What do you think of feminism today vs. the early feminism of the 1960s and 70s?

You hit the nail on the head about moderation. Understanding you don't have to hate men or hate the world as it is, to know it's still got serious problems. There are few feminists who ascribe to the "women would do it necessarily better" theories of earlier feminism.

At the same time, there is a growing complacency in the US regarding feminism, and it's leading to a dangerous path. Women my age (40) have grown up knowing we could "do anything a man could do", and understanding "reproduction is our choice", and that we don't have to marry, etc. But we are seeing those rights to things like abortion that *i* took for granted, being chipped away at. It's slow, but people want to push us all back to that 1950's role of reproduction.

And, modern feminism hasn't really looked at length at what all the issues were with Clinton's run for president. There was the cry of "sexist", but so very much happened there, it's not mearly so simple as Obama and the US didn't like Clinton cause she was female. There was the fact that if a woman didn't like Clinton she was told she wasn't a feminist. There was the Republican reaction of putting a fully unqualified candidate on the scene just cause she was a woman (and pretty).

What happened there? Where are our feminist voices to dissect that? The complexities of all of that.

And, finally, I see little that is "new" in the feminist movement now. We pittered out as far as academic rigor. The stuff that is out now, is "more of the same", which is too bad. Part of that, however, could be that many feminist minds are moving to new areas of ethics like Humanism.

The 60/70's feminists had to go to extremes to make changes--and there were a lot of changes that needed to be made. Taking little mincing steps would have been like expecting to tear down the Berlin Wall using just a nail clipper--sometimes you have to take a bulldozer to be taken seriously. But it's because of what the women's lib movement did in the 60s/70s that the women of today are as free to achieve as they are; even being able to choose whether to pursue a career for a while and then take time off to have babies, then go back to her career is due to what was pushed through by the older women libbers. There is still a lot of peer pressure--women can decide not to shave but not all women are self-confident enough to not shave; but at least the choice is there if they are brave enough to make it. In most places (not all) women are no longer expected nor assumed that they will make coffee, or get coffee, just because they are female (and usually if a man kvetches about it, he's of an older generation and never fully evolved). Studies do show that women still do most of the housework though, even if she works full-time and he doesn't. And women still want and need approval, especially young women still lacking self-confidence, so they still wear those high heeled shoes that are so bad for you and still feel the need to flaunt their sexuality so their femaleness won't be missed. And even that is part of the hard won liberation due to women's lib. Back in the 60s and even the 70s, showing a bra strap was completely taboo, let alone showing a bra blatantly. Most of the benefits young women have today is due to the earlier women's movement. Personally, I'm glad my nieces can reach for the stars and have a really good chance of achieving what they want. Back in my day, females were given only the choice of being a homemaker, a nurse, a [grade or high school] teacher. Considering females make up 51% of the world's population, if you aren't utilizing your females to the max, you only half ******.