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Steinem sees a climate of 'exploding inequality'
Many women are mired in poverty, she tells audience of 750 at Salem College
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
Gloria Steinem favors paying women for jobs done at home, such as child and elder care.
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Published: October 1, 2008
American women have made substantial gains, but women still have not achieved equality with men, women's activist Gloria Steinem said yesterday.
"We have made progress, and look how much we have done," Steinem said in a speech to about 750 people at Salem College in Winston-Salem. "We can move forward, but it won't be easy. It will make you tearful as I am right now. It will seem impossible, but it will become a way of life."
Steinem, 74, an American feminist organizer and writer, has worked for women's equality for 40 years. In 1971, she convened the Women's Political Caucus. She also founded, in 1974, the Coalition of Labor Union Women and now serves as thepresident of Voters for Choice. She has written three bestselling books.
Salem's College committee on cultural events sponsored her appearance.
Steinem spoke for about an hour on issues about work, violence and spirituality. She peppered her remarks with humor, and she often talked about her own life and experiences.
She said that the women's suffrage movement in the United States has its roots in the American Indian culture.
Within many tribes, the lives ofwomen and men were equal and balanced. Women controlled their fertility, and female elders chose their chiefs and advised their tribes on issues of war and peace, Steinem said. American Indians played a role in the Underground Railroad that helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom in Northern states and Canada.
The abolitionist and suffrage movements in the 1800s began because slaves, women and children were being treated like chattel "with different levels of cruelty," Steinem said. Several slave rebellions, the Civil War, hunger strikes among women, and other struggles over 100 years eventually helped blacks and women gain status as "human beings."
In the 1960s and '70s, the civil-rights and social movements helped bring about more racial and gender equality, Steinem said. But women still fought for economic equality. When she was a young woman, women could not get bank loans unless they had their husband's signatures, and they had to promise not to have a baby, Steinem said. Many women were also denied credit cards.
In today's society, women still earn 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns in the workplace, she said. Child-care workers, who are mostly female, earn less than parking-lot attendants, who tend to be men.
Steinem said she supports equal pay for women and comparable worth, a proposal that would pay women fairly for jobs they perform in the home, such as caring for children, their elderly parents, and sick and disabled people.
"It would make a huge difference," Steinem said. "It would bring together the welfare mom and the soccer mom."
Too often, society had placed economic value on jobs performed mostly by men, she said. Steinem described a current climate of "exploding inequality" where too many women are mired in poverty and men are associated with wealth.
She said that the financial crisis gripping Wall Street and Washington reflects the trend of privatization of profits but socialization of financial losses.
"People want law and order on Main Street, but not on Wall Street," Steinem said.
The future of the country may depend on the outcome of the national elections, but she did not urge the audience to support any particular Democratic or Republican candidate.
However, in a news conference earlier, Steinem said that Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, selected Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate for sexist reasons, because she is unqualified to be vice president.
"Sarah Palin was chosen for sexist reasons -- to please the evangelical right and to confuse women voters," Steinem said.
Steinem said she was pleased that many states have passed laws to protect women from domestic violence in the past 30 years. But women and children who are victims of domestic violence sometimes are scarred for life, dealing with fear, depression and anxiety.
"A women's own home has become a dangerous place for her to be," she said.
■ John Hinton can be reached at 727-7299 or at jhinton@wsjournal.com.
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