Gloria Steinem Op-Ed in NY Times

by admin ~ January 9, 2008

I just saw this today, somehow missing it in yesterday’s paper with the craziness at my office. It’s an Op-Ed written by Gloria Steinem called “Women are Never Front-Runners,” which is about gender issues, in particular regards to this presidential election.

I promise not to get into politics here - Mediashop PR is bi-partisan afterall - but I am rooting for Hillary in part because she is a woman.  My feelings about this were encapsulated in a brief conversation I had on the train on Sunday on the way back from a weekend in DC.  I met Skye on the train, a 25-year old musician from Boston; a very liberal guy.  We started talking about the candidates:

Skye said, “You know, I like her, but Hilary just doesn’t look presidential.”

I said, “What - because she doesn’t look like a man?”

And that’s it.  She’s not a man; she never will be.  Here’s what the exact conversation I had with my mother and female friends since Iowa sounded like… in Gloria Steinem’s words:

“Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter). “