Steinem is a Clinton supporter and wrote rather movingly this year about some of the ugliness that has been hurled Clinton’s way by political opponents, dating back to former President Bill Clinton’s time at the White House.
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Gloria Steinem has finally revealed the reason Bernie Sanders has so many young female voters, but why is it clashing with her identity of being a feminist?
The whole interview of Steinem on Bill Maher’s show reveals that most of what she said was positive about young women – she referred to them as “activist” and “way more feminist”.
“There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other, ” said Albright, adding a jihadist tone to her plea – make that demand – for Clinton votes. It was she, after all, who said, “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”.
“First, Judy, I have spent my entire adult life working toward making sure women are empowered to make their own choices, even if that choice is not to vote for me”, she said.
Ratajkowski has also started to use a social media hashtag thumbing her nose at Steinem’s pointed comments: #notherefortheboys. All of these women have something significant in common: They have all, at one time or another, supported a Hillary Clinton presidential bid. Even though Clinton did not garner a majority of support among women, according to network exit polls, female voters significantly softened Sanders’ win. Davis said. “Whereas for younger women, given a world in which there has been at least more women in powerful positions… having a woman president would be great, but at the same time not quite as frated in the same political way as the generation represented by Albright and Steinem”.
“No, I wouldn’t”, Steinem replied. It won’t only fail to convince younger women – it’s going to insult their mothers as well. You know I could go into-I thought about it this morning: Walmart. Her gaffe contained a multitude of questionable or incorrect assumptions and insults, starting with heterosexism, something that politically engaged millennial women (who range in age from 18 to 33) know when they hear. And when women under 30 find that she was against gay marriage until 2013, voted for the Iraq War and has a Super PAC largely supported by Wall Street, these factors outweigh her self-proclaimed feminist label. At a recent Clinton rally, she reiterated something she has been saying for decades: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women”. I don’t need boys anymore, I need bitter second wave feminists to guide me and rehabilitate the hypersexual she-demon I have become.
Steinem’s observation also ignores the legitimate gains that Sanders has made among young people.
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The backlash to Steinem’s comments was swift, so she took to Facebook with an apology and clarification. If Carly Fiorina were the only woman in the presidential race, would we all be anti-feminist if we didn’t hop on her campaign bus? What happened to thinking women are so much more than floozy men-chasers who can’t formulate their own opinions? I believe in that symbolic importance, ‘ she said. “Young women are active, mad as hell about what’s happening to them, graduating in debt, but averaging a million dollars less over their lifetimes to pay it back”. Any comments about her “shrill” voice or her appearance are surely misogynistic and point to a culture that is still uncomfortable with powerful, women leaders.
