Is this a less racist, sexist, homophobic country than it used to be? Some activists I know seem reluctant to agree that it is, because there is so far still to go that they feel it will sap our determination to go there.

The problem I have with this is not just that it’s wrong to say nothing has really changed but that it is so disrespectful to the activists of yesterday who did, actually, make a difference. It is also, for me anyway, much more dispiriting and likely to sap my activist energy if I think past activists had no real effect than if I feel they are heroes whose shoulders we can stand on.

So when I see significant generational differences between my generation of baby boomers and people in their twenties and thirties, I stand up and cheer.

Jay Michaelson wrote a great piece last fall about the Gay Generation Gap, in which he expresses empathy and gratitude to the activists of an older generation, for all they suffered and all they pioneered, but finds their “patient incrementalism” outdated.

I had just read this today when I opened an email from my old friend Bobbi Katz who herself was one of the pioneers, in her case of feminist writing for children (and adults). I loved Bobbi’s comments about getting an old book of hers republished:

My “new” book, NOTHING BUT A DOG, has arrived just in time for Women’s History Month. When I sent the manuscript around in the early 70′s, the main stream publishers wanted me to make the main character a boy. They were too uncomfortable with the story of an active girl, who yearned for a dog from the bottom of her heart.

The original 1970s edition

The newly formed Feminist Press loved the story.The illustrator used my daughter, Lori, who inspired it, as her model for all the illustrations. In a round-up of “feminist” titles, the NYTimes singled out the book as “a convincing story of an authentic girl.”

A few years later, the Feminist Press discontinued publishing books for kids, and eventually I got the rights back. Now re-illustrated in full color by Jane Manning and published this month, NOTHING BUT A DOG has a new life. (And Lori, now all grown-up, has become a professional dog trainer!)

None of the young editors at Dutton/Penguin had a clue about what once made this a feminist book! So be of good heart, Sisters: there’s been some progress!