nothin Steinem: We Still Have Far To Go | New Haven Independent

Steinem: We Still Have Far To Go

Younger and Steinem at the Omni.

Gloria Steinem said she underestimated the effect misogynist backlash would have on advancing feminist issues as an activist in the 70s and 80s.

The 81-year-old second-wave feminist shared stories and advice from her long career as a writer and activist with supporters of the Community Fund for Women & Girls at the Omni Hotel Friday afternoon, in honor of the organization’s 20th anniversary.

In conversation with Teresa Younger, president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, Steinem covered a wide range of topics, explaining how the power of narrative is a powerful tool for activism and weighing in on the current presidential campaigns.

When Steinem founded the feminist magazine Ms. in the 70s, she said she was under the delusion that small magazines make money. I thought I would put it back into the women’s movement.”

She soon realized that her magazine — though popular — would not generate as much as she thought. And she realized there was no national multi-issue, multiracial women’s fund” in existence at the time. Steinem decided to raise money for a corresponding foundation, eventually the Ms. Foundation for Women, in order to support on-the-ground issues no one else was funding,” including efforts to end domestic violence and to ensure non-sexist multiracial childcare” for women of all backgrounds.

Are there any issues you were exposed to then that you are surprised we’re still working on today?” Younger asked.

How much time do you have?” Steinem responded, to laughter from the crowd. In the 80s, I thought we would be much further along with legislation and government funding.”

But she said she also learned that conversations at the grassroots are more effective policy tools than when they start at the top. I wonder why we don’t get that trees grow from the bottom to the top,” she said. People experiencing the problem know its solution better than anyone else.”

As part of the event, Steinem promoted her new book My Life On the Road,” about her travels as a feminist activist. She told the audience a story about a trip to a village outside of Lusaka, the capital of the African country Zambia, to work on fighting sex trafficking in the region. Steinem said she sat with a circle of women who told her that two women in their village had gone to Lusaka, been sex trafficked and never gone back.”

She asked them what would have helped to keep the women in their village, prevented them from having to go to Lusaka.

They told her they needed food security, that elephants were eating their maize crop each year and they wanted an electric fence to stop them. Steinem funded the fence and when she returned for a later harvest, she found the people in the village had cleared acres of maize. They had food security and money to send children to school instead of to make money.

If you would have asked me how to prevent sex trafficking, I would not have said an electric fence,” she said.

Younger asked Steinem to weigh in on national politics. Since we’re living in this post-racial society now,” she said sarcastically, and with a female president, we would be in a post-feminist society.”

Steinem said Hilary Clinton, the most likely and most popular candidate,” faces sexist criticisms from people who did not associate female leadership with rationality.” News commentators were quoted saying they involuntarily crossed their legs out of fear when they saw her or that she looked like everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court.”

Steinem said Clinton has a better chance of getting elected in 2016. We could have a first female president that represents the majority interests and views of most people in the country,” she said.

At the celebration Friday afternoon, the Community Fund for Women & Girls also announced it has awarded $203,740 in grants to eight not-for-profits in Greater New Haven.

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for bashman

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for Walt

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for Walt

Avatar for Sagimore

Avatar for Walt

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS

Avatar for Walt

Avatar for THREEFIFTHS