Gloria Steinem on the Women's Movement: Education, Feminism, Economics (1985)

• Report rights infringement
• published: 15 Apr 2015
• views: 3784

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 spokeswoman for the feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 70s. She was a columnist for New York magazine and a founder of Ms. magazine. In 1969, she published an article, "After Black Power, Women's Liberation," which brought her to national fame as a feminist leader. In 2005, Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan co-founded the Women's Media Center, an organization that works "to make women visible and powerful in the media." Steinem currently travels internationally as an organizer and lecturer and is a media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is also working on a book about her work as a feminist organizer, to be titled Road to the Heart: America As if Everyone Mattered. 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.[25] 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.[25][26] 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.[27] 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.[28] 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.[29][30] 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."[29][31] Steinem eventually landed a job at Felker's newly founded New York magazine in 1968.[25] In the interim, she conducted a 1964 interview with John Lennon for Cosmopolitan magazine.[32] 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".[33] In 1969, she covered an abortion speak-out for New York Magazine, which was held in a church basement in Greenwich, New York.[34][35] Steinem had had an abortion herself in London at the age of 22.[36] 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.[35] 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]."[36] 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."[37] In 1972, she co-founded the feminist-themed magazine Ms.; it began as a special edition of New York, and Felker funded the first issue.[25] Its 300,000 test copies sold out nationwide in eight days.[38] Within weeks, Ms. had received 26,000 subscription orders and over 20,000 reader letters.[38] 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. Also in 1972, Steinem became the first woman to speak at the National Press Club. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Steinem