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woman and four children. My guest today is one of the most | :00:14. | :00:18. | |
influential women in the history of the modern feminist movement. | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
Gloria Steinem grew up in America, where women were expected to put | :00:23. | :00:28. | |
husbands and children first. But that was never her intention. She | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
forged a successful career as a writer. She co-founded Ms magazine | :00:33. | :00:38. | |
and became one of the most -- one of the world's best-known | :00:38. | :00:43. | |
campaigners for gender equality. How much of what she hoped for and | :00:43. | :00:53. | |
:00:53. | :01:08. | ||
Gloria Steinem, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. Does a feminist cause | :01:08. | :01:13. | |
feel as urgent to you today as it did when you roast international | :01:13. | :01:19. | |
prominence in the late 60s and early 70s? More. When we began, we | :01:19. | :01:24. | |
were talking more about personal injustices, about pay, about | :01:24. | :01:30. | |
domestic violence, about things that were within our camp. Now we | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
have come to understand through length of work and also through | :01:34. | :01:40. | |
International Studies that the single most important factor her in | :01:40. | :01:44. | |
whether a country is violent within itself all willing to use military | :01:44. | :01:51. | |
violence against other countries is violence against females. Because | :01:51. | :01:58. | |
that normalises... It is not that female life is worth more than male | :01:58. | :02:06. | |
life, it is not, but that subject object conquered/conqueror paradigm | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
in varying degrees normalises it everywhere else. That now has been | :02:11. | :02:18. | |
proved in debt. In a way, we have gone deeper in seeing how much more | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
important it is. Are you saying the priorities of the women's movement, | :02:22. | :02:27. | |
if I can loosely call it that, have fundamentally changed, away from | :02:27. | :02:33. | |
the nuts and bolts of equal pay, equal work and control of futility? | :02:33. | :02:42. | |
To something that is perhaps less tangible? No. What I am saying is | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
that the root of democracy outside the home is democracy inside the | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
home. It is therefore even more important. The root of violence | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
elsewhere is the normalisation of violence in an intimate way in the | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
home. When you put it like that, it makes me wonder whether most women | :03:03. | :03:09. | |
these days, in Western, developed societies, would feel the same way. | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
When you talk about the importance of democracy in the home, wood and | :03:14. | :03:19. | |
most woman in the developed world today feel they have democracy? -- | :03:19. | :03:23. | |
would not most women. Absolutely not! Do men raise children as much | :03:23. | :03:27. | |
as women? Are but do they feel oppressed like they did in the 60s | :03:27. | :03:34. | |
and 70s? More so. When we started, we did not even have a word for | :03:34. | :03:38. | |
domestic violence. It was just called life. People would | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
constantly say, why didn't she leave? Now we understand domestic | :03:43. | :03:51. | |
violence is original violence. In my country, if you count up all the | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
people who were killed in 9/11, plus Americans in Iraq and | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
Afghanistan, and you count all the women who were murdered by their | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
husbands and boyfriends in the same amount of time, more women were | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
murdered by their husbands and boyfriends than were killed in | :04:07. | :04:12. | |
those three events. Now, we understand it is not natural or | :04:12. | :04:18. | |
normal. It is not inevitable. It is fundamental and must change. Some | :04:18. | :04:23. | |
people watching this, who perhaps are of a generation that came of | :04:23. | :04:31. | |
age in the last 10-20 years, will not know so much about the role you | :04:31. | :04:36. | |
played, particularly in the late 60s and 70s and 80s and moving on | :04:36. | :04:39. | |
to now, in the international women's movement. I want to take | :04:39. | :04:45. | |
you right back to your own upbringing and the degree to which | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
that tough upbringing with a mother who became mentally very ill, | :04:49. | :04:56. | |
parents who split, you given huge responsibilities very down, how | :04:56. | :05:06. | |
:05:06. | :05:06. | ||
much has that influenced your thinking? We are all like Russian | :05:06. | :05:15. | |
dolls. We still have our earlier selves within us. Because I saw a | :05:15. | :05:20. | |
mother who was... Before I was born, who had to give up... She was an | :05:20. | :05:25. | |
extremely talented piney a journalist who had to give up her | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
work that she deeply loved, which I only learned later on. That was the | :05:30. | :05:37. | |
source of her depression. Her -- I am sure that in some ways I am | :05:37. | :05:44. | |
living out the UN lived life of my mother. I think a lot of us were. | :05:44. | :05:50. | |
On the other hand, I was a loved child. It isn't as if I suffered as | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
many children do from being unloved or even having violence directed at | :05:55. | :05:59. | |
them. In retrospect, I realise something was very important. | :05:59. | :06:06. | |
Because we were wandering around until I was about 10-11 and I was | :06:06. | :06:16. | |
:06:16. | :06:16. | ||
not going to school regularly, I escaped her brainwashing. I escaped, | :06:16. | :06:25. | |
especially in the years, an idea of what boys and girls did. -- escaped | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
a brainwashing. Unless it is crashed out of us, we have a sense | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
of fairness. You hear children in every language saying, it is not | :06:34. | :06:41. | |
fair. You are not the boss of me. It did not quite get crushed out of | :06:41. | :06:45. | |
me. I do not want to play a psychologist but one other element | :06:45. | :06:51. | |
in your upbringing seems to be that you seemed to have developed a | :06:51. | :07:00. | |
determination not to be trapped by your personal circumstances. To | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
ensure in the way you live your life that you would be free to | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
pursue what he regarded as really important, regardless of feminine | :07:08. | :07:18. | |
ties to everything else. Is that true? It is. I grew up in the 50s, | :07:18. | :07:24. | |
when marriage socially and legally was extremely unequal. Extremely | :07:24. | :07:33. | |
unequal. You have to go to court to get your own name back. I believe - | :07:34. | :07:38. | |
- believed this. I thought the only choice I had in changing my life | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
was the choice of the man I married because then I would live his life. | :07:43. | :07:47. | |
If you really believe that, it makes it very daunting to get | :07:47. | :07:52. | |
married because it is your last choice in life. It is like death. | :07:52. | :07:58. | |
You decided not to. I did not exactly decide not to. I kept | :07:58. | :08:02. | |
saying, there was no women's movement when I was growing up, so | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
I said I would do that, I am definitely doing that, but not | :08:06. | :08:12. | |
right now. Not by now became... had going. Became the permanent | :08:12. | :08:19. | |
until later in life. Right. other thing, a portion. You have | :08:19. | :08:28. | |
been very open about the fact, within your youth when you were | :08:28. | :08:35. | |
about 22... I have been grateful to London for the rest of my life. | :08:35. | :08:41. | |
Many people, not least in your own country, find the word positive, | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
that you used about your abortion, a difficult thing. The majority | :08:45. | :08:53. | |
agree completely. Something like 60%. That it's a decision to be | :08:53. | :08:58. | |
made by women and not the government. For me, it was the | :08:58. | :09:03. | |
first time that I took control of my own life and said, I am not just | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
going to be passive and wait for things to happen to me. The | :09:07. | :09:14. | |
physician here who I found in the Yellow Pages, after a long | :09:14. | :09:21. | |
suffering search, he was such a wonderful man. He said, all right, | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
I will help you. But you must promise me two things. One, it will | :09:26. | :09:30. | |
never tell anyone you name and he will do what you want with your | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
life. I remember him with gratitude to this day. Was there a conscious | :09:36. | :09:39. | |
decision then war may be late at that actually, given what you | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
wanted to do, you would not have children at all? It would be | :09:43. | :09:53. | |
impossible? No. To have children and do what you wanted to do? | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
Things are gradual. You don't just wake up in the morning and say... I | :09:57. | :10:02. | |
assumed... I kept saying I would have children but not now. And it | :10:02. | :10:07. | |
kept receding into the distance. The great thing was that then the | :10:07. | :10:10. | |
women's movement came along and I finally realised that not everyone | :10:10. | :10:17. | |
has to do the same thing. Is that not a major revelation? Sticking | :10:17. | :10:24. | |
with abortion. It remains front and centre in your campaign in life. | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
Only because of the opposition. I did not choose it to the front and | :10:27. | :10:33. | |
centre, the opposition chose it for me. That leads me to the state of | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
the debate in the US. One institute which looks at reproductive rights | :10:37. | :10:43. | |
in the US has calculated that more than 50% of women in reproductive - | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
- of reproductive age today leaving states that are now hostile to the | :10:47. | :10:53. | |
nation of legal abortion in the US. We have just seen mass rallies in | :10:53. | :10:57. | |
Washington DC in the last few weeks. Tens of thousands of people, many | :10:57. | :11:06. | |
of them young women, brandishing banners saying, an end to road | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
versus Wade. Do you believe there is a very real threat that that | :11:11. | :11:19. | |
Supreme Court ruling could end? have already lost it in a lot of | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
states. Women in many states have to travel elsewhere in order to | :11:23. | :11:27. | |
find a safer legal abortion. Our state legislatures are controlled | :11:27. | :11:32. | |
often, not always, but controlled by the interest they regulate. So | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
there -- they are more right-wing than the federal government. And so | :11:36. | :11:44. | |
we have kept the Federal decision. But 85% of our counties don't offer | :11:44. | :11:50. | |
abortion. So women often have to travel. But here is the basic fact. | :11:50. | :11:56. | |
This whole political structure that we are describing call -- called | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
patriarchy and racism and class, all the stuff that makes it even | :11:59. | :12:05. | |
more inflexible, is about controlling reproduction. It is the | :12:05. | :12:12. | |
fundamental reason. If women did not have a womb, we would be fine. | :12:12. | :12:17. | |
It is the fundamental reason for this political struggle. I just | :12:17. | :12:24. | |
want you to explain what is going on. When there are so many people, | :12:24. | :12:32. | |
young and highly educated women,... They are not that many. It's a | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
minority. Here is the difference. But there are not many women who | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
oppose abortion. Are you saying they are suffering from a false | :12:42. | :12:52. | |
:12:52. | :13:08. | ||
learned that... Or not to have an abortion. Then there opinion often | :13:08. | :13:16. | |
changes and in any case it's a minority. Let me ask you about | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
sexuality. Clearly related to reproductive rights. But this is | :13:20. | :13:25. | |
something that I have noticed has become increasingly dominant for | :13:25. | :13:30. | |
many feminists, particularly in the United States and the UK as well, | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
the notion that there is hyper sexualised Asian going on in our | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
corrosive corrosive for young girls. -- | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
centralisation. Even pre-pubescent girls. That the way in which | :13:44. | :13:54. | |
:13:54. | :13:55. | ||
females are characterised is a new form of very dangerous sexism. | :13:55. | :14:02. | |
is not exactly a new form. In the 1800s, you could get married at 12 | :14:02. | :14:07. | |
in New York. We have all had problems at some point in history | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
of patriarchy. But in your own personal life, even as a | :14:13. | :14:18. | |
campaigning journalist, you spend a lot of time campaigning against the | :14:18. | :14:24. | |
sort of sexuality peddled by people like Hugh Hefner. You once dressed | :14:24. | :14:34. | |
:14:34. | :14:40. | ||
I exposed the working conditions at the Playboy Club which was so | :14:40. | :14:43. | |
horrendous that they convinced young women that they had to have | :14:43. | :14:48. | |
an internal gynaecological exam to serve that food. How crazy is that? | :14:48. | :14:55. | |
At least they stopped doing that. want to be clear about the argument. | :14:55. | :14:59. | |
You say that you want to be supportive of women exploring their | :14:59. | :15:05. | |
sexuality... Yes. We are talking about their free will. If you can | :15:05. | :15:10. | |
only get a job in three-inch heels, falling out of your costume falling | :15:10. | :15:15. | |
food, then that is not the... Men do not have to fall out of their | :15:15. | :15:20. | |
costumes to serve food. We are talking about free will and freely | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
expressed a sexuality. What about those women who say that they are | :15:24. | :15:28. | |
expressing their free will when they become glamour models, when | :15:28. | :15:33. | |
they become, in one way or another, but they are exploiting the sex | :15:33. | :15:37. | |
business for their own ends and that is a form of rent and how | :15:37. | :15:46. | |
Ahmed for them? -- and Hamed. support free choice for all women | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
but that is not a free choice when the Miss America contest in the US | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
is still the single greatest source of scholarship money for women in | :15:55. | :16:00. | |
the US. That is crazy. If a beauty contest was the single greatest | :16:00. | :16:04. | |
source of scholarship money for men, men would be parading around in | :16:04. | :16:09. | |
bathing suits as well because education is expensive. The problem | :16:09. | :16:14. | |
is not the individual who is trying to do the best she can, or it is | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
not usually the individual within the system, it is trying to change | :16:17. | :16:23. | |
the system. Let us speak about politics a little more. You were a | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
big supporter of Hillary Clinton. He wanted to see her become the | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
first female president. I knew she wouldn't bat I supported her. | :16:30. | :16:38. | |
could you know that she wouldn't? She got very close? I did not know, | :16:38. | :16:41. | |
no-one knows the outcome of an election but I never believed that | :16:41. | :16:44. | |
she could become President or that any woman could become President at | :16:44. | :16:52. | |
that point because we are raised by women. Men and women are mostly | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
raised by women and it means that in a deep way, we associate female | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
authority with childhood. Although we, as women, have our own examples | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
to the contrary, there are many men and you have seen some of our big, | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
grown-up series newsmen on television saying things such as, I | :17:12. | :17:17. | |
a cross my legs every time I see Hillary Clinton and she reminds me | :17:17. | :17:21. | |
of my first wife, saying things that they surely regret. They had | :17:21. | :17:27. | |
not seen an authoritative woman since they were eight years old. | :17:27. | :17:32. | |
They were very upset and confused by seeing an authoritative woman. | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
Forgive me but we just saw Hillary woman -- Hillary Clinton cross the | :17:37. | :17:42. | |
world as the US Secretary of State. I used Cilcain but she has no | :17:42. | :17:49. | |
chance of becoming President? think that she could. She has just | :17:49. | :17:54. | |
gained more experience. It has changed. Here is why. First, she | :17:54. | :18:00. | |
lost and people of women when they lose. Also because she, herself, | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
has been able to provide the example in such a global and | :18:05. | :18:14. | |
interesting way of an female human at her job that she herself has | :18:14. | :18:19. | |
changed our idea of what women can do even though we are still raised | :18:19. | :18:24. | |
by women more than men. fascinated by the degree to which | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
you believe that political d'etat might be able to change the | :18:30. | :18:35. | |
situation. We spoke about trying to control pornography. Speaking of | :18:35. | :18:43. | |
are legislated quotas for women in politics. In elected Chambers, | :18:43. | :18:48. | |
Parliament. What we have seen in countries as far afield as Algeria | :18:48. | :18:58. | |
:18:58. | :18:58. | ||
or, Belgium, and in Rwanda for example. More than 50% of the | :18:58. | :19:02. | |
parliamentary is women. A lot of men died. In Rwanda that is the | :19:02. | :19:08. | |
case but in case but inuntries as well. They have got up to 40% female | :19:08. | :19:10. | |
representation in Parliament because they had demanded it | :19:10. | :19:16. | |
through quotas. In the US in the House of Representatives there | :19:16. | :19:22. | |
around 60% women. Is it time for the US to go for quotas? It is not | :19:22. | :19:27. | |
a bad idea. It is not a panic Keir. If you have a quota, then the | :19:27. | :19:31. | |
people who were in power who were usually men, say that if you want a | :19:31. | :19:35. | |
woman, I will give your woman. It is an Abedin Foreman. It is a | :19:35. | :19:43. | |
cousin or a daughter or something. -- obedient woman. It is not about | :19:43. | :19:48. | |
biology but about consciousness. How much has changed in the US? | :19:48. | :19:55. | |
had many feminist men. Every big movement, deep movement, takes a | :19:55. | :19:59. | |
century to make a mark. The suffragettes and the abolition us | :19:59. | :20:04. | |
away in my country was largely around the world and not in every | :20:04. | :20:09. | |
country but almost every country took one century to begin to see | :20:09. | :20:13. | |
women as citizens and human beings and the voters. This movement is | :20:13. | :20:19. | |
also going to take one century. We are 40 years into it. It has come a | :20:19. | :20:24. | |
huge distance and I am very moved by how, by what distance we have | :20:24. | :20:32. | |
come. We have at least an equal distance to go. When you look at | :20:32. | :20:36. | |
how far it there is to go, your eyes may need to live from Western | :20:36. | :20:42. | |
countries and focus much more on the developing world. Some of the | :20:42. | :20:49. | |
profound existential issues freedom from violence and the most | :20:49. | :20:55. | |
basic legal rights that women in many countries in the developing | :20:55. | :21:00. | |
world simply do not enjoy. It has always been, the women's movement | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
in the suffragist era and now, has always been a global movement and | :21:04. | :21:09. | |
still is. It especially was for me because when I first got out of | :21:09. | :21:12. | |
college, I lived in India for two years and had all these friends | :21:12. | :21:17. | |
there. I learned much of what I know there -- from Indian women who | :21:18. | :21:27. | |
:21:28. | :21:28. | ||
had a massive women's movement. As one of the women that said Timmy, a | :21:28. | :21:38. | |
:21:38. | :21:38. | ||
great woman, how Gandhi's tactics were well suited to women around | :21:38. | :21:44. | |
the world. She said that they taught him everything that he knew. | :21:44. | :21:54. | |
:21:54. | :21:55. | ||
The tactics that Gandhi adapted. He greatly admired and adopted the | :21:55. | :21:59. | |
tactics of the women in India. We had been active around the world | :21:59. | :22:03. | |
and we have much more loyalty to each other's movements and the to | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
Tyrone government. I want to end by coming back to reflections on your | :22:07. | :22:13. | |
own personal philosophy. Do you regard yourself as a revolutionary? | :22:13. | :22:22. | |
That is too tame, I think. To tame! You have told me that I'm | :22:22. | :22:29. | |
underestimating the degree to which the US is still a patriarchy. | :22:29. | :22:34. | |
the systems that we see in the US and in the Western world still need | :22:34. | :22:40. | |
to be ripped down and rebuilt from the bottom? No, no, here is what I | :22:40. | :22:45. | |
think that the women's movement in general is more likely - I don't | :22:45. | :22:51. | |
want to speak to everybody - more likely to understand than most | :22:51. | :22:58. | |
hierarchical organisations. It is what Marx and Engels got wrong, | :22:58. | :23:02. | |
which is at the end does not justified the means - the means are | :23:02. | :23:08. | |
the end. We want to transform, I would not use a word like ripped or | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
defeated or killed or murdered or anything like that, because if you | :23:12. | :23:18. | |
do that then you replicate the problem. It is transformed. It is | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
evolutionary. It is transformation. It has more of a debt to get to | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
structures in which we are linked, not rank. We are linked with nature. | :23:26. | :23:32. | |
We are linked with each other. We are not ranked in this insane, | :23:32. | :23:36. | |
wasteful, hierarchical way. I want to say that their organisations of | :23:36. | :23:42. | |
great preciousness to me that are in my country, in your country, in | :23:42. | :23:46. | |
Kenya, equality now is much of the reason that we are here. They have | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
a global board and an International Board. They're working on all the | :23:50. | :23:54. | |
issues which you have spoken about. We are organised co-operatively | :23:54. | :23:59. | |
between and among women and men in many different countries. I just | :23:59. | :24:04. | |
wonder whether you believe that to our eyes successfully taking women | :24:04. | :24:09. | |
and men with you today in the movement as you work... Much more! | :24:09. | :24:14. | |
Are you kidding? Book of public opinion polls. In every country, we | :24:14. | :24:19. | |
had many fewer people and were regarded as crazy people, crazy | :24:19. | :24:24. | |
women especially, and I'm now on majority movement. It has grown | :24:24. | :24:30. | |
immensely. In that time that I have been around and it will grow after | :24:31. | :24:37. |