Interview with Gloria Steinem

Thanks to Susan Bulkeley Butler for recommending Marianne Schnall’s interview with Gloria Steinem in the Huffington Post. At 77 Gloria Steinem continues to have so much to teach us:

On the future of feminism:
-She thinks of the future in two ways -- survival plus moving forward. Under survival, she would put all the efforts to save the female half of the world from violence directed at us specifically because we are female

Under survival she includes everything from domestic violence, sex trafficking, rape and serial killing to aborting female fetuses, female genital mutilation, child marriage and denying female children protein, health care and education.

-On the root of the imbalance of women’s representation in politics. (The U.S. currently stands as 70th among countries in terms of women’s representation):

Unequal access to money and media plus bias, external and internalized, and male-dominant religions and illegality at the polls -- all those are reasons for women's wildly unequal political power. All those are things we have to fight. If we organized well from the bottom up -- and didn't fall for the idea that our vote doesn't count; an idea nurtured by those who don't want us to use it -- we could elect feminists, women of all races and some diverse men, too -- who actually represent the female half of the country equally.

- Sending an email or twitter is not action

Read the entire interview here.