Hillary Clinton claims victimhood at the hands of many things: Bill, the media, the front-loaded primary system, David Shuster, turncoat former friends, a fickle public.

A woman who chews glass for breakfast is hardly a victim of any of these things.

But there is one thing of which she is actually a victim: the success of feminism.

She’s still beating Barack Obama among older women, who look at her as emblematic of the success they fought for in the 1970s. But younger women are going for Obama in droves. On Super Tuesday, he won 53 percent of them. In the Potomac primaries last Tuesday, he scored between 59 and 66 percent.

Younger women are not automatically voting their gender. N.OW. is in the past. They prefer the vague “hope” and “change” represented by a New Wave guy like Obama than the Old School change represented by a 70s feminist warrior like Clinton.

This is one of the great ironies of this race: Hillary has positioned herself as an icon of feminist achievement. And she is being defeated by subsequent generations of women–the beneficiaries of feminist pathbreaking — who now believe we have transcended gender.

And isn’t that what feminism was supposed to achieve?

Have PoliticalMavens.com delivered to your inbox in a daily digest by clicking here