Gloria Steinem

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Gloria Steinem at news conference, Women's Action Alliance, January 12, 1972
Born Gloria Steinem
March 25, 1934 (1934-03-25) (age 74)
Toledo, Ohio, USA
Occupation Feminist, Journalist
Spouse(s) David Bale
(2000 ─ 2003)

Gloria Marie Steinem (born March 25, 1934) is an American feminist icon, journalist and women's rights advocate. She is the founder and original publisher of Ms. magazine, and was an influential co-convener of the National Women's Political Caucus.

Contents


[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio. Her mother, Ruth Nuneviller, was of part German descent. Her Jewish-American father, Leo Steinem, was a traveling antiques dealer (with trailer and family in tow) and the son of immigrants from Germany and Poland.[1] The family split in 1944, when he went to California to find work while Gloria lived with her mother in Toledo. As a child in Toledo, she cared for her ill mother and helped support the family along with her sister Susanne.

Years later, Steinem described her relationship to her mother as pivotal to understanding of social injustices. At 34, Ruth Steinem had a "nervous breakdown" that left her an invalid, trapped in delusional fantasies that occasionally turned violent.[2] She changed "from an energetic, fun-loving, book-loving" woman into "someone who was afraid to be alone, who could not hang on to reality long enough to hold a job, and who could rarely concentrate long enough to read a book." Ruth spent months in-and-out of sanatoriums for the mentally disabled. Before her illness, Ruth had graduated with honors from Oberlin College, worked her way up to newspaper editor, and even taught a year of calculus at the college level. Steinem's father, however, demanded that her mother relinquish her career, and divorced her after she became sick. The subsequent apathy of doctors, along with the social punishments for career-driven women, convinced Steinem women badly need social and political equality.

Gloria Steinem attended Waite High School in Toledo, then graduated from Western High School in Washington, D.C. She attended Smith College, where she remains active.

[edit] Political awakening and activism

In 1963 she was employed as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club to research an article that exposed how women were treated at the clubs. The article was a sensation, making Steinem an in-demand writer in the process.

After conducting a series of celebrity interviews, Steinem eventually got a political assignment covering George McGovern's presidential campaign, which led to a position in a New York magazine. Her 1962 article in Esquire magazine 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. She became politically active in the feminist movement, and the media seemed to appoint Steinem as a feminist leader of sorts. Steinem brought other notable feminists to the fore and toured the country with lawyer Florynce Rae "Flo" Kennedy, and in 1971, co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus as well as the Women's Action Alliance.

In 1972, she co-founded the feminist-themed Ms. magazine . When the first regular issue hit the news stands in July 1972, its 300,000 "one-shot" test copies sold out nationwide in eight days. It generated an astonishing 26,000 subscription orders and over 20,000 reader letters within weeks. Steinem would continue to write for the magazine until it was sold in 1987. The magazine changed hands again in 2001, to the Feminist Majority Foundation; Steinem remains on the masthead as one of six founding editors, and serves on the advisory board.[3]

In May 1975, Redstockings, a radical feminist group, raised the question of whether Steinem had continuing ties with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Though she admitted work for a CIA-financed foundation in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Steinem denied any further involvement.[4]

Steinem co-founded the Coalition of Labor Union Women in 1974, and participated in the National Conference of Women in Houston, Texas in 1977. She became Ms. magazine's consulting editor when it was revived in 1991, and she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1991, Steinem founded Choice USA.

Contrary to popular belief, Steinem did not coin the feminist slogan "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." The phrase is actually attributable to Irina Dunn.

[edit] Later life

In the 1980s and 1990s, Steinem had to deal with a number of personal setbacks, including the diagnosis of breast cancer in 1986[5] and trigeminal neuralgia in 1994[citation needed].

At the outset of the Gulf War, Steinem, along with prominent feminists Robin Morgan and Kate Millett, publically opposed an incursion into the Middle East and asserted that ostensible goal of "defending democracy" was a pretense.[6]

During the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment scandal, Steinem voiced strong support for Anita Hill and suggested that one day Hill herself would sit on the Supreme Court.[7]

According to two Frontline features (aired in 1995) and Ms. magazine, Steinem became an advocate for children she believed had been sexually abused by caretakers in day care centers (such as the McMartin preschool case).[8][9][10]

In a 1998 press interview, Steinem weighed in on the Clinton impeachment hearings when asked whether President Bill Clinton should be impeached for lying under oath, she was quoted as saying,

"Clinton should be censured for lying under oath about Lewinsky in the Paula Jones deposition, perhaps also for stupidity in answering at all." [11]

On September 3, 2000, at age 66, she married David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale. The wedding was performed at the home of her friend Wilma Mankiller, formerly the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Steinem and Bale were married for only three years before he died of brain lymphoma on December 30, 2003, at age 62.

Steinem was also a member of Democratic Socialists of America.[12]

Canadian singer-songwriter David Usher penned a song titled "Love Will Save The Day," which includes sound bytes from Steinem speeches. The song's opening contains her statement, "It really is a revolution," and the ending breaks for the quote, "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." In the credits of the movie V for Vendetta, this last speech is also quoted.

[edit] Political campaigns

In contrast to many prominent leaders of the feminist second-wave like Germaine Greer, Kate Millett, and Shulamith Firestone, Steinem was an influential player in the legislative and political arenas. Her involvement in presidential campaigns stretches back to her support of Adlai Stevenson in 1952.

[edit] 1968 election

A proponent of civil rights and fierce critic of the war in Vietnam, Steinem was initially drawn to Senator Eugene McCarthy because of his "admirable record" on those issues. But in meeting and hearing him speak, she found him "cautious, uninspired, and dry." Interviewing him for New York Magazine, she called his answers a "fiasco," noting that he gave "not one spontaneous reply." 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."

On a late night radio show, Steinem garnered attention for declaring, "George McGovern is the real Eugene McCarthy."[13] Steinem had met McGovern in 1963 on the way to an economic conference organized by John Kenneth Galbraith, and had been impressed by his unpretentious manner and genuine consideration of her opinions. Five years later 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."

McGovern lost the nomination in the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention. Steinem gave McGovern credit for standing on the platform with Humphrey in a show of unity after Humphrey had clinched the nomination, whereas McCarthy refused the same gesture. She later wrote of her astonishment at Humphrey's "refusal even to suggest to Chicago Mayor Daley that he control the rampaging police and the bloodshed in the streets."[14]

[edit] 1972 election

By the 1972 election, the women's movement was rapidly expanding its political power. Steinem, along with Congresswomen Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug, had founded the National Women's Political Caucus in July 1971.[15]

Nevertheless, Steinem was reluctant to re-join the McGovern campaign. Though 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." And in April 1972, Steinem remarked that he "still doesn't understand the women's movement."

McGovern ultimately excised the abortion issue from the party's platform. (Recent publications show McGovern was deeply conflicted on the issue.[16].) Actress and activist Shirley MacLaine, though privately supporting abortion rights, urged the delegates to vote against the plank. Steinem later wrote this description of the events:

“ The concensus 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.[17]

 ”

Germaine Greer flatly contradicted Steinem's account. Having recently gained public notoriety for her feminist manifesto The Female Eunuch and sparring with Norman Mailer, Greer was commissioned to cover the convention for Harper's Magazine. Greer criticized Steinem's "controlled jubilation" that 38% of the delegates were women, ignoring that "many delegations had merely stacked themselves with token females...The McGovern machine had already pulled the rug out from under them."

Greer leveled her most searing critique on Steinem for her capitulation on abortion rights. Greer reported, "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. Greer asks, "Why had Bella and Gloria not helped Jacqui to nail him on abortion? What reticence, what loserism had afflicted them?"

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."[18]

[edit] 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 he has acted on that hostility." She went on to claim, "If he is elected in 2004, abortion will be criminalized in this country."[19] At a Planned Parenthood event in Boston, Steinem declared Bush "a danger to health and safety," citing his antagonism to Clean Water Act, reproductive freedom, sex education, and AIDS relief.[20]

[edit] 2008 election

Steinem has been an active political participant in the 2008 election. She 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."[21] Nevertheless, Steinem later endorsed Senator Clinton.[22]

She made headlines for a New York Times op-ed in which she called gender "probably the most restricting force in an American life," rather than race. 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."[23]

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."[24]

[edit] Feminist positions

Steinem's social and political views overlap into multiple schools of feminism. This problem is compounded by the evolution of her views over five decades of activism. Although most frequently considered a liberal feminist, Steinem has repeatedly characterized herself as a radical feminist.[25] More importantly, she has repudiated categorization within feminism as

"nonconstructive to specific problems. I've turned up in every category. So it makes it harder for me to take the divisions with great seriousness."[26]

Nevertheless, on concrete issues, Steinem has staked firm positions.

[edit] Abortion

Steinem is a staunch advocate of reproductive freedom, a term she herself coined and helped popularize. She credits an abortion hearing she covered for New York Magazine as the event that turned her into an activist.[27] At the time, abortions were widely illegal and risky. In 2005, Steinem appeared in the documentary film, I Had an Abortion, by Jennifer Baumgardner and Gillian Aldrich. In the film, Steinem described the abortion she had as a young woman in London, where she lived briefly before studying in India. In the documentary My Feminism, Steinem characterized her abortion as a "pivotal and constructive experience."

[edit] Pornography

Along with Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin, and Catherine MacKinnon, Steinem has been a vehement critic of pornography, which she distinguishes from erotica:

"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."[28]


[edit] Female genital mutilation

Steinem wrote the definitive article on female genital cutting that brought the practice into the American public's consciousness.[29] In it she exposes the staggering "75 million women suffering with the results of genital mutilation." 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."

Steinem's article contains the rudimentary arguments that would be developed by philosopher Martha Nussbaum.[30]

[edit] Transexualism

Steinem has denounced the practice of transexualism. She expressed disapproval that the heavily-publicized sex-role change 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." Steinem wrote, "At a minimum, it was a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality." Apparently concerned for Richards' effect on the legitimacy of women's sports, Steinem asked, "Why should the hard-won seriousness of women's tennis be turned into a sensational circus by one transsexual?" Her criticism cut far deeper than that, however, accusing transsexuals of "surgically mutilating their bodies," and concluding that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for transexualism." The article concluded with what became one of Steinem's most famous quotes: "If the shoe doesn't fit, must we change the foot?" Although clearly meant in the context of transsexualism, the quote is frequently mistaken as a general statement about feminism.[31]

Prominent feminists like Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, and Donna Haraway have subsequently rejected Steinem's argument, embracing ideas of "queerness" and "the abject other" as vital to the destabilization and subversion of normative constraints.[32]

[edit] List of works

  • The Thousand Indias (1957)
  • The Beach Book (1963)
  • Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983)
  • Marilyn: Norma Jean (1986)
  • Revolution from Within (1992)
  • Moving beyond Words (1993)
  • Doing Sixty & Seventy (2006)

[edit] Quotes

  • "Evil is obvious only in retrospect."
  • "The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn."
  • "The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off."

[edit] Biography

  • The Education of A Woman: The Life and Times of Gloria Steinem by Carolyn Heilbrun 1995

[edit] See also

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Ancestry of Gloria Steinem
  2. ^ Steinem, Glora. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1984. pp. 129-138.
  3. ^ Ms. Magazine History
  4. ^ "It Changed My Life." New York Times article
  5. ^ Making Ms.Story / The biography of Gloria Steinem, a woman of controversy and contradictions
  6. ^ The New York Times. "We Learned the Wrong Lessons in Vietnam; A Feminist Issue Still."
  7. ^ New York Times. "Anita Hill and Revitalizing Feminism"
  8. ^ TELEVISION REVIEW; Who Programmed Mary? Could It Be Satan? - New York Times
  9. ^ Read Frontline Feedback
  10. ^ Psychiatrist Has License Suspended
  11. ^ Steinem Wants Clinton Censured, Not Impeached. Reuters: September 28, 1998. Retrieved on 2007-06-08.
  12. ^ Democratic Socialists of America
  13. ^ Miroff, Bruce. The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party. University Press of Kansas, 2007. pp. 206
  14. ^ Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1984. pp. 71-97.
  15. ^ Miroff. pp. 205.
  16. ^ Miroff. pp. 207.
  17. ^ Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1984. pp. 100-110.
  18. ^ Harper's Magazine 1972.
  19. ^ Buzzflash Interview
  20. ^ Feminist Pioneer Gloria Steinem: "Bush is a Danger to Our Health and Safety"
  21. ^ Right Candidates, Wrong Questions
  22. ^ The Houston Chronicle.Has Gloria Steinem Mellowed? No way.
  23. ^ Steinem, Gloria. New York Times: Women are Never the Front-runners
  24. ^ The New York Observer. Stumping for Clinton, Steinem Says McCain's POW Cred Is Overrated
  25. ^ Marianne Schnall Interview
  26. ^ Interviewed By Cynthia Gorney: Mother Jones
  27. ^ CBS News
  28. ^ Erotica and Pornography: A Clear and Present Difference. Ms. Magazine. November 1978, pp. 53. & Pornography--Not Sex but the Oscene Use of Power. Ms. Magazine. August 1977, 43. Also available Outgrageous Acts, pp. 219.
  29. ^ "The International Crime of Female Genital Mutilation." Ms. Magazine, March 1979, pp. 65. Also Available Outrageous Acts, pp. 292.
  30. ^ Nussbaum, Martha C. Sex & Social Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 118-129.
  31. ^ Outrageous Acts, pp. 206-210.
  32. ^ Butler, Judith. "Critically Queer." Bodies that Matter. Routledge: New York, 1993. pp. 223-441.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Steinem, Gloria Marie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American activist
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Toledo, Ohio, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH