Website Post #5: Biography of Gloria Steinem

This website is all about Gloria Steinem. She is a famous feminist, a social activist, writer, editor, lecturer and a champion of women's rights since the late 1960s. She helped to make “Women’s Liberation” a household phrase and a global movement.

http://www.biography.com/people/gloria-steinem-9493491

She graduated top of her class at Smith College after which she became a writer where she quickly realized she was getting less prestigious writing assignments than her male counterparts and made less money. She became famous when she wrote an article about the exploitation of women in the Playboy Bunny Clubs. She went undercover working as a waitress in one of the clubs where she wore the bunny suit and experienced what that was like 1^st hand. It was not glamorous but made women sex objects for men.  She described pretty brutal working conditions there.

One of the excerpts from her many interviews showed that she did not want to follow the common path of women of her day. "In the 1950s, once you married you became what your husband was, so it seemed like the last choice you'd ever have…”. For her whole life she continued to speak about feminist subjects. A more recent discussion was in 2009 when she said “We've demonstrated that women can do what men do, but not yet that men can do what women do. That's why most women have two jobs—one inside the home and one outside it—which is impossible. The truth is that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.”

In 1971 she launched Ms Magazine – which was a national sounding board for the feminist movement. It gave a voice to women who didn’t want to accept unfair treatment. Articles in Ms tackled important subjects such as sexual harassment and domestic violence.

She wrote many books for women on women’s issues and self-improvement as well as her feminist experiences including “Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions”, “Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem” and “Moving Beyond Words: Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking Boundaries of Gender”.

There are videos at this site where you can see pictures of her and learn about her life.

I think Gloria Steinem's life has been very interesting. Women like Gloria had great courage to do things differently. Most young women in her generation looked for a man to define them and take care of them. They were put on a pedestal, protected and sheltered from the "real world" and delegated to their real job - taking care of their man and the house while having babies and staying home to raise them. If they worked, it was often to find eligible men. Their jobs were frequently around serving men, such as secretaries, and temporary until they found their husband. If not, the jobs were menial or women were pigeonholed. Gloria went against the norm by graduating from college and going straight into a predominantly male working world of journalism to work side-by-side with the men, compete with them for the interesting assignments and be as good as them. She persevered through discrimination against women there. She had to fight so much harder for the good assignments and put up with male chauvinism from her colleagues. She realized that many women were experiencing the same inequalities and that they shouldn't be silent about it and bear it. She helped women to speak out against this discrimination and work to change things. In her article about being a Playboy Bunny, she dared to write what most women felt when they are reduced to sex objects by men. She became famous from this article and developed into a great public speaker. She used her skills and fame to encourage women to be free and realize that not everyone has to live the same way. She organized women to band together to change the way they were perceived and be treated as equals in the workplace and in society. I like the way she continually looked for ways to improve herself. She rose to great heights in an age when women were not taken seriously as anything but wives and mothers. She owned and ran businesses as well as organized large movements of people to work to achieve social change. She is an excellent role model and the epitome of a strong and independent woman.

Choice Post #4: Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders Video

TED.com is a site where you can hear great presentations and participate in idea sharing.  I recommend it to everyone.  The TED talk I want to recommend now is by Sheryl Sandberg and is entitled “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders”.  In this TED talk, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions and she has 3 suggestions for women aiming for the C-suite.

She starts out by saying that American business women are lucky these days – we have basic civil rights and some don’t.  We also have much more opportunities than our mothers.  However, the percentage of women in top jobs (at the Corporate Level) is still very low.  Out of 190 heads of state, 9 are women.  Only 13% of British Parliament members are women.  In the Corporate world, 15-16% of the Corporate Level jobs are held by women.  Even in non-profit sector where it is thought to be a greater percentage of women, the top jobs that women hold represents 20% of total.  Women also have a harder time balancing professional success and personal fulfillment. Of the top leadership jobs, 2/3 of the married men have children and only 1/2 of the married women have children.

She believes that the biggest issue is that more women need to stay in the workforce.  She then goes on to talk about what can we focus on as individuals – what we need to tell ourselves and our daughters.

#1 - Sit at the table – she tells the story about how women don’t push to get the Corporate level jobs.  They systematically underestimate their worth.  Men attribute their success to themselves, women tend to give the credit to others.  Men reach for opportunities more than women.  Women must believe in themselves, own their own success.  But we must fight the perception that women are not liked as much as men when they act in this way - competing for the top jobs.

#2 - Make your partner a real partner – women have made more progress in the working world than in the home when it comes to balancing career and family.  When both spouses work, women do twice the amount of the housework and 3 times the child care. We put more pressure on our boys to succeed than our girls. We must make working in the home more respected and help men to feel more comfortable in the child care world.  Couples who have equal earning and equal responsibility have less of a divorce rate and are happier.

#3 - Don’t leave before you really leave.  Don’t give up on the promotion or the new project just because you are planning to have children. Keep your foot on the gas pedal. You can come back to a better job.

I think these 3 ideas are right on target.  My mother told me about this TED talk and we listened to this together.  My mother is a manager in a Technology industry and she is always struggling to move up in her own profession. Women have to work so much harder for it. She thinks that Sheryl Sandberg addressed some very real issues and perceptions and had great suggestions for working women. I believe women need to be more ambitious. Women can have a career and a family if they want to and be fulfilled in both. They just need to have the help and backing at home and keep going after the job they want – including the really interesting, challenging, high level jobs. It is hard to leave your kids so you need to have a job that makes it worth it.  Women should have as much of an opportunity to have the top jobs.  They just need to take their success into their own hands (make it work), believe they are worth it, and find their own right balance of work goals and personal fulfillment. With confidence and belief in oneself, women can achieve great things.

Video Post #3: Feminism Survey: Men on the Street

This video is entitled “Feminism Survey: Men on the Street”

It is quite an enlightening and entertaining video. It opens with a woman talking about how she does not want to talk about feminism on her first date because she is afraid it will turn a man off.

So she arranges for a male friend Steve to interview some men on the streets of New York City while she pretends to be his assistant.

Here are some of his questions and responses to his questions:

Do you know any feminists?

“No”

What do you think feminists are?

“I don’t know what that is”

“Lesbians”

“Got their amendment passed in 1920, why are they still complaining”

“They get everything we (Men) get today… most of the top officials are women”

“Militant angry women trying to get their way in the world”

“We don’t need feminism … The Bible states very clearly that men are the head of the household”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pdbnzFUsXI

This video may be a bit one-sided in terms of the clips they included in the piece. I find it hard to believe that all the people they interviewed on the street, besides one man, were against Feminism. One interviewee said “I’ll support women that know what they want and go after it … “. But it really seemed as if he was joking and using it as a way to get a date. A short clip from a “feminist” who was interviewed in her office stated that people think you can silence women who try to assert their rights by calling them lesbians. People have misconceptions that all feminists are lesbians, are anti-men, and hate children. In fact being a feminist does not define a woman. Many or most are in fact what these people would call “normal” with a husband and children. And the feminists that are lesbians don’t necessarily hate men. As can be seen from this article, people have many different things to say about feminists. Yet most of these statements may have come from their upbringing in a patriarchal time, as was the case with the older man who said that the husband is the head of the family. Also, the young men were quick to say that a woman who wants equal rights and treatment is automatically a lesbian. I believe that men are unaware of the fact that women still are treated as inferior in some aspects of life. They think that since we won the right to vote, we should stop complaining. Yet I am compelled to believe that most of these people have not researched the statistics about how women are paid less working at the same jobs as men and are treated as inferior in other activities, such as sports. Some of these men were making offensive generalizations by calling us angry and aggressive. In my opinion, people should try to understand feminism better and realize that women have a legitimate cause to demand equal pay for equal work and equal rights in all other aspects of everyday life.