Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist, who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the Feminist Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.[1][2][3]
Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine, and a founder of Ms. magazine.[3] In 1969, Steinem published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation,"[8] which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader.[9]
Steinem currently travels internationally as an organizer and lecturer, and is a media spokeswoman on issues of equality.[7]
Journalism career
Esquire magazine features editor Clay Felker gave freelance writer Steinem what she later called her first "serious assignment", regarding contraception; he didn't like her first draft and had her re-write the article.[11] Her resulting 1962 article about the way in which women are forced to choose between a career and marriage preceded Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique by one year.[11][12]
In 1963, while working on an article for Huntington Hartford's Show magazine, Steinem was employed as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club.[13] The article, published in 1963 as "A Bunny's Tale", featured a photo of Steinem in Bunny uniform and detailed how women were treated at those clubs.[14] Steinem has maintained that she is proud of the work she did publicizing the exploitative working conditions of the bunnies and especially the sexual demands made of them, which skirted the edge of the law.[15][16] However, for a brief period after the article was published, Steinem was unable to land other assignments; in her words, this was "because I had now become a Bunny – and it didn't matter why."[15][17] Steinem eventually landed a job at Felker's newly founded New York magazine in 1968.[11]
In the interim, she conducted a 1964 interview with John Lennon for Cosmopolitan magazine.[18] In 1965, she wrote for NBC-TV's weekly satirical revue, That Was The Week That Was (TW3), contributing a regular segment entitled "Surrealism in Everyday Life".[19]
In 1969, she covered an abortion speak-out for New York Magazine, which was held in a church basement in Greenwich, New York.[20][21] Steinem had had an abortion herself in London at the age of 22.[22] She felt what she called a "big click" at the speak-out, and later said she didn't "begin my life as an active feminist" until that day.[21] As she recalled, "It [abortion] is supposed to make us a bad person. But I must say, I never felt that. I used to sit and try and figure out how old the child would be, trying to make myself feel guilty. But I never could! I think the person who said: 'Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament' was right. Speaking for myself, I knew it was the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life. I wasn't going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life, and therefore it felt positive. But still, I didn't tell anyone. Because I knew that out there it wasn't [positive]."[22] She also said, "In later years, if I'm remembered at all it will be for inventing a phrase like 'reproductive freedom' ... as a phrase it includes the freedom to have children or not to. So it makes it possible for us to make a coalition."[23]
The first issue of Ms. magazine, released in 1972
In 1972, she co-founded the feminist-themed magazine Ms. with Dorothy Pitman Hughes; it began as a special edition of New York, and Clay Felker funded the first issue.[11] Its 300,000 test copies sold out nationwide in eight days.[24][25] Within weeks, Ms. had received 26,000 subscription orders and over 20,000 reader letters.[25] The magazine was sold to the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2001; Steinem remains on the masthead as one of six founding editors and serves on the advisory board.[25]
In 1978, Steinem wrote a semi-satirical essay for Cosmopolitan titled "If Men Could Menstruate" in which she imagined a world where men menstruate instead of women. She concludes in the essay that in such a world, menstruation would become a badge of honor with men comparing their relative sufferings, rather than the source of shame that it had been for women.[27]
Political activism
In 1959, Steinem led a group of activists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to organise the Independent Service for Information on the Vienna festival, to advocate for American participation in the World Youth Festival, a Soviet-sponsored youth event.
In 1968, Steinem signed the "War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[28]
In 1969, she published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation"[29] which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader.[9] As such she campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its favor in 1970.[30][31] That same year she published her essay on a utopia of gender equality, "What It Would Be Like If Women Win", in Time magazine.[32]
This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor on which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.[34]
In March 1973, she addressed the first national conference of Stewardesses for Women's Rights, which she continued to support throughout its existence.[36] Stewardesses for Women's Rights folded in the spring of 1976.[36]
Steinem, who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics, was also a key player in the restoration of Wonder Woman's powers and traditional costume, which were restored in issue #204 (January–February 1973).[37] Steinem, offended that the most famous female superhero had been depowered, had placed Wonder Woman (in costume) on the cover of the first issue of Ms. (1972) – Warner Communications, DC Comics' owner, was an investor – which also contained an appreciative essay about the character.[37][38]
In 1984 Steinem was arrested along with a number of members of Congress and civil rights activists for disorderly conduct outside the South African embassy while protesting against the South African apartheid system.[39]
At the outset of the Gulf War in 1991, Steinem, along with prominent feminists Robin Morgan and Kate Millett, publicly opposed an incursion into the Middle East and asserted that ostensible goal of "defending democracy" was a pretense.[40]
During the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment scandal in 1991, Steinem voiced strong support for Anita Hill and suggested that one day Hill herself would sit on the Supreme Court.[41]
In 1992, Steinem co-founded Choice USA, a non-profit organization that mobilizes and provides ongoing support to a younger generation that lobbies for reproductive choice.[42][43][44]
In 1993 Steinem co-produced and narrated an Emmy Award winning TV documentary for HBO about child abuse, called, "Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories."[7] Also in 1993, she and Rosilyn Heller co-produced an original TV movie for Lifetime, "Better Off Dead," which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty.[7]
On June 1, 2013 Steinem performed on stage at the "Chime For Change: The Sound Of Change Live" Concert at Twickenham Stadium in London, England.[46] Later in 2014, UN Women began its commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, and as part of that campaign Steinem (and others) spoke at the Apollo Theater in New York City.[47] Chime For Change funded by Gucci, focusing on using innovative approaches to raise funds and awareness especially regarding girls and women.[46][48]
Steinem has stated, "I think the fact that I've become a symbol for the women's movement is somewhat accidental. A woman member of Congress, for example, might be identified as a member of Congress; it doesn't mean she's any less of a feminist but she's identified by her nearest male analog. Well, I don't have a male analog so the press has to identify me with the movement. I suppose I could be referred to as a journalist, but because Ms. is part of a movement and not just a typical magazine, I'm more likely to be identified with the movement. There's no other slot to put me in."[49]
Contrary to popular belief, Steinem did not coin the feminist slogan "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Although she helped popularize it, the phrase is actually attributable to Irina Dunn.[50] When Time magazine published an article attributing the saying to Steinem, Steinem wrote a letter saying the phrase had been coined by Dunn.[51]
Another phrase sometimes wrongly attributed to Steinem is, "If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament." Steinem herself attributed it to "an old Irish woman taxi driver in Boston," who she said she and Florynce Kennedy met.[52]
As for 2015, she joined the thirty leading international women peacemakers and became an honorary co-chairwoman of 2015 Women's Walk For Peace In Korea with Mairead Maguire. The group's main goal is to advocate disarmament and seek Korea's reunification. It will be holding international peace symposiums both in Pyongyang and Seoul in which women from both North Korea and South Korea can share experiences and ideas of mobilizing women to stop the Korean crisis. The group's specific hope is to walk cross the 2-mile wide Korean Demilitarized Zone that separates North Korea and South Korea which is meant to be a symbolic action taken for peace in the Korean peninsular suffering for 70 years after its division at the end of World War II. It is especially believed that the role of women in this act would help and support the reunification of family members divided by the split prolonged for 70 years.[53][54][55][56]
A proponent of civil rights and fierce critic of the Vietnam War, Steinem was initially drawn to Senator Eugene McCarthy because of his "admirable record" on those issues, but in meeting him and hearing him speak, she found him "cautious, uninspired, and dry."[58]: 87 As the campaign progressed, Steinem became baffled at "personally vicious" attacks that McCarthy leveled against his primary opponent Robert Kennedy, even as "his real opponent, Hubert Humphrey, went free."[58]: 88
On a late-night radio show, Steinem garnered attention for declaring, "George McGovern is the real Eugene McCarthy."[59] In 1968, Steinem was chosen to pitch the arguments to McGovern as to why he should enter the presidential race that year; he agreed, and Steinem "consecutively or simultaneously served as pamphlet writer, advance "man", fund raiser, lobbyist of delegates, errand runner, and press secretary."[58]: 95
McGovern lost the nomination at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and Steinem later wrote of her astonishment at Hubert Humphrey's "refusal even to suggest to Chicago MayorRichard J. Daley that he control the rampaging police and the bloodshed in the streets."[58]: 96
1972 election
Steinem was reluctant to re-join the McGovern campaign, as although she had brought in McGovern's single largest campaign contributor in 1968, she "still had been treated like a frivolous pariah by much of McGovern's campaign staff." In April 1972, Steinem remarked that he "still doesn't understand the Women's Movement".[58]: 114
McGovern ultimately excised the abortion issue from the party's platform, and recent publications show McGovern was deeply conflicted on the issue.[60] Steinem later wrote this description of the events:
The consensus of the meeting of women delegates held by the caucus had been to fight for the minority plank on reproductive freedom; indeed our vote had supported the plank nine to one. So fight we did, with three women delegates speaking eloquently in its favor as a constitutional right. One male Right-to-Life zealot spoke against, and Shirley MacLaine also was an opposition speaker, on the grounds that this was a fundamental right but didn't belong in the platform. We made a good showing. Clearly we would have won if McGovern's forces had left their delegates uninstructed and thus able to vote their consciences.[58]: 100–110
However, Germaine Greer flatly contradicted Steinem's account, reporting, "Jacqui Ceballos called from the crowd to demand abortion rights on the Democratic platform, but Bella [Abzug] and Gloria stared glassily out into the room," thus killing the abortion rights platform," and asking "Why had Bella and Gloria not helped Jacqui to nail him on abortion? What reticence, what loserism had afflicted them?"[61] Steinem later recalled that the 1972 Convention was the only time Greer and Steinem ever met.[62]
The cover of Harper's that month read, "Womanlike, they did not want to get tough with their man, and so, womanlike, they got screwed."[63]
2004 election
In the run-up to the 2004 election, Steinem voiced fierce criticism of the Bush administration, asserting, "There has never been an administration that has been more hostile to women's equality, to reproductive freedom as a fundamental human right, and has acted on that hostility," adding, "If he is elected in 2004, abortion will be criminalized in this country."[64] At a Planned Parenthood event in Boston, Steinem declared Bush "a danger to health and safety," citing his antagonism to the Clean Water Act, reproductive freedom, sex education, and AIDS relief.[65]
2008 election
Steinem at Brighton High School, Brighton, Colorado, in November 2008
Steinem was an active participant in the 2008 presidential campaign, and praised both the Democratic front-runners, commenting,
Both Senators Clinton and Obama are civil rights advocates, feminists, environmentalists, and critics of the war in Iraq ... Both have resisted pandering to the right, something that sets them apart from any Republican candidate, including John McCain. Both have Washington and foreign policy experience; George W. Bush did not when he first ran for president.[66]
Nevertheless, Steinem endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton, citing her broader experience, and saying that the nation was in such bad shape it might require two terms of Clinton and two of Obama to fix it.[67]
She also made headlines for a New York Times op-ed in which she cited gender and not race as "probably the most restricting force in American life".[68] She elaborated, "Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women."[68] This was attacked, however, from critics saying that white women were given the vote unabridged in 1920, whereas many blacks, female or male, could not vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and some were lynched for trying, and that many white women advanced in the business and political worlds before black women and men.[69]
Steinem again drew attention for, according to the New York Observer, seeming "to denigrate the importance of John McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam"; Steinem's broader argument "was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises."[70]
Following McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Steinem penned an op-ed in which she labeled Palin an "unqualified woman" who "opposes everything most other women want and need," described her nomination speech as "divisive and deceptive", called for a more inclusive Republican Party, and concluded that Palin resembled "Phyllis Schlafly, only younger."[71]
2016 election
In an HBO interview with Bill Maher, Steinem, when asked to explain the broad support for Bernie Sanders among young Democratic women, responded, "When you’re young, you’re thinking, 'Where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie.'"[72] Her comments triggered widespread criticism, and Steinem later issued an apology and said her comments had been "misinterpreted".[73] Despite this it was commented online by Cenk Uygur on his Young Turks podcast the Steinem had "after a lifetime of good work, lost all credibility with millenials because she had essentially said 'young women are too stupid to vote for Hilary because they are busy chasing boys.'"
CIA ties
In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and whether she had been "meteorically installed" as the leader of the movement.[74][75] Though she admitted to having worked for a CIA-financed foundation in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Independent Research Service), and acknowledged these ties in interviews given to the New York Times and Washington Post in 1967 in the wake of the Ramparts magazine CIA exposures (nearly two years before Steinem attended her first Redstockings or feminist meeting), Steinem in 1975 denied any continuing involvement.[76] An essay, 'The Religious Crusades of the CIA,' in the popular online magazine Indiafacts has noted that Gloria Steinem visited Kerala and worked with an American Protestant missionary in 1957 which falls into the time frame described by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in his admission that the CIA interfered in Indian politics.[77]
Previously, she had had a four-year relationship with the publisher Mortimer Zuckerman.[83]
Commenting on aging, Steinem says that as she approached 60 she felt like she entered a new phase in life that was free of the "demands of gender" that she faced from adolescence onward.[84]
Feminist positions
Gloria Steinem (right) and Alice Walker celebrate Steinem's 75th birthday in the Fall 2009 issue of Ms. magazine.
Although most frequently considered a liberal feminist, Steinem has repeatedly characterized herself as a radical feminist.[85] More importantly, she has repudiated categorization within feminism as "nonconstructive to specific problems," saying: "I've turned up in every category. So it makes it harder for me to take the divisions with great seriousness."[79] Nevertheless, on concrete issues, Steinem has staked several firm positions.
Female genital mutilation and male circumcision
In 1979, Steinem wrote the article on female genital mutilation that brought it into the American public's consciousness; the article, "The International Crime of Female Genital Mutilation," was published in the March 1979 issue of Ms. magazine.[58]: 292 [86] The article reported on the "75 million women suffering with the results of genital mutilation."[58]: 292 [86] According to Steinem, "The real reasons for genital mutilation can only be understood in the context of the patriarchy: men must control women's bodies as the means of production, and thus repress the independent power of women's sexuality."[58]: 292 [86] Steinem's article contains the basic arguments that would later be developed by philosopher Martha Nussbaum.[87]
On male circumcision, she commented, "These patriarchal controls limit men's sexuality too ... That's why men are asked symbolically to submit the sexual part of themselves and their sons to patriarchal authority, which seems to be the origin of male circumcision, a practice that, even as advocates admit, is medically unnecessary 90% of the time. Speaking for myself, I stand with many brothers in eliminating that practice too."[88]
Feminist theory
Steinem has frequently voiced her disapproval of the obscurantism and abstractions some claim to be prevalent in feminist academic theorizing.[79][89] She said, "Nobody cares about feminist academic writing. That's careerism. These poor women in academia have to talk this silly language that nobody can understand in order to be accepted ... But I recognize the fact that we have this ridiculous system of tenure, that the whole thrust of academia is one that values education, in my opinion, in inverse ratio to its usefulness—and what you write in inverse relationship to its understandability."[79] Steinem later singled out deconstructionists like Judith Butler for criticism, saying, "I always wanted to put a sign up on the road to Yale saying, 'Beware: Deconstruction Ahead'. Academics are forced to write in language no one can understand so that they get tenure. They have to say 'discourse', not 'talk'. Knowledge that is not accessible is not helpful. It becomes aerialised."[89]
Pornography
Steinem has criticized pornography, which she distinguishes from erotica, writing: "Erotica is as different from pornography as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain."[58]: 219 [90] Steinem's argument hinges on the distinction between reciprocity versus domination, as she writes, "Blatant or subtle, pornography involves no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the clear idea that one person is dominating the other."[58]: 219 [90]
On the issue of same-sex pornography, Steinem asserts, "Whatever the gender of the participants, all pornography including male-male gay pornography is an imitation of the male-female, conqueror-victim paradigm, and almost all of it actually portrays or implies enslaved women and master."[58]: 219 [90] Steinem has also cited "snuff films" as a serious threat to women.[58]: 219 [90]
Same-sex marriage
In an essay published in Time magazine on August 31, 1970, "What Would It Be Like If Women Win," Steinem wrote about same-sex marriage in the context of the "Utopian" future she envisioned, writing:
What will exist is a variety of alternative life-styles. Since the population explosion dictates that childbearing be kept to a minimum, parents-and-children will be only one of many "families": couples, age groups, working groups, mixed communes, blood-related clans, class groups, creative groups. Single women will have the right to stay single without ridicule, without the attitudes now betrayed by "spinster" and "bachelor." Lesbians or homosexuals will no longer be denied legally binding marriages, complete with mutual-support agreements and inheritance rights. Paradoxically, the number of homosexuals may get smaller. With fewer over-possessive mothers and fewer fathers who hold up an impossibly cruel or perfectionist idea of manhood, boys will be less likely to be denied or reject their identity as males.[91]
Although Steinem did not mention or advocate same-sex marriage in any published works or interviews for more than three decades, she again expressed support for same-sex marriage in the early 2000s, stating in 2004 that "[t]he idea that sexuality is only okay if it ends in reproduction oppresses women—whose health depends on separating sexuality from reproduction—as well as gay men and lesbians."[92] Steinem is also a signatory of the 2008 manifesto, "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships", which advocates extending legal rights and privileges to a wide range of relationships, households, and families.[93]
Transgender rights
In 1977, Steinem expressed disapproval that the heavily publicized sex reassignment surgery of tennis player Renée Richards had been characterized as "a frightening instance of what feminism could lead to" or as "living proof that feminism isn't necessary."[58]: 206–210 Steinem wrote, "At a minimum, it was a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality."[58]: 206–210 She also wrote that, while she supported the right of individuals to identify as they choose, she claimed that, in many cases, transsexuals "surgically mutilate their own bodies" in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts.[58]: 206–210 She concluded that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism."[58]: 206–210 The article concluded with what became one of Steinem's most famous quotes: "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?"[58]: 206–210 Although clearly meant in the context of transsexuality, the quote is frequently mistaken as a general statement about feminism.[58]: 206–210
On October 2, 2013, Steinem clarified her remarks on transsexualism in an op-ed for The Advocate, writing that critics failed to consider that her 1977 essay was "written in the context of global protests against routine surgical assaults, called female genital mutilation by some survivors."[94] Steinem later in the piece expressed unequivocal support for transgender people, saying that transgender people "including those who have transitioned, are living out real, authentic lives. Those lives should be celebrated, not questioned."[94] She also apologized for any pain her words might have caused.[94]
Rutgers University announced the Gloria Steinem Endowed Chair in September 2014.[105] The Chair will fund teaching and research for someone (not necessarily a woman) who exemplifies Steinem's values of equal representation in the media.[106] This person will teach at least one undergraduate course per semester.[106]
• 2015 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize[109]
In media
Steinem on the over of Ms. magazine in 2002
In 1995, Education of a Woman: The Life of Gloria Steinem, by Carolyn Heilbrun, was published.[110]
In 1997, Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics, and Mystique, by Sydney Ladensohn Stern, was published.[111]
In the musical "Legally Blonde," Steinem is mentioned in the scene where Elle Woods wears a flashy Bunny costume to a party, and must pretend to be dressed as Gloria Steinem "researching her feminine manifesto 'I Was A Playboy Bunny'."
In 2011, Gloria: In Her Own Words, a documentary, first aired.[112]
In 2013, Female Force: Gloria Steinem, a comic book by Melissa Seymour, was published.[113][114][115]
In 2014, Who Is Gloria Steinem?, by Sarah Fabiny, was published.[117]
Also in 2014, Steinem appeared in Season 1, Episode 8 of the television show The Sixties.[118]
Also in 2014, Steinem appeared in Season 6, Episode 3 of the television show The Good Wife.[119]
In 2016, Steinem was featured in the catalog of clothing retailer Lands' End. After an outcry from anti-abortion customers, the company removed Steinem from their website, stating on their Facebook page: "It was never our intention to raise a divisive political or religious issue, so when some of our customers saw the recent promotion that way, we heard them. We sincerely apologize for any offense." The company then faced further criticism online, this time both from customers who were still unhappy that Steinem had been featured in the first place, and customers who were unhappy that Steinem had been removed.[120]
^ abMcAvennie, Michael; Dolan, Hannah, ed. (2010). "1970s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. Dorling Kindersley. p. 154. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. After nearly five years of Diana Prince's non-powered super-heroics, writer-editor Robert Kanigher and artist Don Heck restored Wonder Woman's ... well, wonder.((cite book)): |first2= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Greenberger, Robert (2010). Wonder Woman: Amazon. Hero. Icon. Rizzoli Universe Promotional Books. p. 175. ISBN0-7893-2416-4. Journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem ... was tapped in 1970 to write the introduction to Wonder Woman, a hardcover collection of older stories. Steinem later went on to edit Ms. Magazine, with the first issue published in 1972, featuring the Amazon Princess on its cover. In both publications, the heroine's powerless condition during the 1970s was pilloried. A feminist backlash began to grow, demanding that Wonder Woman regain the powers and costume that put her on a par with the Man of Steel.
^"Arrested at embassy". Gadsden Times. December 20, 1984. p. A10. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
^Lazo, Caroine. Gloria Steinem: Feminist Extraordinaire. New York: Lerner Publications, 1998. pp. 28.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrsSteinem, Gloria (1984). Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1 ed.). New York: Henry Holt & Co.
^Miroff, Bruce. The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party. University Press of Kansas, 2007. pp. 206
^ abcdErotica and Pornography: A Clear and Present Difference. Ms. November 1978, p. 53. & Pornography—Not Sex but the Obscene Use of Power.Ms. August 1977, p. 43. Both retrieved November 16, 2014.
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