Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Truth About Gloria

Hey Little Girl Are You All Alone,

Did You Go and Leave Your Brain at Home,

Mmm-hmm

You're awfully tired

Ooooh, ooooh, you're just tired.*



The Barack Obama campaign has thrown African-Americans under the bus, bi- and multi-racial people under the bus, Democrats under the bus, the LBGT community under the bus so it really shouldn't have been a surprise to find out that they'd throw Gloria Steinem under the bus as well.



Steinem wrote ("Women Are Never Front-Runners"): "The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. That’s why Senators Clinton and Obama have to be careful not to let a healthy debate turn into the kind of hostility that the news media love. Both will need a coalition of outsiders to win a general election. The abolition and suffrage movements progressed when united and were damaged by division; we should remember that." But who cares what she actually wrote when it's so much easier to advance a candidate and to distort second wave feminism?



What was surprising was who would show up with the hammer, the nails and the boards. The Roberts (Parry and Scheer -- activists for the Bambi campaign who pose as journalists) were first out of the gate. They were far from last.



But a bunch of men whose behavior over the years is, at best, questionable when it comes to gender relations really isn't that surprising.



What was surprising was grasping how so many young women who identify "feminist" were so uninformed of feminist history.



Which led to the third group: Middle Aged White Women who could have clarified things but instead decided to join in. Yes, we mean backstabber and all round ugly 'girl' Katha Pollitt and Stab herself.



Those 'radical' women have been gunning for Gloria for years. So they couldn't tell their small audiences that the accusations being made at Steinem were unfounded and inaccurate.



The battle so many young women thought they were fighting was in fact, as Keesha pointed out, the battle Steinem fought with The Ego Of Us All.



In a New York Times op-ed, Steinem opened with an illustration of a bi-racial woman and then went on to explain that the gender barrier is the biggest and most accepted to this day. Some chose to get their panties in a wad and scream "Racism!"



No where did Gloria Steinem say (nor would she), "I'm speaking of the burdens for White women."



Is gender the biggest barrier?



We say, "Yes, it is."



It's the biggest for all women. Whether you're White, African-American, Latina, Asian or what have you. If you're a lesbian it's a bit harder than being a gay man. Ruth noted an LBGT bookstore closing not long ago and how a community member was thrilled. Why? Frock merchants -- male -- took over it and began stripping the "L" out of the LBGT store. Magazines geared to women stopped being stocked (in the end only nudies of men and glossy mags that ran the likes of George Clooney in a tux remained stocked). They saw their two shelves (not a huge amount) in the store be reduced a little, then a little more, then a little more until finally they had a half shelf. Male erotic novels and male graphic erotic novels began filling the shelves. The store, by the way, was Crossroads Market in Dallas, Texas.



Gender is the biggest barrier today.



That's not a statement of "White Power," that's a statement of sisterhood but a lot of people worked overtime to try to make Gloria come off a racist.



Community member Martha saw one of the blogs "full of nonsense" and left a comment about how she was surprised by it all because, reading Gloria's op-ed, she never doubted that Gloria was including her (an African-American woman) in the column.



Martha's correct, all women were included in that column.



At one of the blogs, Amanda Marcotte (who should know something about a witch hunt after the right-wing attacks when she was with the John Edwards campaign) writes, "I'm somewhat amazed that Steinem is the one who issues the myopic op-ed on this issue, since she has a long history of trying to forefront black women in the feminist movement. There was a period of time when she wouldn't accept a speaking engagement without sharing the stage and time equally with a black feminist."

We're somewhat amazed by your myopia, Marcotte, but at least you seem aware of some history. Yes, Steinem regularly did travel as part of a team -- bonus points for the first who can name the two women Steinem traveled with and brownie points to the one who knows which women traveled when -- and that might have been something you could have written about. We don't see any indication that you did other than your little comment.



In the same thread, Gloria's called out for not supporting Carol Mosely Braun in 2004. Huge applause to "Rileysdtr" for pointing out that Steinem "worked extensively on behalf of the Braun campaign". But someone assumed that Gloria didn't. They didn't base it on knowledge so we'll assume it was their own racism on display and, again, applause for "Rileysdtr" for clarifying the record. Racism, and homophobia, can be found in the bulk of the comments at any of our 'young ladies of the net' sites and, sad thing, the bloggers themselves, never bother to correct or call it out.



Hattie seems attempting to make a point and a blogger could have helped her out but that would require knowledge and that seems in short supply. Hattie left this comment:



I respect Steinem while seeing her as an elitist. I heard her speak years ago and noted that she was trying very hard not to dominate the group of women who had come to hear her, but she had the mic. My feeling was she should just have given her speech and taken questions rather than saying it's your space, your forum, and so on, when, of course, it wasn't. It was that some are more equal than others thing. Oh, and she called herself the feminist who was "the pretty one," making a joke out of it, but still...



Steinem doesn't think she's "the pretty one" -- that's a comment on the press that attempted to pit feminist against feminist (who needs the press when we've got uninformed bloggers) and awarded Steinem the tag of being "the pretty one." Steinem wasn't calling herself that and would never call herself that. Knowledge is power and 'our little ladies of the net' wallowed in being powerless.



"Frogspond" (he should use the title "pond scum") felt the need to share:



My wife, who got her dual Masters in African American and Women's history gave me quite an education a few years ago when she was writing her final papers. One of her papers was contrasting the White and Black movements for women’s suffrage in the 1920’s and how they were both basically saying the same thing but the White women wouldn’t let the Black women in. (I am paraphrasing badly PurpleFeminist so don’t beat me when you get here next week) Her other paper was on the radical feminist movement in the early 1970’s.In the 1920’s god forbid the mostly wealthy white women let the black women in because after all where would they get the servants from? In the 1970's all the patriarchy had to do was utter one itty bitty little word and Gloria baby and all her buddies went running to the hills screaming. That little word…

Lesbian

That is all that had to be said and the whole movement fell apart. One little word. LesbianorDykeSo, to sum up, I have little respect for Gloria baby. I understand that she was a trailblazer and that she did good stuff but I, as a DYKE, can’t help but feel left out in the cold because she couldn’t get the movement to ignore a word and keep going. How much more respect did I just lose with this op-ed missing the point and ignoring so many issues."



Though blogger Shark-Fu gave herself the last word when a woman begged to differ with her opinion, she let stand the above lies. Apparently, Shark-Fu either believes the false charges or else is afraid to call out a man.



The Ego of Us All, Betty Friedan was the one who had a problem with lesbians, who slammed them in public and tried to exclude them. Friedan was a movement Communist and the Communist Party, in Friedan's day, went out of their way to excludes gays and lesbians. Friedan ran from them as well. Gloria Steinem, by contrast, fought to include ALL women and repeatedly refused to answer the question of, "Are you a lesbian" with a yes or no -- instead she'd respond to the (male) reporter asking, "Are you the alternative." Friedan truly was a leader (she was backed up by a lot of her own party -- also in the Communist closet -- and anointed a leader) and that was among the many differences Steinem and Friedan had.



Had the feminist movement stuck with Betty Friedan's vision, lesbians wouldn't have been allowed in. To be clear, the Communist Party wanted to seem 'normal' and was very concerned about appearances. As Friedan turned from writing in Communist periodicals to passing herself off as a 'house wife' who just spent some time at a library and, boom, one day had a book, appearances were very important to her as well. So important that she willing lied about who she was when there was no need to. She went to her grave publicly denying she was even ever a Communist. And, of course, little liars like Katha Pollitt were happy to avoid that issue.



It's important for a number of reasons. First off, Friedan's dead. She's not going to be 'hurt' by the truth. (She wouldn't have been in the 70s, 80s or 90s.) Second, it's important to the Communist Party that they be able to claim their own. Third, it's important to history that the truth be told. Betty was able to become a feminist 'star' because of her friends in the press, her movement friends in the press, and maybe that's what's really behind continuing the lie? A lot of men (and a few women) who went MSM and played the I'm-not-a-Communist card worked overtime to turn a frumpy, non-thinking (The Second Sex is clearly ripped off in Betty's The Feminine Mystique), non-charismatic woman into a leader.



That was at the heart of the battles Betty had with the feminist movement. She wanted to co-opt it into the Communist movement. And we're not supposed to talk about that and we're certainly not supposed to ever note that Betty was a Red.



But she was one. It's nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. But, again, a lot of her buddies are still writing and they, like she was, are still in the political closet.



Betty's approach was to trick. She favored tricking. She favored excluding, yes, but she mainly favored tricking. And women used to leave sessions that Betty tried to dominate wondering why her approach to every issue was "We'll say we're doing this, but we'll do this." Was she an astute general? No, just a closeted woman who made a name by lying.



Jennifer Fang fronted her own historical ignorance in her little slam at Steinem or, as she put it,
"Scholars like Steinem". Fang, Steinem isn't a scholar. Steinem is a journalist, she hailed from that field pre-feminism and she rejected the scholarly path to get the word out. Calling Steinem a "scholar" only calls out your own stupidity on the feminism movement.



Gloria was insulted for that decision. (Still is by some, read Stab's little piece at The Nation. Stab brings up Red Betty but plays dumb about that aspect. Considering Stab's own closet, that's not a surprise.) Betty was leading the charge: 'Gloria wasn't serious, Gloria was this, she was that. Betty,' Betty would insist, 'was an academic, a scholar.' The implication being that Gloria -- and any woman without her (Betty's) academic career -- were just a bunch of dim bulbs.



Over at the Mud Flap Gals, they felt the need to echo Fang ("yes, yes") and their junior-miss brigade just knew what Steinem meant to write (as opposed to what she actually wrote) dismissing all statements in the column that didn't fit into their little view ("afterthought!" cried one).



Lyra27 called out one poster who felt the need to call Gloria a liar for noting that African-American males got the vote before any woman did. Good for Lyra27 but common sense and history isn't needed at Mud Flap Gals -- as the responses indicated.



"Tami" -- living up to the intelligence that so many Patty, Tammy, and others who end up with an "i" instead of a "y" at the end of their name share -- insists, "The truth is she was pushing for Hillary by blatantly saying it's harder to be a woman than it is to be black." "Tami," do you think it's harder to be an African-American man or an African-American woman? Do you always assume when the inclusive term "woman" is used that it only refers to White women? If so, maybe you should ponder why that is your belief?



"Liza" felt the need to wade in and surely knew she was about to be attacked for noting that Jennifer Fang loves Chris Rock routines and those routines are sexist. Liza might as well have pointed out that for feminists or 'feminists' to repeatedly talk about their love for Bambi and their hatred for Gloria meant they were rendering lesbians invisible since his end-of-October South Carolina campaign event put homophobes on stage -- over the objections of many groups before the event took place -- and allowed them to 'preach' their intolerance from the stage. Maybe Jennifer Fang can try writing about that and explaining the conflict between her supposed support of 'inclusion' and her desire to back a candidate that resorts to homophobia? (As Bambi's campaign said after, "We got what we wanted out of it.")



"The Little Girls Of The Left" all either repeated, or allowed to be repeated in comments to their posts that they didn't bother to correct, the false claim that Gloria Steinem was wealthy or affluent. Gloria grew up in a rat infested house in Toledo. Her father left. The idea that she was born into wealth is laughable, so is the claim that she was born into the "middle class." Gloria grew up in poverty. As a journalist in the 60s she did make a nice income. Getting into feminism curtailed that because, once she became a public face for feminism, many outlets were no longer open to her as a free lance journalist. It wasn't until the 90s that Gloria actually became solvent. By that time, she was in her sixties. To accuse her -- as many did -- of having come from and/or living a life of wealth and privilege ignores her first five decades.



The Barack Loving Young Women might be forgiven for their attacks and slanders against Gloria Steinem to some degree. Again, alleged feminists like Katha Pollitt could have stepped in and explained what was going on. Certainly, having appointed herself the "den mother" of the junior set, that was Pollitt's obligations.



However, Pollitt's not really a feminist. She's a woman who writes -- a woman who writes badly -- and she's a woman who went all of 2006 without ever writing of the gang-rape of Abeer. A fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl is gang-raped by US soldiers while her parents and her sister are shot dead (and she gets to hear the shots while she's being gang-raped) and then it's time to kill her. Pollitt, writing at an alleged political journal, never had a word to say. Finally, under intense pressure, she managed to include Abeer in a half-sentence in the middle of 2007.



To this day, that's all she's ever written about Abeer. Stalking her ex-boyfriend? She's got plenty of time to write about that. Trying to be cute (someone tell her that "cute" was always iffy for her but, at her age, she's passed her sale-by-date), she found all sorts of 'funny' and 'amusing' topics to write about. None made the most popular (judged by most e-mailed) features of The Nation in 2007. And, of course, she never used her column to support women writers. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism was released without a column from Pollitt who likes to turn in book reviews when the thought of churning out 11 columns a year is too much for her. (Her twelfth column each year is always her laundry list of charities. It reads like it writes itself. Hopefully, she never breaks a sweat over it.)



Not feeling the sisterhood in this feature article? The women called out didn't earn it.



They took part in false attacks on a woman who, for many, is the face of feminism. Therefore, they took part in an attack on feminism. How proud they must be of themselves.



Gloria wasn't a face because she wanted to be one. But Gloria is a workhorse. She has traveled the country repeatedly. Ava and C.I. do that every week speaking out against the illegal war to students, women's groups, labor groups and members of the US military. Kat frequently accompanies them but we all have and we know that's not 'fun.' The people you meet are always wonderful. But going from city to city, having a schedule you have to stick to, always being expected to offer some sort of insight or wisdom isn't fun. Gloria's been doing that for the feminist movement since she became a feminist in the late sixties. She was happy for others to do it and, in certain periods, others would. But Gloria remains the one who has done it year after year -- whether feminism was in a brief 'popular' phase with the MSM or suffering backlash or outright hatred.



Gloria has three books to her name since becoming a feminist. She did tour with those books, no question. But the first one came out in 1980 and she'd already logged over a decade on the road speaking about feminism.



Gloria's a gifted speaker. If you've heard her speak you know that. You may also pick up on the fact that, vocally, she's not a natural speaker. When she's sick or when she's been on the road too many weeks in a row, it's obvious in her voice and obvious in the volume she can manage. Hence the microphones the poster above referred to. Kat wants it noted that although Ava and C.I. are vocally suited to speaking and can speak to a large crowd without a microphone and be heard even when their voices are shredded, "I can't. I don't have that abdominal power, even with C.I. teaching me excercises."



As community members know, the Thursday night post at The Common Ills is the hardest for C.I. to write. After having done three entries already that day, after having written the column for the gina & krista round-robin, participated in the roundtable for Gina and Krista's newsletter and having spoken all day for the fourth day in a row, when Thursday night rolls around, it's very difficult to find something to write about. Try being Steinem, devoting her adult life to feminism. Speaking of it, writing of it, publicly and always managing to find some new detail, some new observation, some new shared experience.



At The Common Ills, the focus is Iraq. Gloria Steinem has spoken around the country, over and over, about feminism. When she's on the road, she's speaking over and over each day. She doesn't go in with a set speech. (C.I. notes, "I steal from Gloria in my approach which is to have a discussion and not to show up, give a lengthy speech and leave. That really is a Gloria hallmark and one she deserves much credit for. She is one of the few leaders in any movement who realized that the 'audience' is actually the 'speaker' and has much more to share than any one person does.") So it's a bit sad to see so many attack a woman, who has done so much, for writing a column that argues women do matter.



It's really sad that Gloria's term of "women" is all inclusive -- as anyone who bothered to learn the first thing about her decades of work should know -- and it becomes, "She's just insulted women of color!"



She did no such thing. In the comment Martha left at a website, she typed that she hopes those participating in the Gloria bashing will feel remorse in 12 years. She thinks, and we agree, that a single candidate became more important than the feminist movement.



Those truly offended could have used the moment to start a conversation. Instead, they turned it into bash-the-bitch. They didn't bother to learn about Gloria before calling her a racist, a scholar, born of wealth, homophobic or any number of lies they attached to her.



They didn't value feminism and they didn't a value a woman enough to bother researching before they wrote their false charges. In 10 or 20 years, when one of them supports a candidate for whatever reasons and they are ripped apart because of it (and because they are a woman), they'll find out what it's like. It won't taste as good as their self-righteous poses did this month.



Repeating for the ones who love Barack Obama and wanted to claim that Gloria was excluding people -- Barack Obama thinks "inclusive" means inviting homophobes onstage and letting them spew their homophobia. "That's why I'm supporting Barack Obama" more than a few of them wrote while ignoring his homophobia.



Maybe Jennifer Fang, et al need to be called out for their homophobia? Maybe they need to grasp that their love affair with a candidate says to lesbians, gays, transgendered and bi-sexuals, "You don't matter. You are invisible."



We doubt they will.



Last week, Ava and C.I. contributed ("TV: The Surreal Life stages comeback!") and noted, "In one political campaign, all of those achievements are destroyed. In one political campaign, we find that the views of race have narrowed -- and that the press has willingly gone along with it." They aren't 'pajama blogges.' They're all over the country speaking to people. And they grasped that bi-racial and multi-racial people are very upset about the damage the Barack Obama campaign has done. It was cute to see the way the junior set of 'feminists' readily repeated the term "Black" to describe Barack Obama. It was cute to see that while so many of them wanted to imply or state that Gloria Steinem was racist.



Gloria's not. The junior set? Their own comments appear to indicate they are. But, hey, it's working for their candidate and that's all that matters, right?



Actually, no. It's not working. And these campaign surrogates launching their attacks have done more to damage Obama nationally than anything anyone else could have.

As Ava and C.I. noted, these attacks on White women who were part of the second-wave (though they were not soley the second-wave which included many women of color), that attempted to tar and feather White women, were also an attack on one woman: Bambi's mother. Feel proud, 'girls,' maybe someday you can do something of value.



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* Opening lyrics adapted from Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire" (Born in the USA).
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