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Why is sisterhood in such short supply when feminism is being debated?



Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is the latest in a long line of women to have caught flak from other women for having the temerity to pronounce on feminism. Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/EPA



There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

The original quote came from Madeleine Albright in 2006, at a WNBA luncheon called Celebrating Inspiration, since then it has taken on a life of its own.

Misquoted and misattributed, but never delivered with less than full feeling, it is the go-to putdown for any woman publically besieged by another woman; particularly, it seems, women vaguely on the conservative side, who get extra mileage, perhaps, from knowing how much Albright will be vexed by their use of it. ("There's a place in hell," said Sarah Palin, on the stump in 2008 and with characteristic ball-park accuracy, "reserved for women who don't support other women.")

Albright's point was a valid one: female solidarity is not a question of blindly promoting other women – of making nice no matter what – but it is does entail putting oneself out for those one judges deserving.

It also requires a measure of flexibility. It is odd, and regrettable, that the most vehement feminists are never moved to greater anger than when faced with another women's definition of the cause, going back to Steinem v Friedan, the 1971 Miami title match.

"It's her baby, damn it," wrote Nora Ephron from the National Women's Political Caucus convention that year, after witnessing Friedan's fury at Steinem for hogging the publicity. "Her movement. Is she supposed to sit still and let a beautiful thin lady run off with it?"

Forty years on, and a lot of feminists recoiled from Sheryl Sandberg on what one suspects were similar grounds, stylistic as much as political: buffed and besuited and not looking the part, here Sandberg swanned in, a latecomer to feminism, and stole all the oxygen.

My god, had she even heard of the Feminine Mystique? Why was she advertising Starbucks in all her publicity gigs? You can't be a real feminist and have hair that fanatically blow dried and isn't anyone that successful in the corporate arena a surrogate guy anyway? She makes Naomi Wolf practically look like Andrea Dworkin, etc.

A lot of noses were put out of joint with Lean In, and the beneficiary of the derision, as always, is those who deride the whole feminist enterprise. So it will go until there are enough women at the top to lessen the symbolic weight of each successful woman's particular choices.

In the meantime, the feminist wars will continue and a long line will form for that particular corner of hell.

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