Gloria Steinem speaks to LV women

Gloria Steinem, author, publisher, film producer, activist, co-founder of Ms. and New York magazines and “Take Our Daughters to Work Day,” gave the keynote address in front of 400+ women at Friday’s Lehigh Valley Women’s Summit at Cedar Crest College.  The Summit is an annual program by the Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Women’s Business Council of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce.

Steinem was smart, humble, funny and inspiring in her remarks on “The Longest Revolution.”

Looking and sounding at least a decade younger than her 78 years, Steinem spoke for nearly an hour and then engaged in a Q&A because, she said, lecturing is a hierarchical model “and hierarchy is based on patriarchy and patriarchy doesn’t work.”

She talked about “original cultures around the world that are still thriving, whose paradigm is the circle, not the pyramid, not a hierarchy.”  “Some of them do not even have language for gender.”  Steinem mentioned a friend who is Cherokee who still gets mixed up by “he” and “she.”

Steinem said that male/female is the first and deepest division we experience and “it’s totally false.”  And, paraphrasing:  There can be more differences between two women than between a man and a woman.  We need to be recognized for our uniqueness as human beings and focus on how we’re linked, not how we’re ranked; as a human community, without labels. 

When asked about the “F” word and young women who believe that Feminism is an outdated concept, Steinem said that, in fact, many more younger women than older women identify as feminists and that we need to consider other words, including “girrrrlz.”  “We can use whatever words we want.  But one day we won’t need a word.”

Steinem talked a lot about words and language. 

She asked whether we’d noticed that non-dominant groups are usually “the adjective” – i.e. a woman lawyer, a Puerto Rican doctor, African American studies, women’s history.  She said we need to “seize the nouns,” and “One day it will just be ‘History’ and it will be all-inclusive.”

“The language that we use with one another” is really important.  “I’ve never met a chairman who’s been willing to be a ‘chairwoman’.”

Once when a flight was delayed, a young man sitting next to Steinem said he was grateful for the airline’s offer of entertainment as long as there were “no chick flicks.”  Steinem quipped that he’d probably be more comfortable with “prick flicks,” which obviously would be “more about death than life… power than relationships.”

But actions are at least as powerful as words.  Steinem urged the crowd to consider that every moment is potentially a leadership moment.  “Consider the objectification of young women.  Every time we pass a mirror and criticize our bodies, a young woman is watching.” 

”Leadership is instilling everything you do with the values you want to achieve.  It’s behaving as if everything we do matters.”

Home/family is an important paradigm:

“When we look at issues like democracy and violence, we need to look at the family.  If there’s democracy in the family, it normalizes democracy.  If there’s violence in the family, that normalizes violence.”

Sex as procreation or expression:

Steinem mentioned a question she once fielded:  How could the same group oppose lesbians and contraception?  The questioner felt that this was counterintuitive.  Steinem said, no.  Because the opposition “world view” in this case is focused narrowly on sex as it relates to children and from within a patriarchal relationship.  

The company of women:

“We need each other’s support.  We need to keep educating each other, keep pushing each other.  We’re communal animals.  If we’re by ourselves, we come to feel crazy and alone.  Part of the importance of a gathering like this is to come together, talk with one another, and know that we are not crazy, the system is crazy.”

Gut-check:

We need to trust our intuition.

“When you’re feeling like something isn’t quite right about you [or you’re getting the message that it’s wrong], try attributing it to any part of the dominant group and then see how it sounds.”  For example:  “What if men could menstruate?” In that case, it’s likely that menstruation would be thought of as “an inbuilt measure of time – and how could you possibly be a mathematician without it?”

We need to remember that things can be so ingrained:  “The adversary is in us too.  The patriarchy is in us too.”

“Women’s tendencies:”

Steinem opined that the golden rule “must have been written by a guy because women typically have to reverse it:  to strive to treat ourselves as well as we treat others.”

She noted that “women’s pattern of activism is often the reverse of men’s.  We’re more conservative when we’re young because we haven’t had experience.  We lose power as we age.  Men gain power as they age.  They’re more rebellious in their youth.”

On the importance of continuing to work for ratification of the ERA:

“It’s huge.  Because the constitution does not apply to sex the way it does to race, religion, ethnicity.  With insurance, for example, in many states, there’s gender rating.  90% of health plans charge more for women.” …“It’s been suggested that we could correct laws one at a time.  But we figure it would take 485 years.”

On pay equality:

“With equal pay, poverty in this country would be halved.”

The average woman earns $2 million less over a lifetime.

“We need to talk to each other, tell each other our salaries.  We need to ask for more up front.  If you start lower, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that you make less.”

“It’s still true that labor-intensive occupations are dominated by women and people of color and capital-intensive occupations are mostly male and white.”  But it’s changing, and that change is good.

On getting married late in life:

“Marriage is not the same institution as it once was.  If I’d gotten married when I was supposed to, I would have lost my name, my credit rating… most of my civil rights.” 

Misc. quotes:

“As Dorothy Dinnerstein wrote in The Mermaid and the Minotaur:  When men are raising children as much as women do, that will be the key to world peace.”

All of the “’isms” “are deeply intertwined.”

“A lot of women are the servants in their own families.”

“Hope is a form of planning.  If you become a pessimist, you’re defeated already.”

“We get stuck in a culture of either/or-ness.”

“It’s also helpful to demystify that which is mystified.  For example, infinitely collecting money is boring.  We have a need for the concept of ‘enough.’  Our country needs a concept of ‘enough.’”

“The end can’t justify the means.  The means are the end.  You can’t kill for peace.”

“Hormones dictate behavior, but behavior also dictates hormones.  Studies have shown that men who raise small children – their testosterone goes down, they’re less inclined toward aggression.”

“The characteristics of empathy, patience, attention to detail – they’re not ‘feminine characteristics.’  That’s just what you need to raise and nurture children.”

“Planning is the most reliable measure of class,” i.e. more affluent people can and do plan long-range; less affluent, shorter time line, maybe just till Saturday night.

“Let’s not let people steal good words.” (i.e. Republican, as in the Republican party of old which could embrace such concepts as pro-choice and affirmative action. 

The “war against women” continues.  In ways it’s now “greater and more pointed.  Some people wonder why Catholic bishops are against contraception even though 65% of Catholic women say they use it – That’s why!”

“Masculine is the subject.  Feminine is the object.  It’s all about controlling reproduction.”

“It’s scary – not because we’re not winning public opinion but because public opinion is not being reflected” [because our voting turnout in the U.S. is low, especially as compared to, for example, India, where the poor and disenfranchised vote because they believe it’s a vehicle for change.]