Constant Crusader

SHE’S NEARLY 80 BUT GLORIA STEINEM, ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL FEMINIST VOICES, SAYS SHE STILL HAS MILES TO GO.

She’s nearly 80 but Gloria Steinem, one of the most influential feminist voices, says she still has miles to go.

Rail thin and dressed in leather, Gloria Steinem, 79, looks like a rock star and it is indeed celebrity treatment she recieved during her visit to Delhi to launch her latest collection of landmark essays, The Essential Gloria Steinem

Reader: As If Women Matter. The iconic feminist spoke about the December 16 movement, her thoughts on the Khobragade case and her enduring fascination for India during an extended chat at the India Internation Centre. Excerpts:

You write about visiting India in the late 1950s and being told that feminism was a western idea that had no roots in India. In the backdrop of the December 16 gangrape protests how do you feel about that position when you visit India now?

The idea was ridiculous then and still is now. I knew about Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay had been one of the many profoundly influential and important activists who had worked during the Independence movement and later started a handicraft movement. But today as we look at everything that has happened since December 16 — the street protests and raised consciousness — it’s silly to say that feminism is only important to women in rich western countries. Look at Liberation Square, look at women driving in Saudi Arabia. It’s everywhere you look.

What are some of the myths you have heard about the feminist movement over the years?

It’s interesting to me how people always find a way to peg feminism as something frivolous. In the US they say it’s a movement of only white, middle class women which has never been true. The two myths I get now are: ‘ Feminism is over; you are living in a post- feminist era and the movement is over. The other is that feminism has failed. These are two mutually contradictory ideas but I think the message of both of them is: Stop now! But that’s part of the natural process of how these things go. By historical measure this movement is only 40 years into a century.

How do you respond to those who say its time to stop?

Aside from wanting to say, “Are you blind?”, I respond like all earnest journalists do, with facts. In the US we don’t even have equal pay for equal work yet. If all women were paid equal to what a white man earned for the exact same job there would be $ 200 billion more in the economy every year. It would be the greatest form of economic stimulus ever invented. We wouldn’t have had to reward dishonest mortgage brokers and bankers. Women wouldn’t stash the money away in a Swiss account, they’re going to spend it.

You have been visiting India for nearly 60 years and right now the country is going through a period of rapid social change. How do you view the movement today?

First of all it’s impossible to map, because India is far larger and diverse than my own country which I don’t like to generalise about. But I can speak about how I experienced it. When I first visited India there wasn’t much consciousness about the women’s movement at all, which means that history had been buried because there in fact had been huge movements, marches, endless activity against child marriage, against sati that were

models for and later subsumed by the Independence struggle. The women’s movement here has changed profoundly over the years. The December 16 protests were like a lit match to dry tinder and raised consciousness about acts of violence against women.

Where do men figure in the movement?

There is now a quite substantial men’s movement in the US and other countries made up of men who support women and who also recognise and understand that the masculine role also dehumanises men. It deprives them of their children and forces them towards dangerous behavior such as speeding, the use of weapons and causes stressrelated diseases. So gender roles restrict and endanger both men as well as women.

Any story in the media that struck you in particular during this visit?

One thing which struck me about the diplomat- domestic worker case ( Devyani Khobragade and Sangeeta Richard) was that it would be interesting to do a deeper story on the case. We are struggling with the same issue in the US and are fighting to get minimum wage for undocumented domestic workers. It would be interesting to document what it does ( on an emotional level) to people who live in the same house with the people they oppress. What happens when you supress empathy which is an indispensable human emotion and without which the human species would not have survived? It creates an emotional callous that keeps us from feeling. The victim of course suffers but so does the oppressor.

How has social media influenced the women’s movement? The upside of the social media is obvious because we can communicate with each other unfiltered, we can share information and discover trends. The downside of social media is a little less obvious. I was talking earlier about empathy and that again is something that doesn’t work with technology. It doesn’t work on the screen and page and requires all five senses to activate oxytocin. That’s part of the reason that you get more hostility online. That leap of empathy can’t happen unless you meet in person. Social media is not a substitute for social contact.

What do you think about where the traditional family unit is going both in the west and India?

Earlier everyone believed that there was only one kind of family. In the US it was a male, a female and 2.2 children! The man worked outside the home and the woman probably harder than anybody at home but was unacknowledged and called a homemaker. That was the stereotypical family that has long since become a minority. Nowadays people have chosen families of friends and there is a wide variety in how and with whom they choose to live. But its still a problem because women still feel and are responsible for the family. Women who are single parents are living in a work world which supposes they are men with no children so they have to work those kind of hours. We need much more family friendly work policies for both women and men. We have recently discovered the universal fact that members of the same sex can also love each other and form bonds and raise children.

Looking back, how has the women’s movement changed over the years? Are we better off today?

Part of the difference in my thinking I have noticed over the years is attributable to me because I was so naive. In the 60s and 70s I thought these injustices are so great surely if we just explain it to people they will want to change it. No! It took me a while to understand that we were talking about the cheap labour force and the totally unpaid labour force of the entire world. So its going to take a while because feminism cuts into profit, into the abil-

EVERYONE HAS A PURPOSE IN LIFE BUT FOR MANY IT’S JUST SQUASHED OUT OF YOU. HOW DO WE KNOW OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE? WE FORGET WHAT TIME IT IS WHEN WERE DOING IT BECAUSE WE LOVE IT SO MUCH

ity of various patriachal systems to control reproduction.

How important has purpose been in your life?

Everyone has purpose in life but for many it’s just squashed out of you. How do we know our purpose in life? We forget what time it is when were doing it because we love it so much. It makes us laugh, and doing what you love also keeps you young. Studies have shown that women who stay at home age physiologically 10 years more than women who have fulfilling careers because they are so isolated. At the end of the day we need stimulation. As human beings we need to do what we care about and love.