Gloria Steinem: What History Gets Wrong About Feminism

i want to celebrate the defeat of trump we in new york know what a crook he is one of my favorite people trailblazing feminist gloria steinem how did you come to the movement i was rebelling secretly but hoping no one would notice an outspoken champion of women's rights what we were discovering that should be possible democratic families reproductive freedom what the pandemic is teaching us we have learned that our health is dependent on the health of everyone around us her thoughts on the emmy nominated mrs america the fundamental premise was wrong it made it seem that history is a cat fight and much more what we need to learn i think is that after a victory comes a backlash have you followed this phrase karen's i have but i don't know why there's a phrase for white women and not for white [Music] men gloria it's so nice to see you uh welcome to the show it's so nice to see you i wish we were in the same room well uh before too long i'm uh i'm an optimist so i'm hoping that uh things get to a better place and that uh i'll see you sooner rather than later you know there's a way in which because covet doesn't pay attention to national boundaries or gender or race or whatever you know maybe we're learning something do you feel like you've changed it all during during this time we you know i'm part of movements that have been trying to bridge those boundaries for a long time but i do feel between covet and technology that we have a way of being together on spaceship earth that we didn't have before well you know let me start with uh what was uh a really interesting tv show for me during this covet time which is mrs america on hulu these housewives have no idea what it's like to have to work to survive they're scared it will damage family life how much time do we get people to adapt to change did you watch that show at all which obviously prominently featured you and did you enjoy it or i know you've been portrayed so many times so you probably have comparisons but but but what did you think did you watch it i i wrote an op-ed about it eleanor smile and i wrote a joint op-ed about it because probably no fault of the actors or you know but definitely the show runners knew because we they had got in touch with us beforehand that the fundamental premise was wrong so what disturbed me about the series was that it made it seem that uh history is a cat fight you know women against women and though yes there were a minority of women against the equal rights amendment the huge majority i mean now it's 90 percent of women in favor of it we still don't have it it's the economic interests that are against it and i regret that the premise of the show was wrong as i'm starting to think more about the show and so this is kind of a different point but one of the things i saw in the show and you tell me if this was true was that there was a really rich set of of female leaders in new york city and in and around new york city in particular in the 60s and 70s almost kind of in the same way silicon valley has gotten filled with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists it felt like when i think about yourself and shirley chisholm and bel abzug and and betty ferdan and other people that new york city had was that right was it disproportionate um the that kind of uh leadership i'm not sure about that i think what's disproportionate is that the media is centered in new york city because there were great activists in minneapolis and san antonio and you know all kinds of in fact minneapolis and minnesota were they had the dfl the democratic farm labor party feminist presence that was the earliest feminist political influence so i i think we shouldn't downplay the other states but the media is centered in new york [Music] and gloria remind me how you got into the movement to begin with you because you weren't as a as a kid you grew up in in ohio as i recall um and and so not in the heart of a movement or am i making that up how did you come to the movement there was no movement i mean it's like the civil rights movement i guess i like many other women was rebelling secretly but hoping no one would notice and then then it it became a contagion so it was a blessing i keep meeting women who i've heard all my life are [ __ ] and pushy and so on and so forth i meet them and they're nice compassionate people it really gets to me i guess maybe it's worse than i think and of course it was very often women who were in the civil rights movement who were feminists and who discovered that even in the great civil rights movement women were not necessarily completely equal either and they got politicized so it was many forces coming together was there a lot of of of strong collaboration between black women and white women at that time did it take longer to congeal than you'd hoped actually i mean one of the ways in which the history is not so accurate about the women's movement is that it's made to seem as if white women were the center of the women's movement when in fact black women were always disproportionately present and leaders of the women's movement you know perhaps being discriminated against for one reason makes you understand another you know but uh it's always been the case and if you look at the vote for trump in the past election you will see that something like i mean more than 90 percent of black women voted for hillary clinton and something like half of white women voted for trump so it has ever been thus black women have always been disproportionately likely to be feminists and disproportionately in the leadership in a pre-internet era how did it become as you called it a contagion how did how did people who wanted change but maybe weren't on the main stage how did this movement actually pick up steam and gain momentum and actually become a force uh what marches i mean we had uh a great i think it was in 1970 the great huge march down fifth avenue from columbus circle to bryant park uh we just you know thousands of women flooded fifth avenue people were hanging out of office buildings we were saying join us join us and they came you know eleanor holmes norton spoke bella abzug spoke i introduced people it was huge huge in bryant park so marches have always been very important what was your experience like breaking through going from becoming a person who was probably i assume living her life to someone who at least in retrospect it feels like very quickly became a household name what was that transition like uh for you it's too bad that the press reflects it as white in upper middle class and tries to take the women who are most vulnerable to ridicule unexpected i would say i mean i was i was a freelance journalist uh we had just started new york magazine and shortly thereafter once the movement was a little bit underway we started ms magazine in a way that's a kind of ideal place i suppose because one you're a generalist two no one can fire you you don't have a job and also because i was writing about the women's movement and trying to express what we were discovering you know that could be possible and should be possible democratic families reproductive freedom i got invitations to speak i wouldn't have admitted the equality in inequality in my own life even though i was continually discriminated against in journalism chosen to be a writer because i didn't want to speak i mean that's part of the reason that people become writers right so i no way could i imagine doing that i thought it would die and that's why i asked my friend flo kennedy and also dorothy pittman-hughes even before that another friend um to to if we could do it together and that and in that way we discovered that a black woman and a white woman speaking together was very important that we got much more inclusive audiences than we would have otherwise that we learned from each other uh you know we we didn't do it on purpose exactly but it turned out to be a good thing how do you assess the movement today um and i know that's kind of a broad question but i know it's also something that you probably think a lot about how do you assess the movement's success looking back um and maybe looking forward as well i'm amazed to see that is now a majority movement that is the the basic ideas of the women's movement are now majority opinions in public opinion polls that's huge and and very heartening and it's also heartening that it's so global however what i i think was i i was less smart about was the backlash that precisely because the majority opinion has changed to agree with the civil rights movement the women's the environmental move in his kind of fundamental way that the something like a third of the country that disagrees and feels robbed of an old hierarchy and in various ways you know upset by this and that percentage of the country is deeply attached to trump the virus and the white houses i think of him the what we need to learn i think is that after a victory comes a backlash sometimes after a victory we relax but we shouldn't what do you feel and think is gonna happen right now in the election i mean none of us know for sure but if you if you had to to to give your best guess do you think the president wins reelection do you think he loses what do you expect to happen right now if everyone who wants to vote can vote he loses big time if he destroys the post office and just sends his thugs out to take away post boxes and otherwise interfere with what we need to vote then i'm worried have you had conversations in recent times with people who do support president trump and and if so what do they say to you and and what if anything have you have you learned or has it only reaffirmed what you already knew i really i mean if i were to pick one of the strongest motives for voting for him it's racism it's just you know against change uh and against a feeling that an old hierarchy which gave them a right to a certain position and it may not be all that high a position you know it may be white folks who are not doing that well economically but feel being white that is keeping them from falling lower if you see what i mean i think the reason he has a slogan that make america great again is because he's appealing to people who want to go back to the past and why do you think so many white women voted for him what did that tell you that that a majority of white women supported president trump i mean i can't speak to the complicated motives but i think it was mostly not college-educated white married women and that meant that they were dependent on their husband's income and they were voting their husbands interests rather than what we might think of more as their own interests gloria when you hear this phenomenon about karen's is that new is that is that has it always been thus using the phrase you used earlier before have you followed this phrase karen's that people been referring to i have but i don't know why there's a phrase for white women and not for white men do you have a manager i could speak to why do you think that why do you think that is because the karen's to have less power and can't get really angry and fight back in the way that the you know the powerful white guys can [Music] talk to me about where we go from here have you seen you know i've said to people that in some ways 2020 has felt like the beginning of the new 60s and that we are opening up like a large set of fundamental conversations not small conversations and that no matter who wins or loses in november like those aren't gonna go away and we're going to be exploring those with some real depth for a whole variety of reasons i think you are right especially because of the pandemic is teaching us because it does not recognize race gender class it does not observe national boundaries and it is teaching us that we shouldn't either that we are all in this together as i was saying we are we are all on on spaceship earth i don't imagine there's going to be the same resistance to universal healthcare because we have learned that our health is dependent on the health of everyone around us what else do you see when you look ahead gloria if you if you try to forecast the next five 10 15 years what do you expect to see what do you what do you want to see i haven't been you know so successful in my predicting is really tough right but what i would like to see is that we would understand the connection among issues between issues among movements because i fear that we are seen in in silos the civil rights movement the gay and lesbian and transgender movement the women's movement the environmental movement instead of understanding that they are connected gloria how have you changed over the years you know if i had met gloria who was a freelance journalist and uh um you know a daughter of ohio uh who had made her way uh to the big city you know how are you different from 20-something or 30-something uh gloria and i assume there may be some obvious ways but i assume maybe there's some not as obvious ways as well how have you changed how have you evolved part of me is still the same in the sense that i'm still committed to being a freelancer i've never had a job but i think what's what's mainly different is that i found what i love to do you know i i think that's true for all of us in a way we find what we love to do so much we forget what time it is when we're doing it are there smart ways that you advise women like jamila who end up in the spotlight or she and i've talked about meghan markle whole suite of other people are there certain kinds of advice that you give them about how to handle that kind of um yeah do it anyway do it anyway can i say that i have companionship that's what a movement is for you know we support each other [Music] what have you learned about love if you were going to go back and give advice to younger gloria what would you what would you tell her you've learned if you were going to try and whisper in her ear a little bit what would you tell her well i would say love is different from romance love is when you want what's best for the other person romance is when you want the other person i was lucky to have a really good father who was kind and funny and considerate and treated me like his friend you know i say that because i noticed that women who are drawn to men who are bad for them often had bad fathers and they don't it takes them a while to learn that there are good men so i i'm always thankful to my father that i'm still friends with all my old lovers because they're such good people gloria what's next for you do you think what would you what would you love to do what would bring you great joy as you look at the next couple of years uh well of course i want to celebrate the defeat of trump that's absolutely crucial he is an accidental president i mean he has no business there he is completely utterly unqualified and we in new york know what a crook he is i myself uh i have a couple of books that i need to finish and indeed i've barely begun you know so that's very important to me you know you don't remember this gloria but the second time we were together i asked you i said what are you most proud of doing and you paused and we were sitting next to each other at dinner and i said i said what are you most proud of doing and you said i don't know i haven't done it yet and that for me was a very profound moment but that's true because you're right because i live in the future even if i live to be a hundred which i'm definitely doing there's there's there's not that much future left you know so i'm trying to be a little more a little more realistic you can help me with that [Music] if all time uh uh went by and all that was left were comedians who would be your favorite comedian who would you uh who would you love to laugh with or laugh too well i have to say i love george burns i'm the only one left you're the only one i know that's alive do you remember george burns of course i remember george burns oh my and he was he was a complete egalitarian his wife gracie was kind of his partner in strife when i when i interviewed him long after her death he he still had her wedding ring on his watch chain and got tears in his eyes and he was such a nice guy and uh so his his comedy was accessible to everyone it wasn't totally cerebral or hostile or you know it was kind of kind-hearted a book that you would recommend there's a book called trauma and recovery which is a brilliant book it shows the lasting impact of trauma in our lives it's just a very helpful book but there there are so many there are so many what's your biggest disappointment you've had a life full of so many good things happening but i assume you've had at least a disappointment or two uh what's your biggest disappointment the majority consciousness change hasn't been able to make it into the white house there's still way too much difference between the concentrations of power and wealth and where most people's needs and hopes are gloria i'm i'm gonna let you go uh reluctantly but but but only if you promise that you will come back uh again uh i hope and soon yes no no now that we know we can communicate by a technology but i look forward to also being in the same room because we do have all five senses right and we do need all five senses so i look forward to that too i look forward to it as well hey didn't gloria have not only the conversation of the year but maybe the best phrase get we're gonna do it anyways who's putting that on his shirt i definitely am i love the conversation with her but i always do i like someone who lives in the future she calls it who thinks that their best days are ahead of them even at 86. what a big idea wilma mankiller in the white house that notion of love versus romance i'm gonna be thinking about that a little bit and then talking about kerala kind of reminding us that different is not only possible but maybe it's already been here before i really love the way she thinks if you're enjoying this i hope you'll do the right thing i hope you'll subscribe hope you'll tell a friend and then don't forget the new secret listen to the podcast it's got the whole unedited conversation hope to see you soon thanks for tuning in hey tune in to the carlos watson show it's like no other you're going to enjoy it every weekday on youtube

Channel: The Carlos Watson Show

Views: 247,115

Keywords: carlos watson, carlos watson show, ozy, gloria steinem, reset america, feminism, feminist, mrs america, women's movement, era, equal rights amendment, OZY, news, trevor noah, daily show, james corden, steven colbert, jimmy kimmel, late show, late late show, tonight show, jimmy fallon, oprah, jon stewart, talk show, late night, interview, podcast

Id: 8A11O_C6Imk

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 02 2020