An Evening With Gloria Steinem

An Evening with Gloria Steinem                                       April 13, 2016 New York City

I think we need to remember that there was a whole first wave of abolitionists and suffragists, a revolution, really, to allow people to have a legal identity as human beings, even if they were of the wrong sex, or wrong race. It's helpful to start our thinking there, to realize that it took more than a hundred years to gain the reality of being a citizen, a legal human being, not chattel-  A human being. It  took a hundred years.

So, if it took a hundred years to get a legal identity, it may take a hundred years to get legal and social equality and we may have years ahead of us before we finally understand  that we are actually in a circle, each person is unique, that the differences of gender and race are imagined, they are very real because we make them real. But actually we make them up and we can un-make them up.

And this is a long journey- it is not just about equal pay, it's not just about an isolated issue. It is really about overturning, democratizing...whatever word you like-  depends on your state of patience, I find, which verb you use there- the hierarchical ways of thinking that came from: first controlling reproduction, the idea that a patriarchy, a male-dominant system really, the origin was to control reproduction, therefore, to control women's bodies.

It's so important that we remember this is really new in human history. It's only the last 5% or so. Before the Dutch and the English arrived, right here on Manahatta (the Indian word for Manhattan), the systems were matrilineal, the languages didn't even have he or she as gender, women decided when and whether to have children.

The Iriquois Confederacy women inspired the Suffrage movement, really, because the European-American women could see all these women living in the towns and going to the same stores and were honored in their society, and having a paradigm of society that's a circle, not a pyramid.

So I think the combination of realizing how far we've come and it wasn't always this way (we're not talking about human nature), can help us get to a place where once again, we realize we are linked, not ranked.

Now- this is also true of our movements. When movements first start, it's people who have been invisible, rising up, it's issues that have been invisible rising up and needing to be named. So they grow up in a particular way that is very important, and only after that kind of self-identifying and definition and new issues and a new view of the world, can we realize that these issues are all connected across all the movements.

The great Bella Abzug said, “Yes, we need a Declaration of Independence first. And then we need a Declaration of Interdependence!” and I think that's what's happening now.

Our movements: the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay, lesbian and transgender movements, the environmental movement-- all these movements grew up in silos in a way, because they needed to become visible. And now, at last, we are ready to see the connections. And sometimes that is in a very practical way.

We're always talking about economic stimulus, right?
It happens that the best economic stimulus we could possibly have would be equal pay for women of all races. If all female human beings were paid the same as white male human beings, for doing the same work, we would have something like 200 billion dollars more in the economy every year. People would, I think, spend it. Those women, I don't think, would put it in a Swiss bank account (laughter)
so it would be much more likely that it would stimulate the economy.

Also, we know that the children who are the poorest are those who are those in a single, woman-headed household. So, they would be better off, we'd probably need less social services.
For a win-win situation, but we don't, still, talk about equal pay when we talk about economic stimulus.

Take another example-  we are very aware, and becoming ever more aware, of police violence . It's violence that's becoming more racist in it's misunderstanding, even in it's intention. But we have not yet connected the fact that the police forces in this country have several times the rate of domestic violence that the population at large does. And that both domestic violence and racial violence are crimes that I would call supremacy crimes.

People are not getting power, they're not getting money, it's the need to be superior, which the men who feel it didn't invent, they were born into this system that taught them that they had to be in control, or even dominant, if they were males, and/or if they were white.

So if we screened, or talked about domestic violence before hiring our police officers, we could, I think, diminish the racist crimes that we are now seeing, to our sorrow.

The same is true with individuals. Zimmerman, if you remember the case in Florida, in which Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin-- He had been violent towards women beforehand. That evidence was not even admitted in the trial. If we had connected those things, Trayvon Martin might still be alive, and we might have been able to help him. It's looking at that kind of linkage.

Now- on campuses, often students will say to me: “Why are the same groups against lesbians and birth control?”
This seems illogical to them (laughter). But again, it's about linkage because the hierarchical view of the world is that human sexuality is only okay if it takes place inside patriarchal marriage and is directed towards procreation. So the same groups that are against contraception and safe and legal abortion are also against expressions of love between two men, or two women. They're against all non-procreative sex. So I think we need to look at those linkages so that our movements act together, and act in concert.

One more crucial linkage is that we now know, thanks to decades of research and records, and in all countries of the world, even small tribal cultures, that the single greatest indicator of violence inside a country, in the streets, or in the use of violence against another group or country- the single greatest indicator of whether that violence will happen is not:
poverty
access to natural resources
degree of democracy
religion

It is violence against females. That is the single greatest indicator! Not because female life is any more important than male life, no-- it is because that is what we tend to see first.

Because we are still living with these systems in which reproduction is controlled, and therefore, women are controlled. And it is, therefore, the kind of control, dominance and  even violence we see first, and they make us believe that one group is born to dominate another. It normalizes violence.

If this were part of our foreign policy, we would not have supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan who turned into the Taliban, because we could have seen that the reason they were against the government in Afghanistan....why did they go to war? Because, they told us, women were being allowed to go to school. Because women weren't allowed to marry unless they agreed to be married, women were allowed to go to political meetings- and that was why, they said, they were overturning that government in Afghanistan.
If we had looked at that, we would have made many, many fewer mistakes.

In Syria, we're trying to decide who are the moderate groups and who are the extremist groups-
you can figure it out by seeing: Are there women present? And, are they being treated equally?

This is a practical part of our daily lives and our foreign policy. And it has to do with understanding the linkage, the normalization of violence in our societies. It has to do with understanding that if we don't have democracy at home, we're not going to have democracy outside the home. If we don't, it takes longer and it's going to be harder to be a great democracy outside the home.

If we have strong racist systems, or as in India, a caste system- the only way you can perpetuate that is by controlling, in the long run, reproduction, to keep racial groups or caste groups separate enough to be visible.

So- caste and race depend also on patriarchal systems that control reproduction. You can see in India, the difference between the more egalitarian South which is the older part of India – and the less egalitarian North, with the caste system that came with fair-skinned people- You can see that these things go together.

I say this only because I think we otherwise believe that there are these huge problems that we have no impact on. We do! All change really comes from the bottom up, like a tree. A tree does not grow from the top down; revolutions do not grow from the top down. They grow from the way we treat each other, the way we behave in our families, something as simple as saying that the education money goes to the son and not the daughter, something I hope isn't happening anymore. Or something as simple as saying the sons inherit the power of the particular business or inherited wealth more than the daughters. I mean, if we just changed that, we create a wave of change that will continue. It is truly about how we treat each other.

And some of it is very, very daily. Marx  and Engels were really smart  but they really missed one very big thing when they said:
The end justifies the means.

When actually the means create the ends.
The means we use creates the ends we get.

So—if we just think to ourselves: how can we create the society we want in our daily lives, we will continue to have that, to build that, little by little.

If we just say to ourselves, Alright- I'm in a situation where I have more power than the people around me, then I should make an effort to listen as much as I talk.
And if I'm in a situation where I have less power, I should try to talk as much as I listen.
Which can be just as difficult.
Because we're used to hiding.
It is creating the means, and including the means of joy.
Emma Goldman, when she said, If there's no dancing at the Revolution, she wasn't coming--
was saying something very important. If we want dancing and joy and poetry at the end of the Revolution, we have to have dancing and joy along the way.

The idea that change comes from the top cripples us.
Because we think it's too big, we can't do anything about it. And the social justice movements all tell us that it's about the relationships we have in our families every day, it is about what we use in the environment and what our environmental footprint is, it is about who we vote for-

I mean, the voting booth is the only place I know in the world where the least powerful and the most powerful are equal. And we must, must use that. It is empowering to us and to each other, because we are communal animals. We cannot do it alone.
If we are by ourselves, we come to feel isolated and crazy and wrong.

We have been sitting in a circle around a campfire for 100,000 years at least, listening to each other's stories. And that's what we're doing here. And that's why it's so important to be in the same room where we can empathize with each other, understand each other...listen to each other and create the kind of future...just tomorrow, and the next day and the next. I think it's in our cellular memories, that we once had these collaborative, cooperative, circular cultures. I think we long for it, and we can do it. We can do it in this room, we can do it the next day and the next day.

I just want to say, It is so much fun. It is so much fun to do this, so exciting to do this because you see new possibilities arise, you see new talents in yourself, you get rid of old roles and old restrictions- it is infinitely, infinitely rewarding.

So I hope that maybe, because we are all breathing the same air here, that can generate a whole new wave of change and I can't wait to see that happen.

                                                                       
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Questions “pitched” by a moderator and audience members to Ms. Steinem:

Q: The topic that's on a lot of people's mind is the election. So what are your thoughts?

A:  It's kind of like walking on a high wire, you just don't know what's going to happen....

The Trump phenomenon- I keep trying to not remember that Hitler was elected. I'm serious, because he was a kind of protest candidate. The only upside of Trump that I can see is that the Republican Party may have to reconstitute itself and become a Centrist party again --because he has risen without the very right wing  forces that took over the Republican Party after Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act and the old racist Democrats like Jesse Helms left the Democratic Party and gradually took over the Republican Party and now we have the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party.
The nomination process is controlled in a way that means it's really hard to nominate people who are Centrist enough to get elected. So my hope is that the real Republicans, the centrist Republicans, will be able now to come back and take over the Party.

Q: Back in the days Did you ever imagine we'd have a woman running for President?

A: I don't know what I thought back in the beginning, because I was super naive back then.

I know I thought: This is so unjust--  if we just explain it to people, surely they'll....(audience laughs)

It took me a while to see it was deeper than that, to see who was profiting...and I will say that when Hillary ran in 2008, I did not think she could win...it wasn't urgent, because Barack Obama and she were the same on issues. And it's not about one woman winning, it's about all women and making life better for all of them--

The woman who really represented that couldn't get elected. Here's why (and I hope this makes sense):

Most of us have experienced female power, growing up in childhood. We kind of associate female power with childhood, and with emotion, and many good things but not the rational process of running the outside world.
I came to this because it was the only way I could explain the bizarre behavior of grown-up news men who would say things like: “I cross my legs whenever I see Hillary Clinton. She reminds me of my first wife outside of alimony court.”
I could not believe how onerous it was. Then I realized, they probably felt regressed to the time they were 8 because that was the last time they saw a powerful woman. Now, I hope there have been enough women in power, in public life, but it's still very difficult. She gets such an huge amount of hatred and mistrust, I don't know how she takes it, I really don't.

Q: In the last campaign you wrote in your book about bringing together Hillary and people who then became known as Hillary-haters. Was that successful, can you imagine yourself doing that again?

A: The Hillary-haters I saw then were the women who were most like her from the outside. They were well- educated, well-to-do women with powerful husbands. I think they were very challenged by the idea – that, first of all, that's one of the best marriages I've ever seen- They talk to each other, they respect each other, and this was not true for those women who were much more dependent on their husbands. And also, their husbands were being unfaithful....and so, they wanted Hillary to punish Bill on their behalf, if that makes sense. (laughter).
I don't think that's happening so much anymore.
But I will say, when they're in a room with Hillary, they all change, because once they actually saw her, they realized she was a great girlfriend. She really understood and supported them.

This is the first time there has been a possibility that this profoundly, still, patriarchal system, in the most powerful country in the world, may be curtailed by a woman commander-in-chief.
That plus the fact that we (seemingly) haven't grown up with female power outside the home makes it very tough, it's very hard.

Q: I was talking to some 16-year olds about the upcoming elections, and they felt that gender didn't make a difference to them. Does that surprise you?

A: No! I'm not voting for Hillary because she's a woman. If Hillary were Harry, I'd still be voting for Hillary – it's still about the improvement of life for everybody. It's not gender period. It's gender plus.
It's issues plus. I did not vote for Sarah Palin, excuse me....(audience cracks up!)

Q: Have you ever thought about crossing the line and going into politics?

A: No. Not that I don't respect it and I love working in campaigns and I love the whole political process. But I think movements have a different role. I mean, in a way, my job is to make people running for office look reasonable (laughter)- that's my job. It's complementary but it's different.
I think I'm my father's daughter because he had two points of pride: he never wore a hat and he never had a job. Which is good for an organizer because you're always prepared for an insecure life- 
but I just can't imagine having a job, even a political job and having to be predictably in a particular place-- it's just me, I can't do it. (everyone laughs)

Q: So much of what you do, in politics and everywhere...it's about listening and you've really cultivated the art of listening...it seems like a simple thing yet it's so uncommon. I wonder how you realized how important this was?

A: As a journalist, and I chose to be a journalist partly because I didn't feel powerful enough to speak,
and therefore being an observer was a way I could make the invisible visible and express what I cared about- I was way too terrified of public speaking and I wouldn't speak for very long; the audience would be speaking longer than I would. And then I discovered how much you learn- I came to love audiences! If I'm talking, I'm not learning. I already know this.

Q: In your book, My Life on the Road, you talk about being in India, and there you are, just out of college on a fellowship, at times with a cup and a bowl. And not everybody spoke the same language.
I think to myself, You were so courageous.
How did you manage that back then ?

A: You mean, why did I go in the first place....

Q: No, I mean,  I...I feel like that's also where you picked up the idea of circles and listening....

A: I think we need to trust what we're drawn to, but I don't think we necessarily know what that means
at the time. The reason I went to India was that I was engaged and I was trying not to get married.
(everyone laughs). And he was a wonderful man who I stayed friends with forever and ever, but I knew
that it would be a disaster. We just didn't care about the same things. He had a great life, a really interesting life, and I didn't even know life, so I was afraid I would just succumb to this if I didn't go very far away, so that's why I went to India.... (she tells some travel stories which leads to Ms. Steinem saying how she meets so many people who share their stories with her).

...and because I'm accidentally a recognizable part of the movement, I get this terrific reward of people coming up to me and telling how their lives are changed.  It is just...I mean, I can't possibly give back all of the stories and all the reward.

Q: You've really changed so many lives

A: No, it is the movement, it's not me. The truth is that in the '30's I would have been called a media worker. And if I were a physicist or a shoemaker, I would be the same person and doing good things but I wouldn't be recognizable in the same way. So it's perfectly clear to me that if I had never been born, if I disappeared tomorrow, the movement would go right on. But I'm very grateful to be part of it and I'm overly rewarded by hearing all these great stories.

Q: It's hard to read the papers today and not see the violence against women, whether trafficking or honor killings, it just seems so widespread. What can we do about it?

A: We can do what we do where we are. We can aid groups in other countries, as well. But the domestic violence in this country-- if you add up all the people who were killed in 9/11, in two Iraqi wars, and in Afghanistan and then you add up all the women who've been murdered by their husbands or boyfriends within the same period of time, many more women have been murdered by their husbands and boyfriends than Americans were killed in all of those.

So we can address that in every possible way, that dominance and violence is never acceptable. We can support shelters, we can look for it and name it when we see it and not pretend we're not noticing it,
we can not only raise our daughters more like our sons, we can raise our sons more like our daughters so they don't have to be dominant to be a boy. On the contrary.

Q: What do you hear from young women?I know you spend a lot of time on college campuses. Are you heartened by the young women that you meet?

A: Yes, I am so, so heartened, absolutely. There were so few of us in the beginning and now it's a majority. And they're just feeling much more in control of their own lives, that they can plan ahead.
It turns out that planning ahead is the most reliable measure of power and class. Isn't that interesting?

Because women often feel (and felt much more in my day) that who you married plus your children's needs both dictated your life, so you couldn't plan ahead. So, similarly, poor people can't plan ahead. They plan for Saturday night or the next week...it is a measure of class and/or power.
And now I see women feel more and more control of their lives and they can plan forward. And they have the expectation, and therefore when they discover injustice and inequality, they get mad, which is the important thing.

Q: You've called yourself a hope-a-holic. How do you stay so positive?

A: I'm not always positive, and I am angry and all the things that we all are. But I do think that unless we imagine change, we can't do it, you know what I mean? I mean, hope is a form of planning. Now, it's important to be skeptical, so we use our energy well but to be pessimistic is to be defeated before you even start.
And actually the forces that are not so interested in democracy and everybody voting are the ones saying that. I am old enough to remember when Richard Nixon invented the idea, sort of put it out there  about politics that “it's dirty”, “your vote doesn't matter”, “why would you vote?” because he could only win on a low voter turnout. So...hope is a precursor of everything!

Q: I wonder if there's something about your being the age you are now that gives you  a new understanding, a new outlook on life?

A: I wonder how I got to be so old. I was thinking about doing a stand-up comedy act and my first line was going to be, “At my age, most people are dead!” (everyone laughs). Which is statistically true.
I'm 82 (audience erupts into applause). I practically stop people in the street to tell them how old I am, because I don't believe it. And to think you're immortal doesn't mean you plan well. So I'm trying, trying, trying to absorb it. Mortality is....none of us can be conscious of what we're not conscious. And I love it here. (everyone laughs)

I will say that the years between your mid-50's and however long you live, are undervalued. Because they are such a time of freedom and fun...I hope and believe it's true for men but I think for cultural reasons, it might even be more true for women because the gender role, to the extent we have the idea that the feminine gender role is still restrictive, is over, and you're free.
And remember the  9 or 10-year old girl you once were, who loved to run and climb trees and who said, “I know what I want and I know what I think”....and then the feminine gender role came down and someone says, “How clever of you to know what time it is!” and all this stuff (everyone laughs). That ends and the biggest indicator of who we are after 55 or 60 is who we were at 8 or 9 or 10 because that little tree-climbing girl comes back. Only now she has her own apartment, hopefully a little money. And it frees.

Q: I want to share one great Gloria Steinem quote:

 “In any one audience, there's enough energy, skill, anger, and humor for a revolution”.

Q: I'm a working mom and it's so hard to have it all- How can I do it?

A: “Nobody can have it all. If you have to do it all, you can't have it all. And nobody ever says to a guy, “having it all” so I think we ought to get mad and say, “Hello! Our job patterns need to be adjusted for parents- fathers as well as mothers- because the 'having it all' thing that lands on women is just a way of silencing us, and not encouraging us to force change. And men, too- men are deprived of their kids by the way the job patterns are.
We are the only democracy in the world that has so little adjustment for this. So we need to get mad and make change. And in the meantime we need to do the best we can. What I see in many places is incredible innovation, like three single moms will buy a house together so they can have more time because they can take care of each other's kids. Or people without kids will form a family with people with kids so there's more group support because you can't do it by yourself. But never feel guilty you can't do it all. You are not the guilty one, the system is the guilty one.

Q: What advice would you give to a young feminist?

A: My advice to young feminists: Do not listen to me. Listen to yourself. There is a unique person in there, and you know when you love what you do so much that you forget what time it is--there's a voice in there that tells you what you want to do.
Who makes you feel smart, not dumb?- Hang out with them-
Who makes you feel safe, not in danger? Hang out with them.
What unfairness is in your life that you understand, so you can get together with other people and change it? And trust your instinct.
Here's my best “trust your instinct”:
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck
and you think it's a pig? It's a pig.”