Gloria Steinem promotes

feminist progress

during ASU visit
By Caroline Monday
cmonday@mountaintimes.com

Feminist leader Gloria Steinem visited Appalachian State University Monday, Feb. 4, and spoke that evening on “The Progression of Feminism: Where Are We Going?”

Steinem started off her presentation addressing the popular sentiment that feminism and the women’s movement is not necessary anymore.

“This movement, the women’s movement, which has been going for something like 35 years, is often treated as if it were over. We hear words like post-feminism, that’s kind of like post-democracy. What does that mean?” Steinem said.

She said that attitude is one perpetuated by opponents to feminism. “The first impediment was to tell us we couldn’t do it. We were going against nature, it was impossible, against God, against Freud, against somebody. And we did it anyway,” Steinem said.

Now the impediment is to say. “It was necessary, but it isn’t anymore,” but it is still necessary, she said.

One of the inequalities Steinem spoke of that still exists is inequality in rate of pay. Since the beginning of the Women’s Movement, the rate of pay has gone from women earning 55 cents for every $1 earned by a man to 77 cents to every $1. “So we have at least 33 cents to go, right?”

Steinem said that not only do women not earn equal pay in male-dominated fields, many women work in what she called “the pink collar ghetto.” This “ghetto” is comprised of occupations that are traditionally held by women, such as nursing and early child care, and thus are traditionally low paying. “We are still an economy which pays for work not according to its value to the community, but according to the social value of the worker,” she said.

“We are still living in a world in which we have secretaries who are more educated than the average boss, by about a year and a half,” Steinem said. “And most of all, we are still living in a world in which many, if not most, women have two jobs, one inside the home and one outside the home.”

She said that the next step in equality for women is also a step toward equality for men in the role of parenting. “We have at least gotten to this point of proving that women can do what men can do,” Steinem said, but the future of the movement lies in convincing society that “men can do what women can do.”

She made the analogy of human selves being like full circles. These circles consist of traits that are both traditionally considered masculine and feminine. Strict gender roles strictly limit women in the traits they are allowed to have, such as assertiveness, but they also limit men, especially in their home lives.

She argued that men are not given the chance to develop the compassionate aspects of their personality when they are not equal partners in parenting roles. Likewise, women are shirked of the opportunities to develop themselves when denied equality in the workplace. Steinem noted that women had more to gain with the Women’s Movement, but the movement is for both women and men.

A growing problem, Steinem said, is the increase in prostitution and sex trafficking, problems she said are fed by “the pathological need for domination.” Increased equality, she said, would eliminate the need for one group to feel they must dominate another and would work to end violence worldwide.

Steinem addressed several social issues. She noted that the United States is the only advanced democracy in the world to not have national systems of childcare and health care. The lack of these system’s she said, penalizes women more than men by about 30 percent. “We usually don’t hear about this differential, even when we read about the need for national health care.”

She recognized that advances have been made in the services available for survivors of sexual assault, but there needs to be an increased push for prevention of these crimes. “[We have] named sexual harassment...domestic violence, all kinds of things that had been called ‘life’ before. We have arrived at laws that recognize them, that punish them,” Steinem said, adding that these laws have not diminished the amount of sexual violence. “We have been standing by the bank of the river rescuing people who have fallen in and are drowning. But in the future, we have to go to the head of the river and see why people are falling in.”

Steinem addressed how feminism has been demonized, specifically by opponents of the movement like Rush Limbaugh, who coined the term “feminazi.” However, she said more people would self-identify as feminist, even men.

“A man can be a feminist too,” Steinem said.

Later in a press conference, she expounded on this point saying, “Either you’re a feminist or a masochist.”

Steinem is known for her involvement in the women’s rights movement of the late 20th century, becoming its leading spokesperson. She is also known for her part in founding Ms. Magazine, the first national women’s magazine run by women, and as a founder of Take Our Daughters to Work Day, the first national day devoted to girls and now an American institution.

Traveling around the U.S. and around the world as an organizer and lecturer, Steinem frequently serves as a media spokesperson on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as the roots of violence, the cultures of indigenous people, nonviolent conflict resolution and organizing across boundaries for justice and peace.

She graduated from Smith College in 1956 and then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship. In India, she was influenced by Gandhian activism and wrote for Indian publications.

Steinem started her career as a journalist, writing for feminist and other liberal causes. Her first well-known assignment is an undercover piece exposing the poor treatment of Playboy bunnies, written for Show magazine. She went on to join the founding staff of New York magazine and became a contributing editor.

She moves to become more directly involved in politics, working for Democratic candidates, such as Norman Mailer, Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. Out of the political causes of the New Left, such as the civil rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War, grew a new movement for women’s liberation.

By the late ‘60s Steinem was known nationally as an outspoken leader in the women’s movement. She contributed to the formation of the National Women’s Political Caucus and fought for an abortion plank in the Democratic Party platform at the 1972 National Democratic Party Convention. These efforts worked to encourage women to become more involved in politics and to draw attention to the issue of women’s underrepresentation in in politics.

The caucus continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed offices at both the national and state levels. Steinem also helped found the Women’s Action Alliance, a national information center that specializes in nonsexist, multiracial children’s education.

As the first editor of Ms. magazine, Steinem helped lead the magazine to gain a circulation of 500,000 in its first five years. During her time as the magazine’s editor, she became an influential spokesperson for the women’s rights issues.

Steinem went on to become a best-selling author. She published Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions in 1983. Since them Steinem has gone on to publish Marilyn: Norma Jean, Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, and Moving Beyond Words.

Steinem now works as a traveling lecturer, writer, editor and activist. She is currently working on “Road to the Heart: America as if Everyone Mattered,” a book about her more than 30 years on the road as a feminist organizer. She is also part of an effort to form a women’s media center and a woman-controlled radio network.

Bonnie and Jamie Schaefer contributed additional funds to support Steinem’s visit to ASU.