoff. (One radio producer remarked, over his barely touched quinoa salad: “I’m 61 — if I can just hang on for four more years.”)

These beleaguered, not-yet-retired middle-agers might want to discuss “The Problem With Everything” with the third generation: the millennials and Gen Z’s. Thirty-five and younger, this cadre occupies a new world, particularly if culturally “woke.” Their social media teems with hashtags (#DGAF — Don’t Give a [expletive]), eye-rolling GIFs (Emma Stone), raw outrage (I. Can’t. Even.). In 280 characters, Twittering S.J.W.s (social justice warriors) “call out” and “cancel” their oppressors. Daum acknowledges such behavior is understandable, even necessary: “Trumpism has made us feel that the world is out of control.” However, she insists, the migration of #MeToo to #BelieveWomen also “fundamentally flew in the face of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’”