Pop Culture Confidential

Episode 25: Gloria Steinem – A conversation with the feminist icon

Steinem has been an outspoken champion of women’s rights since the 1970s and has just released her new memoir ‘My Life of The Road’. Her work has been an inspiration to us personally and to a whole generation of women in pop culture – from comedian Amy Schumer to actress Lena Dunham, both of who are highlighting how society looks at women today with their work. As a columnist for New York magazine and a founder of Ms. Magazine Steinem has published seminal articles, including one that detailed her stint as a Playboy bunny to highlight the sexist treatment of women at Playboy Clubs, and a pioneering work in 1969, titled “After Black Power, Women’s Liberation.” Which brought her to national fame. More recently she has written about importance of Hillary Clinton’s run for President and what it means for society. Throughout her life she has battled for reproductive rights and has been vocal about her own abortion when she was 22. This book is in fact dedicated to “the doctor that changed her life”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Duration:: 32m
Broadcast on:: 31 Jan 2016
Audio Format:: other

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm so very honored for the opportunity to talk to social activist and outspoken champion of women's rights since the 1970s, Gloria Steinem. First I'd just like to take a minute to thank everyone who's tuned in, shared, commented on and engaged in this first year of Pop Culture Confidential. 25 episodes and what a blast it's been, what a response, thank you all so much. I've gotten to interview the most interesting people, creators, groundbreakers, writers, producers and authors, legends like casting director Ellen Lewis, Asif Manvi of The Daily Show, Carrie Kuhn of The Leftovers, Carol's screenwriter Phyllis Nash. You can listen back to the shows anytime. The podcast is a labor of love and in no way possible without Renee Vitishteth and Tom Hansen who've given their all so I want to thank them especially. So please keep listening, sharing and talking about the show because that's really the only way we'll be able to go on. And if you and your company would like to sponsor the show in the new year, please visit the website. But now, a new year's gift, the real idol of mine, Gloria Steinem, ends the year here on Pop Culture Confidential. In her new memoir, My Life on the Road, feminist legend Gloria Steinem writes about her nomadic existence, from traveling on the road with her father to her countless journeys around the US on political campaign trails, organizing, writing, listening and inspiring. She's basically lived out of a suitcase most of her 81 year old life and she's still on the road. On the 80th birthday, she traveled to Africa and rode elephants in Botswana. The fact that she's traveled the US and the world to meet real people, sharing real concerns is for me the real staple of Gloria Steinem's activism. Gloria Steinem was born in Toledo, Ohio and started her life on the road early. She traveled with her father, an antique stealer, who brought his wife and children along with him on the road. Her mother, a journalist, gave up her career for family and suffered from debilitating depression. After her parents' divorce, she lived with her mother until college. Gloria became a writer and journalist and co-founded Ms. Magazine. She published seminal articles like one detailing her undercover report as a Playboy bunny to highlight the sexist treatment of women at Playboy Clubs. In her 1969 pioneering work, called "After Black Power, Women's Liberation," brought her to national fame. As a feminist leader, she's been a force and inspiration, but also a polarizing figure hated by many, mainly in right-wing America. Her activism, tireless fight for reproductive rights, civil rights and social justice, preventing violence against women, which she cites as one of the most important issues facing women worldwide. This is what made her a feminist icon. And in 2015, her activism is as strong as ever. Young feminists like Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer cite her as an inspiration and influence. In her new memoir, "My Life on the Road," Gloria Steinem looks back at how her travels and encounters with women and men have shaped her life and work. I started by asking her how she perceives this life on the road, starting as a small child and how her parents influenced her early life. I didn't understand, as I think as children do, I just accepted it. Also I was seeing movies in which people lived supposedly normal lives. Children went to school, their families lived in houses with picket fences. So I felt that that was normal and perhaps I wanted to do that. I used to think that my real parents would come and get me and take me to a house with a picket fence and a pony. So were you unhappy on the road? No, I wasn't unhappy, it just that I fantasized about leading the life I saw in movies. I certainly am much more like my mother than my father, though I treasure things I learned from both, but my mother, who had grown up in a poor family, was immensely gifted in a variety of ways. For instance, she earned her way through a local university by teaching calculus. And yet she was also a word person. I certainly am not a numbers person, I could not teach calculus. She met my father when those were working on a college humor magazine. So she had a fascination with words and the love for books and I still remember some of the poetry she recited by heart. But after a very unusual early successful career in which she started out writing under a man's name and then became a reporter on the Toledo blade and ultimately the Sunday editor, which must have been very unusual. She also, by that time, had been married for eight years or so, had a six-year-old daughter and was trying to make all of this work together, which was just too difficult, especially in that era of great pressure and with my father, who was a wonderful, kind-hearted man, but financially irresponsible in the extreme. So she ended up having what was then called a nudist breakdown, being in a sanatorium for a year or two. And when she got out, she just decided that she couldn't make it work and she followed my father to his then new small summer resort in Michigan. She gave up everything she loved, her work, her friends, everything. And how did this affect her? It seems to me that it broke her spirit. You know, she had nothing left that was her own. And what about you later in life? Has this affected you, her story, seeing her love? Oh, yes. Yes. It has affected me greatly and I imagine that people, women, men too, but women even more so reading this may have the same experience of living out the unlived lives of their mothers because growing up in an era in which women could not use their talents with such a tragedy that you wanted to complete it. You know, I don't know. I probably would have become a writer and a journalist anyway, but I'm sure that I am both trying not to be like my mother in the sense of having to give up what I loved and also to pursue what she wanted to pursue. You were saying that you kind of lived your mother's unlived life because you went on to be that journalist and reported that she wanted to and you'd begun in a time that was a real boys club. What was that like for a woman then? Yeah, when I started, you could write about very typical female things, food and fashion and children. You might also be able to write about individuals of interest, but she really, it was pretty rare that women were able to write about politics, foreign policy, economic things that were thought of as being more important than outside the female sphere. There were a few women. There was Gloria Emerson at the New York Times. There were a few, but very few. You describe a cab ride with two huge figures of writing, Saul Bello and Gay Talies, and that story kind of made my blood boil. Would you tell me that? We were following Robert Kennedy who was campaigning to become the senator from New York after the death of President Kennedy, and we were all reporting on that campaign, so we were sharing a taxi. I was sitting in between them, and I had, just before that, interviewed Saul Bello in Chicago for a profile, but Gay Talies nonetheless, of course he didn't know that, but he leaned across me and said to Saul Bello, "Every year there's a pretty girl who comes to New York and pretends to be a writer." Well, Gloria is that girl this year, and my first response was to be really worried that Saul Bello would be regretful that he had given me an interview since I was being pronounced not a writer, and only after we all got out of the taxi did I get angry and wonder why I hadn't got angry at that moment, why I just hadn't yelled or got out and slammed the door, but my first response was worry, only my second response was anger. Well, that seems like sort of a systemic sexism that we sort of worry first, and then get pissed off. Yes, because we always were encouraged, I think, to find the fault in ourselves first. Have you ever, years later, been able to talk to them about that, or do you know, did you ever? No, no, I have since been seen him once at a dinner, which he was quite removed and difficult, which I think is the way he greets the world, but what's interesting is that though I did not check this quote for the book when I was writing it, for one thing I was very clear that he said it, and for another I wasn't sure that he would confirm it, but the New Yorker did a long interview, a profile of me, on the occasion of the book, and their fact-checkers called up Gates Elise, and he said, "Oh, yes, I said that." Really? So I think to be fair to him, he probably thought it was a compliment to call me a pretty girl. Well, that type of systemic sex, it's still alive and well, I mean, that's sort of for us. Yes, it definitely is, it is absolutely. And we're experiencing it in another familiar way right now in this country because the racism of our police force, much of our police forces in our big cities, is being exposed now that bystanders can record what's happening on their phones, as cameras, it's much more likely to be exposed, and it's quite dangerous and angering and infuriating. But what is getting publicized is largely what happens to black men, not also what happens to black women. There was just a case, for instance, of a police officer who had selected black women with some minor infractions, legal infractions, and picked them out to be raped with the understanding that they would not be able to or feel they were able to complain. And he just got convicted by an all-white jury, so I'm happy to say that this had an atypical outcome. But it just shows the degree to which female suffering is not counted as equally important to male suffering. On route to one of your more seminal travel experiences, I think it was in 1957, you were traveling via England to India, and you discovered that you were pregnant. I think you were in your early 20s. You dedicate this book to the doctor who, at some considerable risk, then since abortions were illegal, referred you to have an abortion. Why did you dedicate the book to him? I had previously talked about having an abortion, as many of us have in this country, as we signed petitions to make sure that it is legal and safe. But I had absorbed his prohibition to not say his name. Then suddenly, I realized, wait a minute, he was an elderly man at the time, it's completely impossible that he is still with us. And if he were still with us, he would be supporting the change in law. And he would be proud of his record when it was illegal. So I thought I have to dedicate it to him, because it was his help in not having to give birth to someone else unwillingly allowed me to give birth to myself. And he actually made you promise something. What was that? To not tell anyone his name, because probably he was risking his livelihood, and also to do what I wanted to do with my life. That's beautiful. Three days after this interview was set up with your office, the Planned Parenthood shooting, another Planned Parenthood violent incident happened. And I just recently read about a woman in Tennessee bleeding out after using a wire hanger to get an abortion, and not to mention worldwide children having children. Are we going backwards with reproductive freedom? Why is this still an issue? I don't believe we're going backward, but we are experiencing a backlash to what has become a growing majority opinion that women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies, not politicians, not the church, that this is a human right, reproductive freedom is a human right. That probably has majority support in many or most countries, certainly in this country by now, and that has caused a backlash among those who believe that women as the means of reproduction must be controlled by the government and the church. And they are in full revolt. But where is this backlash coming from? Why? Well, because it is the very definition of different kinds of patriarchy that women are controlled as the means of reproduction. Children are not legitimate unless a man owns them in a system of marriage. Women are not in control of contraception and abortion. It was sexual expression between two women or between two men that cannot end in conception is condemned by patriarchal religions. So the very basis of the first division of human beings, or the biggest division, I would say, not the first, of human beings into the leaders in the lead, passive and active, even violent and controlled, is masculine and feminine. Reproduction is, you might say, the whole ballgame. What have you learned during the years about being on sort of the different side of the issue from someone, about disagreeing vehemently with other people? What's the best way to handle that? I'm not suggesting that I know the best way to handle it. You just kind of do the best you can. How do you not resort to bitterness or just giving up? So I try to say to myself, all right, suppose someone profoundly disagreed with me, how would I want them to respond? Not just with hostility, but with information to explain the way they felt. I try to respond that way in the first instance and to explain in a reasonable and non-hostile way why it is that I support the alternative or the issues or whatever is the situation. If that doesn't work then escalate from there, but sometimes you just have to say, okay, we just disagree and that's it. And actually there are some people who, if they approved of me, I would know I was doing something wrong. Who are those? Well, I mean, certainly if Donald Trump ever approved of me or if Rush Limbaugh ever approved of me, I would really question what I was doing. Yeah, you have a wonderful quote that I've, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. I love that. Yes, yes, I put it on a button once, I should do that again. Talking a little bit about the feminism, there was an actress named Emma Watson, I don't know if you know, who did the Harry Potter. Yes, I know her. She held that resounding speech at the UN about equality in women's rights last year, but just a few weeks ago she actually revealed that she was advised not to say the word feminism in that speech, which she did not take that advice, but she said that in an article a few days ago, because for some reason people would feel that it was alienating or separating. Why do you think this is the case right now? It's not just right now, you know, if a word stands for something that is profoundly change full, it gets resistance for a long time feminism was disapproved of by the majority of people in this country. Now it's approved by the majority, but it is still constantly demonized by the right wing here. Rush Limbaugh, for instance, one of our right wing or primary right wing radio personality talks about feminazis, which makes no sense at all since Hitler was very anti-feminist and that he came to power on an anti-feminist platform. Nonetheless, Rush Limbaugh says feminazis, and people hear this, and either they don't know what the word means, you know, they think it does mean that you hate men, that you hate sex, that you have no sense of humor, whatever it is that's negative. So if they go to the dictionary and see that it just means the belief in the full social economic, political equality of males and females, they change their minds. But there is also a minority of people who do know what it means, and that's why they oppose it. You've covered so many political campaigns in your career and followed them, and you were observing from the time you spent with Hillary Clinton last time, 2008, and I quote, "You said you were blindsided by the hostility towards her from some women. What were some of the things that were being said?" And that she should not use the expertise gained as the partner of a president to run for the Senate. This was during her campaign for the U.S. Senate from the state of New York. Even though those same women, women would never have criticized one of the Bush sons because they were using experience gained from a father who was a president. They were criticizing her for not leaving President Clinton over his well-publicized infidelities. And those were the two most concrete complaints, but they were generally hostile towards her. I started to take some women in that category to hear her speak in living rooms because I felt if they were exposed to the real person, that they would change their minds, and for the most part, they did. But it also made me understand who those women were, and they were well-to-do educated white women who were married to very powerful men, and those powerful men had behaved poorly, and unfaithful, and they couldn't leave because they had no identity outside the marriage. And also, it seemed to me that in most cases they had no partnership with their husband. It was only about a traditional role in sexuality. So if the husband had an affair, they could easily be replaced. Of course, Bill and Hillary Clinton are completely different. They are clearly equal. He has always treated her as a partner or more. He has now supported her for the Senate, he's supporting her for the presidency. They have many, many, many connections above and beyond any sexual connection. So it just made me understand the insecurity of the women who were opposing her. And as I said, most of them, once they actually saw her, changed their minds. Right. And what about the men's? Well, the most striking hostility was from important figures on television, media men, who were commentators and reporters, and who would actually say things like, well, she only got elected to the Senate because people were sympathetic with her, given her husband's infidelities, or she reminds me of my first wife outside Alimony Court. Or young white men on campus were actually wearing t-shirts that said too bad OJ didn't marry Hillary. And a degree of hostility from adult intelligents was shocking. And it made me think about why, and I realized that at least part of the reason, or a fundamental part of the reason, is because we, all of us, and especially those men, were probably raised by women in childhood, only by women. They associated female authority with childhood because that was the last time they'd seen an authoritative female. And so her presence in public authoritative life made them feel regressed to childhood. They felt threatened by it. Is the US ready for her, a woman this time? You know, I think it's possible, I did not think it was possible during her first run for the presidency, I do think it's possible this time because she herself has been in public life and in a position of global importance as secretary of faith. And there have been many other women in positions of public authority so that we are more accustomed to seeing women in authority outside the home. It seems more natural. But it is going to be very difficult. She has a huge, not a majority by any means, but a very fervent right-wing minority against her on issues and as a woman. You wrote a seminal book about Marilyn Monroe years ago, and I was wondering what your thoughts are about how women in popular culture and movies are represented in media today. I think we still have a rescue fantasy about Marilyn Monroe, if there had been a woman's movement when she was alive, might she still be with us? Because she was made to feel that her professional life might be over at 30. She was playing one more very sexual role. She in her last interview said, "At the end of the interview, please don't make me a joke." You know, she was trying hard to be a whole human being and to be a serious actor. So, I hope and believe that she might have been helped to do that, you know, had she been alive with a women's movement. We still have the same problems as women in Hollywood can tell you about women being in films only when they are, you know, 10, 20, 30 years younger than the men in the film. But it has moved, you know, no more do people feel their careers over 30 now, 40 or even or beyond, but still they are on the average way younger than the men in films. And talking about the sort of feminism's fourth waivers, maybe one could say, I mean, I think there's a lot of fantastic women and the public eye from Lena Dunham and others who are, do you see what should the main focus for the movement be today? How can we help each other? Well, I think we have to listen to each other, you know, because we are most likely to be experts in what we are ourselves are experiencing, so we do well when we support each other and support each other in those efforts. I don't think we can pick a hierarchy of issues. It depends, you know, on the lives and expertise and needs of the individual women and groups of women. What are the major issues? Well, obviously the major issue has to do with controlling women and women's bodies as the means of reproduction. That is true, whether it's female genital mutilation or child marriage, you know, two early childbirth is the major cause of death. I think the second greatest cause of death among teenage women. There is, in much of the world, a son surplus and a daughter deficit because of the preference for male children and that plays out in a way very detrimental to females and to males, obviously in the long run. The violence against women is so in so many different forms, including domestic violence in my country, that now there are fewer females on earth than males. We don't think that at least we don't know that that has ever happened before. When you look back at your entire career and activism, can you say a couple of the milestones that you're most proud of today? You know, I probably could if I thought about it long enough, but the truth is I live in the future. I know that that sounds odd at my age, but that's the truth. I don't, you know, look back with nostalgia because what's interesting and exciting are the possibilities of the future. And you're 81, you're still traveling. What is it you would like to achieve and see happen? What are you looking at in the future? Well, I know that this, I've said this too often before so I feel a little, how shall I say, predictable, but to write more, to write more, I mean the road both gives you what you want to write about and takes away the time to do it. So, you know, I hope that my, the ratio of words per day or week will increase. This has been such an honor and to be able to go through both bit of your past and some of the important issues. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you so much to Gloria Steinem. Her new book is My Life on the Road. And thanks so much to all our listeners for this amazing year. Keep sharing and engaging with us on Twitter @podpopculture or the website popcultureconfidential.com. This show was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Call Boy, produced by René Vittiste and myself. I'm Kristina Yerling-Biro. Have a very happy new year. Hello podcast fans, it is I, Bruce Vilanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. In that time I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly built. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind the scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win. Why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars, what were they thinking, available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]