The Woman Who Paved the Way: Up Close & Personal with Gloria Steinem
By Sharon K. Sobotta

Tall, slender, poised and articulate, Gloria Steinem blows the stereotyped image of feminists as man hating, unfashionable and angry souls, out of the water. Wearing fitted black jeans, a black v-neck blouse, a flashy-but-elegant silver belt, subtlety pink tinted glasses, with nearly flawless skin, the now 75 year old captures the attention of her intergenerational, multicultural audience with her grace. As she begins to speak, quietly, diplomatically and matter-of-factly sharing some of the injustices women encounter, some of the stories of women and men from her home in New York City and from around the world have shared with her, you can’t help but to drop your defenses and listen. As the director of the Women’s Resource Center at a small private Catholic college in the San Francisco Bay Area, a reporter for the Saturday evening news at KPFA and a freelance journalist for a number of publications, Gloria’s belief in the transformative power of story sharing resonated with me at the deepest level. As the daughter of a 68 year old retired school teacher-mother who grew up believing it was not acceptable to openly share stories about the hardships and abuse she experienced throughout her life and a 65 year old janitor-father who has struggled for his entire life to find a niche for himself and find purpose, while dealing with bipolar schitzo affective disorder; I felt hope in Gloria’s resiliency and her unwillingness to give up on the fight of a making the world a better, more equitable place for men and women. I spent an hour chatting with Gloria and co-interviewing her, along with a reporter from Nevada City, Calif. As I walked away from the woman, who defies all definitions and stereotypes associated with senior citizenship and feminism, I felt rejuvenated.

You talk about getting women engaged, getting the message out. What is the truth about the women’s movement today and why is it important to get the message out?

If you look at the public opinion polls, young women are more likely to identify as feminists than old women. On the other hand, there is a cultural pattern in which women tend to be more conservative when they are young and become more radical as they get older and men are more radical when they are young and get more conservative when they get older; because women lose power when they get older and men gain power as they get older. We need to be aware of this, otherwise we measure women by what we expect of men. Life radicalizes women. As soon as they have been in the labor force for a while and experienced who takes care of kids and who doesn’t, women get involved. I started out as a media worker in the 1930s. I’m a writer by profession and I do think there should be a media element of almost everything we do, otherwise the false images overshadow the reality.

Have we accomplished what we set out to accomplish 40 years ago?

We haven’t accomplished anything that we set out to do. We’ve had 5000 years of patriarchy and racism and it is going to take us a while to get out of it. We shouldn’t think that revolution or transformation is something that happens quickly. I think it’s important to remember that, so that we can pace ourselves. Burn out is a function of naivety. We can make the mistake of assuming that because something is so unjust, people would fix it if they knew about it. (It’s not that simple), because some people are profiting from it. What we experience in our families we come to think of as inevitable. We still have some children who are growing up in homes where violence is normalized. If we had one whole generation of children raised without violence, we have no idea what would happen.

What is your source of strength?

I have the great good luck to work at something I love with people who are friends and who share values. It’s much harder for women who are isolated in an office or have a family that treats them like servants. What keeps us going is community and I have, wherever I go and at home, a family and I have a chosen family of friends and that is what helps me the most.

What is it that drove you to get involved with the women’s movement?

I’m surprised that I waited so long. I was in my middle thirties, before I realized that just working hard and being a good girl wasn’t going to be enough. What stands out in my mind is covering a hearing on abortion, as a journalist.  The NY state legislature was trying to decide whether or not to reform abortion law. They invited 14 men and one nun to testify. In response, a group of feminists in New York said ‘wait a minute, let’s hear from women who have experienced this’ and organized a hearing for women. I covered that event and it was the first time that I’d ever heard women telling their stories in public (about a topic that was considered shameful) and they told their stories anyway.

Some people still hesitate to use the word ‘feminism.’ Why do you think that is?

There have been a lot of years and a lot of effort put into demonizing the word, just like we demonize the word liberal. Rush Limbaugh constantly refers to women as femi-nazis, which contributes to the general cultural notion that we must hate men. I guess really what is normal is 60/40, so if you want 50/50 there is a lot of distortion. You can send some people to the dictionary (to see the true definition of feminism) and it becomes harder for them to oppose feminism unless they are opposed to equality. There are a mix of people who don’t know what the word means (the equality of men and women) and change their minds when they do and people who do know what it means and really don’t agree.

What would you say to women who claim to be perfectly content and believe there is no problem to be fixed?

I’m not trying to create inequities, but I wonder if everything is fine or if they have low expectations. Are women as safe in the streets as men? Are men raising children as much as women are? Do women get equal pay, much less comparable worth? Why are we number 40 something in the world in terms of female representation in congress? Why do women get an adjective and men don’t. There are writers and women writers. There are physicians and black physicians. Why do they (white men) possess the center and all the rest of us have to be qualified. We need to be able to tell our stories and have people listen and ask questions.


What stories inspire you?

I went to Louisiana and talked to a group of 12 women and one man who were organizing to help families who had been stuck on plantations (who had literally been there since the era of slavery). These 13 people realized that the farm workers needed to get off the plantation if they were going to make a change. Living on the plantain was like a marriage. The farm workers moved off the plantation, it worked and now they have repaired countless homes. In my neighborhood I’ll go and get a bran muffin. One man rose up from the man hole and said look at the sign, ‘people working’ instead of ‘men working’ and my daughter now gets to be an electrician. I feel so lucky, because I am accidentally recognizable as something that matters to people. People tell me their stories.

We are at a time when people are feeling more hopeful than ever. What does that mean for us in terms of the important work that we are doing (with combating oppression)?

Part of it is the Swimming pool theory of social change. We have to hit bottom to push ourselves up. We hit bottom during eight years of Bush. At the same time, we have reached a critical mass of changed consciousness about equality about the environment, all kinds of issues. We believe there can be a different kind of reality. We had the vision in this election when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, two intelligent trust worthy folks entered the race. I think it’s beginning to dawn on us that we need someone in office that is more representative of us.  Up until now, we have been choosing our national leadership from six percent of the population. We are just realizing how much we have been missing. I won’t live to see a woman feminist as opposed to a man feminist in the white house.

Hillary Clinton met many critics when she decided to run for office. Some felt she was too authoritative and others felt she didn’t have enough of a spine to run the country. What is your take?

The idea of a woman is too pervasive. We think that female authority is natural in the home and unnatural outside of the home. I knew Hillary Clinton wouldn’t win. Knowing she couldn’t win gave me all the reason in the world to vote for her. In the next sentence, I would always say that I’d support Obama too. Women who said that they wanted Hillary to leave Bill (after his affair) were women that were experiencing similar issues, and they wanted Hillary to do something on their behalf. I never understood that. I just hoped that Hillary was having a good sex life as well.

What surprises you?
When women come together and tell their stories and listen to each other something magical always happens, even when you are sure it is not going to work. I was in Zambia with a group of women who can’t work in the lodges and can’t do anything other than farm in dangerous situations, where alligators are present, where they lack irrigation systems. Some of them had abusive husbands. Only two of us spoke the same language, but we sat on a tarp and talked. I thought it would never work, but it worked. They told their stories, we listened, now they have an irrigation system.

When I grew up, people said that only women could type. I didn’t believe it and I never learned how to type, so I wouldn’t get stuck doing it. As soon as computers came out, men learned how to type overnight.

A friend of mine has a daughter that just had a baby with her partner. I found myself writing cards saying I hope the mothers are doing well. I never would have imagined that some of the profits of gender injustice would be people who have lived both genders. A guy wrote to my office and asked for permission to have my image tattooed on him and I didn’t respond. What he did instead was to tattoo 4-500 words from Revolution from Within and it was very legible and beautiful script.


What makes you believe that you can do whatever you want?

I don’t believe that I can do whatever I want. I don’t think it’s fair to tell our daughters that they can be whatever they want, cause they can’t. Tell them instead that they should be able to do whatever they want and that they will have a great time trying to break down barriers. If your daughters are saying ‘it is not fair’ and they are saying ‘you’re not the boss of me,’ make sure they hang on to that. That way when they see unfairness they will question it and know it’s not their fault. We have to listen to each other’s stories, we have to have speak outs. We need filmmakers and media people who amplify stories to the outside world. Alice walker set out to tell other women’s stories, by interviewing rural women in the south during the civil rights movements. We need to keep doing this.

Sometimes there is a bit of a divide between the various waves and generations of feminists. What is your take on that?

People can call themselves anything they want. We can be second, third or fourth wave. What they mean is that my mom was a feminist. It’s less about chronology than experience. The question is how can we support them to become who they already are.

What would you like to pass on to the next generation of women?

Whatever they want. It’s not for me to say, it’s for them to say what they want. I’m keeping my baton, but I’ll be glad to help them make theirs. Retirement was a concept invented by the corporate world. Go on doing what you love. Get a group of women together who share some hope of making the world better. Let them listen to each other and decide what to do. That is the magic. We are communal people. We can’t do it by ourselves.

What can women do to get involved?
It depends what it is they need most to change in their lives. If they are from an immigrant family and are feeling endangered by the current persecution of immigrants, there are groups that can help. If they don’t have childcare, they may be able to create their own little childcare cooperative or find one. If they are married in a heterosexual marriage and still find that they are doing all the cooking and the childcare, they will find all kinds of women who have this problem and will help find some solutions. I remember a quiet Asian woman in an audience that stood up and said that when her husband leaves his underwear on the floor, she nailed it to the floor.

In terms of the women’s media network, we try to amplify what is already in the media by bringing it to the audience. We monitored the media during the election and named the incidences of misogyny and forced some people to apologize or have a leave of absence. I have a facebook page but I don’t blog, because I can get something in NYT or LAT.

What do you know now, that you wish you knew when you first got started?
I was naïve and used to think that it was just so unjust and if we just told people they’d want to change it. I didn’t understand that if women were paid equally, that would be a massive redistribution of wealth. If we started to count all productive labor including childrearing and care giving, that’s a third of the labor in the country.

What did it mean for women in the United States when Sarah Palin ran for the seat of vice president on the republican ticket?

Women have a right to be wrong. She does not represent the majority of women on any issue that I’m aware of.  I don’t think she should be humiliated for that. I don’t want anyone to attack her for having young children unless they are also attacking men with young children. It’s not about creating a job for one woman. It’s about creating a better world for all women.

If you had a chance to speak with Sarah Palin or offer her some unsolicited advice, what would you say to her?

I would say that I’m so sorry that those assholes made a fool of you and used you. I do believe that in 15 years or so, she will think about how she was used by the McCain campaign and held up to ridicule when she was not prepared. She gave speeches that were not her own. The speech she gave at the convention was a speech they had written for anyone. I know the speechwriter who wrote it. The one at the convention had been written for any vice president and all they added was the pit bull comment. I do think she might join us sometime. It was really unfair. She was held up to ridicule. It was proof of progress that right wing republicans felt they had to do it. Some people try to look like they are on your side so you know you are winning, because otherwise they wouldn’t try.

 What advice would you offer to young women?

My message would be, don’t listen to me. Listen to yourself and your inner voice that tells you what you love, what you do even if you weren’t getting paid, when you forget what time it is, listen to that and I will help.  Back >>