Gloria Steinmen: Actual feminist
Is it ethical—and feminist—to idolize all women, even when they are unqualified for the position they seek?
A commentator on my recent column about Boss Palin said I needed to be a feminist, and stop trashing Sarah Palin.
As it happens, I am a feminist, and that’s why I’m trashing Sarah Palin.
In the 1970s, I was the only female news staffer at a small newspaper in Georgia, where both Patsy Mink and Gloria Steinem were speaking at one of the early women’s conferences. I interviewed one (Steinem) and not the other. Why? Because Mink was a politician and therefore the interview went—by city editor fiat—to the male political reporter. It was unfair. But I was breaking new ground, or so I thought at the time, when ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), prohibiting discrimination based on gender, was still a live possibility. I seized any little step forward with glee, especially since I had had to battle my way into that newsroom. Later on, after I had married another writer at that paper, I asked for a raise and got it. Then the managing editor called my husband in and gave him a raise so that I would not be making more than he was.
So, doubt my feminism if you want, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I feel so strongly about feminism, in fact, that I’m going to offer a brief primer on feminism with specific respect to women’s acceptance, not to say idolization, of the least feminist politician to hit the campaign trail since the ERA was first introduced…in 1923. (For those of you who are women and believe you have equal rights under the law, think again. The Equal Rights Amendment has still not been ratified by all the states, and four states that had ratified it later rescinded it.)
The Feminist Primer
Feminism does not include the following:
- Using your physical attraction illicitly to gain favors or position anywhere except in bed (with the exception of Hollywood, one might add). That is not to say one should fail to properly cleanse, exercise, feed and adorn one’s body; to ignore those things would not be feminism. It would be slovenly and display a total lack of respect for one’s own personhood/womanhood. And one can certainly use one’s gender to acquire romantic partners; if I’m not mistaken, that’s why we have sexuality in the first place.
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Allowing one’s underage female children to be impregnated because you consider any man to be better than no man at all, or because you apparently think storks deliver babies. Obviously, some teenage girls will get impregnated unless you keep all of them under lock and key all the time. However, they will be impregnated with greater regularity if you willfully deny them access to bona fide contraceptive information because “sex is wrong” and babies come by avian messengers in little pink or blue bundles hanging from a beak. Mr. Obama has just overturned this ludicrous Catch-22 into which Mr. Bush and his neocons threw not just this nation but also much of the known world. (Just an observation: This “sex is wrong” attitude seems to be most often accompanied by trading in sexuality inappropriately, that is, outside the confines of romance. For jobs. Political office. Exploiting girl children for entertainment, also called beauty pageants.) - Idolizing a woman who spent almost $200,000 of other people’s money to make herself more attractive when the job she sought was not starlet or B-girl, but vice president. Idolizing a woman who would engage in such behavior just confirms that you are not a feminist, but rather a seeker of male approval. The tight red leather jacket was not designed to make women love Palin, but men. A feminist won’t really care what you are wearing, as long as it meets the specs in 1, above. It does not require $20,000 jackets to meet those specs if you can’t afford that price; $100 jackets from J.Crew will do just fine.
- Being ignorant of the fact that while there is an equal rights amendment covering race, there is none covering gender (see above). That being the case, it is incumbent upon women, until that amendment is passed, not to behave in ways that make men (still the powerholders in this nation) believe we are nothing but brainless ornaments. Yes, we must hold ourselves to a higher standard. Yes, it’s unfair. So, as a first step, we need to get the freaking ERA passed so we can act as idiotic as men with relative impunity.
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Being ignorant in general. It is incumbent upon women to educate themselves. We didn’t start this disparity—you can blame that on the Bible if you like—but if it is ever going to end, then we had better know chapter and verse of life on this planet and begin contributing to that life in substantive ways, not just admiring a pretty face with a gnarly brain who captures the attention of horny males. And we can give up calling ourselves “feminists” because we like her for being a woman, despite the fact that she is not worthy of our vote on the same basis as men. That is to say, education and intelligence that we demand from male candidates. There are worthy women out there. As the commentator mentioned, Caroline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton spring to mind. Caveat: Kennedy is light on experience, but at least has the education for the job and, as far as I know, has never participated in a beauty contest or tossed her minor girl children to the wolves. -
Living in fantasy land. Sarah Palin lives in a fantasy land in which a woefully undereducated woman has attempted to grasp one of the most demanding offices ever invented by mankind. The job comes with no power, and yet offers the possibility of extreme power at a heartbeat’s notice. It is visible, but mainly because it must be relatively invisible. It requires a person of stout heart, inestimable intestinal fortitude, and infinite patience. Ms. Palin has demonstrated none of these. She is hot-tempered, hair-triggered, unthoughtful, undereducated, and willfully ignorant of any culture beyond the frontier culture of an Alaska that has long-since become much more than a frontier, and the debauched culture of the beauty pageant, which has pretensions of being more than it is. (We should never have added the “question” segment; it makes the mannequins believe any of the male organizers of the show care about anything beyond the bikini. Or else, we need to have a Mr. America pageant in which the guys are asked questions about nurturing issues or feminist history, and we pretend it isn’t about their pecs and abs and, to be crude, studliness.)
***
There are many forms of feminism, but I doubt that any of them include toadying to men, or, for that matter, toadying to women. I suspect a feminist shouldn’t toady at all, being certain of her own value as a woman/person. Indeed, I think feminism needs to come as far as racism, and it needs to do it soon. Racism is on the wane in this nation, as our recent election proved. Race was not the issue; the issues were the issue. But we do have an equal rights amendment covering race. Perhaps fifty years or so after we get an equal rights amendment covering gender, perhaps then we will have viable female candidates for office who can get elected.
Years ago, when I wondered why the women at the top of corporations always seemed to be such flakes (for which see Carly Fiorina, as a public example), a wise person said it was because the flakes were the ones the dopey males remembered and promoted.
There is still some truth in that statement, sad to say.
Comments
A feminist is simply someone who believes in the social,legal, economic and political equality of women. Although you think otherwise, YOU are not the author of that definition, so your personal version is just that.
Your form of "feminism" is why women remain where they are today. Still trying to get the ERA passed, still trying for legal, political, social and economic justice.
You play the feminist script "the boys" wrote for you--"keep the cat fight going and we can keep them down". Shame on you.
A lot of this was great, but some intersectionality would do this whole article a world of good. It's insulting to see someone act is if sexism and racism don't affect some people simultaneously. Feminism is for ALL women, and definitions like this one exclude a fair amount of us.
And, even though I think Sarah Palin is terrifyingly clueless and should never be allowed in any position of power again, your assessment of her is harsh in all the wrong places -- she's unqualified because she participated in a beauty competition? Which she participated in because she was broke? Come on -- she was incredibly ill-prepared in so many ways. You could have illustrated that without judging her for entering a beauty pageant to pay her tuition.
To Nike: You have a point. Or two. I didn't mean to say sexism and racism couldn't affect someone simultaneously; I'm sure that happens frequently. Thanks for pointing it out.
As for the beauty contest...no, that alone doesn't make her ill-prepared (although public perception of beauty contests is that they are, well, beauty contests). There surely have been some intelligent beautiful women who entered their professions by way of beauty contests; actress Lee Merriwether is one. Palin is not one. So let the argument stand with clarification: Of all the women who have participated in beauty contests, Palin is not one who was prepared to go beyond the superficial appearance of that and succeed at a non-beauty-related job. (Merriwether, as an actress, might not be the best example; feel free to offer more.) Thanks again.
Above article repeats my persuasion exactly!
I just have to tell author if she doesn't know: THE ERA IS BAAAACK, and I am spearheading it pro bono with my pension in Florida with 2 bills to ratify Florida in the legislature. Have done it 18/7 for 8 years. Successfully, considering I'm flying by the seat of my pants. Got ERA voted out of our Senate Judiciary in April, 8-3, bipartisan, with 3 of the most anti-woman legislators voting FOR it. Don't care why, just vote for it.
Gotta put to rest a wrong: NO state ever rescinded the ERA though a few contemplated it--Article V of the Constitution makes no provision for recission. That's just one of Daffy Schlafly's current lies. She's 84, well-funded but stretched too thin over EVERYTHING SHE HATES.
Do go to www.RatifyERAflorida.net for an exciting visit to the ERA: ERA is for MEN; for WOMEN; for MOMS; for the Economy; for Catholics; en Espanol, etc. See pic of Schlafly being honored, the whole audience standing with their backs to her this past May. DO go, you'll love it. And you boost us up the Google foodchain when you click us on! Besides if you like what we show you there, you can send us $10 so we will reach our goal of $50, 000 so we can hire a professional year-round lobbyist! I have only the past 3 years had enough to stop sleeping in a hostel on the floor when lobbying in our capitol. I would dearly love to hear from you, please. YOU are MY kinda Woman!
Cheers, Sandy, ERA Inc
Laura and Sandy are both partly correct. Since John Adams told Abigail Adams in 1775 "Depend upon it, we know better than to repeal our Masculine Systems" when she asked for a Constitution that protected women as well as men, and since the men who drafted the 14th Amendment after the Civil War told the women who had worked for abolition of slavery to "Stand back - it is the Negroes' hour" by which they meant Black men and not women, and yet again in 1983 when men defeated the ERA, men have consistently refused to acknowledge women's right to equal protection of the law.
Unfortunately, the current Florida campaign and others like it in other states are doomed to fail because they have not learned from the strategic errors of the previous ERA campaign. Before marching up to the State Houses, they need to take time to build a strong interpretation of what a constitutional amendment to end discrimination against women would mean, one built on the combined real life experience of women from all economic levels and parts of the country. They can't go on repeating the old timid denials that "ERA has nothing to do with" the most basic forms of sex discrimination like legal barriers to abortion, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, use of the military combat/draft exmption to deny women's right to full citizenship, tax breaks for sex-segregated schools, and sex discrimination in insurance. Dodging those gotcha! issues told ERA opponents just where to direct their fire.
A strong meaningful guarantee of equal protection of the law - equality to a human standard that addresses the needs of women as well as those of men -is essential to complete the U. S. Constitution. But we don't need a weak, politically compromised, bogus ERA that is as much a joke on women as Roe v. Wade. American women deserve better - but they need to get it, not by begging legislators, or rah-rah parades, but by serious, well-informed, and concerted feminist action from the grass roots up. Feminism does not cozy up to and embrace the status quo of men's dominance over women. Feminism works to challenge and put a stop to it. That's not easy, since sexism advantages all men just as racism pays off for all whites. But equality is certainly worth doing right.
For a more detailed analysis of the former ERA campaign and the key issues mentioned above, see www.equality4women.org.
I feel nothing but pity for this writer along with the deluge of dripping with self importance comments. This is the feminista madness of course. Now that these feminists are all going to lose there 401K along with there little jobs replete with a cute title; there illusion of "independence" is GONE. They will rue the day that they fell for all this male vs female garbage..But of course they drank the kool-aid and the cruel hoax of feminism and became parrots, automatons; unable to think for themselves. Now they can look forward to years of being surrounded by there cats and become bitter and twisted because it hasn't worked out. There counterparts, smart women who were not so easily led will be cared for by the family unit they have nurtured and maintained. Children who will love them when corporate America views them as nothing more than a sack of old bones. If you're young enough, turn it around now or end up like one of these bitter lonely old hags with nothing but memories. As a man I too have NO POWER whatsoever..Just like 95% of my male brethren. We are all in the same sick boat and are ruled by a few. Women should have seen that rather than turning this hatred against every man. Let it go, make your own life separate from all these "VIEWS" *Foot note: My kid sister is a big head honcho in education. Female controlled, only one male in the upper echelons. Do I care? Nope...She's good at her job. I guess I should be MOANING out loud. SO UNFAIR! It's because I am a man isn't it? I think you should all turn your vast energies towards securing food and shelter in the very near future.
Stavros Steve: I agree wholeheartedly with the writer's statements and sentiments. I am a young, well-educated woman and I personally experience what the writer is deploring in my professional life, as do my professional female friends.
I applaud and thank Ms. McBride for her efforts to advance the cause of gender equality and for calling attention to those impeding its progression.
Please, before you attempt to communicate anything to women of any designation, young, old, feminist, not feminist, etc., edit your comments to correct the misuse of the word "there" when you should have written "their." It will add a guise of credibility to your sentiments, as I will politely refer to them.
And I feel nothing but pity for you, Stavros Steve.
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