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