All posts tagged "Gloria Steinem"

Gloria Steinem — the iconic feminist journalist who revolutionized work for generations of women to come — has died. She was 92.

Steinem passed away in her New York City home on Wednesday, surrounded by those who loved her, The Gloria Steinem Foundation announced Thursday morning.

"Gloria’s greatest gift was her ability to listen to others, to make others feel seen and heard," the foundation stated. "Her words, actions, and example gave people permission to be their truest selves. Gloria lived true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor."...

In all the chaos of SXSW, I very nearly missed the embarrassing overreach by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem, who are pushing for the FCC to pull Limbaugh from the airwaves. These women do good work in the world, but this is a classic case of feminist narrow-mindedness, where devotion to feminism without considering intersectionality can make us look stupid. Government censorship is something feminists really need to shun, on moral grounds and because, as the crackdowns on Occupy show, because it rarely works out for our side anyway. Going after his advertisers, and using shunning to show that he doesn't speak for "real America" is working great. Why rush it? 

[rebelmouse-image 24750283 original_size="560x375" expand=1]I try, and often fail, to end the week on a positive note. But this week, I can actually do that for you. Online, for obvious reasons, most of the fussing over NY Mag's look at feminist writing was over the piece on internet feminism. But I also want to recommend this piece on the history of Ms. Magazine, which may be a bit stale these days, but really had a lot to offer in the day.

So I got to see Gloria Steinem speak last night, and that was pretty cool.  I'll be blogging about it and her documentary airing on HBO on Monday at XX Factor in a bit.  One of the things covered in the documentary is something Sady Doyle talks about a lot with eloquence, which is how the roots of feminism---a complex, multi-tiered, intellectual endeavor---starts with a child's basic sense of right and wrong, the ability to simply look at injustice and say, "That's not fair."

I'm skeptical of this "Republican women revolution" for many reasons, including the ones noted by Gloria Steinem and Stephen Colbert:

Behind comments like this is, "Feminists are women who really, really want to fuck me---a conservative asshole who radiates hatred of women---but alas, I totally blew them off. So they organized and are angry." I agree with Atrios that the argument is fundamentally weird. If ugly women are organizing in protest that they aren't getting attention from men, then wouldn't their demands be for things that make men more likely to want us? But how does equal pay, reproductive rights, freedom from sexual harassment, and freedom from discrimination improve our chances of getting positive male attention?