MashBlur

During an interview on last night's Bill Maher show, the noted feminist Gloria Steinem suggestedthat young women support Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign because they want attention from men.

Steinem's comments came in response to a question about the base of support for Sanders and Hillary Clinton, respectively.

"When you’re young, you’re thinking, 'Where are the boys?' The boys are with Bernie."

To suggest, as Steinem seemed to do, that young women choose their candidate to attract men is profoundly sexist and condescending. It trivializes the voting preferences of a powerful group of voters: young voters — and particularly young women — while at the same time ignoring gay women.

Steinem's observation also ignores the legitimate gains that Sanders has made among young people. We saw that clearly in Iowa where Sanders defeated Clinton among voters ages 17 to 29 by 70%. That's almost double the margin by which then-Senator Barack Obama won that age group in Iowa in 2008.

Here's a radical idea: Perhaps the women who turned out for Sanders in Iowa aren't boy-crazy. Perhaps they are voters who decided, after hearing the candidates make their arguments, that Sanders is the best candidate to lead the country when Obama leaves office.

Perhaps instead of writing off these voters as lovesick young girls who haplessly follow men to the ballot box, Steinem and others should talk to these young women to try to better understand what makes them Feel The Bern.

The condescension aside, this is also a pretty shocking reversal for Steinem, who, as The New Republic's Elizabeth Bruenig pointed out, once deemed Sanders an "honorary woman" during his 1996 campaign against a Republican woman.

Steinem is a Clinton supporter and wrote rather movingly this year about some of the ugliness that has been hurled Clinton's way by political opponents, dating back to former President Bill Clinton's time at the White House. There's undoubtably a lot of that during this cycle too. I've seen it on the road, on Reddit and on Twitter.

But two wrongs don't make a right. And on this point, Steinem is just dead wrong.

As a relatively young woman (I cast my first vote for President in 2008) and particularly as a black young woman in America, I value my vote and the fight by generations of organizers it took to secure it. It's a responsibility I and many of my friends take incredibly seriously and for anyone to suggest otherwise is frankly insulting.

Sorry, but when I decide who to vote for on Election Day, it will be the person I think can best represent the country, not the candidate that will most impress my boyfriend.