Gloria Steinem: 'I think we need to get much angrier'

[xchrom]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/13/gloria-steinem-interview-feminism-abortion



Gloria Steinem at home in New York City. Photograph: Mike McGregor for the Observer

Gloria Steinem has been an outspoken figure on behalf of women's rights and the pro-choice movement for half a century. Here, she talks about her opposition to cosmetic surgery and her ambivalence about President Obama

The last person to interview Gloria Steinem for the Observer was Martin Amis, in 1984. He waited for her at the offices of Ms, the magazine that she co-founded in 1972 – "Pleasant though I found it, I was also aware of my otherness, my testosterone, among all this female calm" – and then they headed out together to Suffolk County Community College, Long Island, where Gloria was, as ever, to address a group of students. To read this piece now is excruciatingly embarrassing, especially given Amis's more recent conversion to what he likes to call the "gynocracy". Feminism? From the male point of view, he said back then, the reparations look to be alarmingly steep. As for Steinem herself, she is "the least frightening" kind of feminist, being possessed of – prepare to be amazed! – both a sense of humour and good looks. She was, he wrote, relief slowly blooming, "nice, and friendly, and feminine... the long hair is expertly layered, the long fingers expertly manicured. Fifty this year, Ms Steinem is unashamedly glamorous."

A quarter of a century later, and Steinem is still glamorous: wildly so. But the point is surely that this glamour derives, just as it always did, as much from her extraordinary career – in other words, from her brain – as from her appearance (Mart unaccountably failed to spot this). At 77, she remains tiny of waist and big of hair – and, yes, the nails are as smooth and as shiny as a credit card – but what strikes you most, at least at first, is how preoccupied she seems. She is so busy. It has taken me the best part of two years to bag this slot with her, and even now I'm here, I'm uncertain how much time, in the end, she will have to spare. Does she remember who I work for? I can't tell. I have the impression that she believes I live in New York – and sure enough, when I eventually tell her that I've flown in from London, she looks first amazed, and then, quickly, solicitous. (She might be distracted, but Steinem is also famously nice.)

We are in her flat on the Upper East Side, a womb-like, slightly hippyish basement stuffed with velvet cushions and piled polemics (my going away present, plucked from one of these piles, will be a slim volume by her former Ms colleague, Robin Morgan, called Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right). It's a swanky address but, as she points out, she bought it aeons ago, when even such lowly forms of life as political activists and freelance journalists could still afford a piece of Manhattan real estate. In one corner of the sitting room is her desk, lit by a single lamp; in the other, the desk of her assistant, Amy, who also sits beneath a neat halo of light. Here, two sunbeams in the troglodytic gloom, they drink Starbucks, fire off emails, write books, and generally plan the next stage of the revolution. Visitors like me, though welcomed with pomegranate juice and, when this is discovered to have run out, coconut water, are an unwelcome distraction from the main event, which is work. "I hope to live to 100," she says. "There is so much to do."

[Pachamama]

1. I had the opportunity to meet Gloria in 2004 and she is really beautiful

Inside & out....i was amazed at 70 how she looked like she was no older than 50. And she looks you in the eyes and pulls you in. I felt as if i were talking to an old friend and as she talked with me and was also admiring my daughter with me, i remembered as a child seeing the MS magazines my mom had and her talking about Gloria Steinem and important she was to the womens rights movement. If i had the opportunity to speak to her again, i would love to ask her about her thoughts on what is happening currently with shows like the Playboy Club, Pan Am on TV and the general degradation and Objectification of women on overdrive in the media. In August i saw a preview of the movie "Miss Representation"... I reccommend people see this movie in which Gloria was also interviewed as well as many others on what is happening in our society with the portrayal of women. (Rachel Maddox too!)

Anyway, i find this interview fascinating and her a very remarkable and fascinating woman who helped pave the way for my generation and women and daughters. I hope she lives to 100 and that she doesnt have to wait till then to see a Woman President in the White House and more representation of the female half of our population in equally represented in Congress & the boardroom.

[xchrom]

2. i'm jealous. -- i got to meet bella abzug -- but not gloria. nt

[PlanetBev]

7. I would have loved to have met Bella

I still miss her.

[spooky3]

3. k&r

[bhikkhu]

4. Begging to differ - anger is a tool that makes people behave stupidly

You have only to look at the level of anger that was cooked up to fuel the tea party before the mid-term elections, though (to go right to the most notorious example) you could also look at the anger stoked up and used by the Nazi's to come to power in the 30's Germany.

I'd say we need to be much become better informed, not angrier, and we need to use our information more effectively. If we hadn't (as a nation, collectively) handed Congress to the republicans in the mid-term, all this could have been different - for example, the most immediate result of that was the compromise that extended the bush tax cuts. If we vote into office people who are dedicated to serve and to govern well next time, it could all be very different.

[snagglepuss]

5. K &R Thanks for posting

[PlanetBev]

6. I got to meet her in 1981

I asked for her autograph, and she asked for mine (no kidding). I still have the MS Magazine she autographed, to this day. She's a real class act, I feel lucky to have met her.