Gloria Steinem: ‘Palin Calls Herself A Feminist Because Of How Many Votes Hillary Got’
Shortly after I posted about my disappointment regarding Stephen Colbert‘s interview with Gloria Steinem last night, Katie Couric‘s online show @katiecouric when live with this lengthy interview she’d just completed with Steinem. Ask and you shall receive!
Here’s what Steinem had to say about Sarah Palin‘s recent declaration that she is a feminist:
We’re free to call ourselves whatever we wish, but I think her calling herself a feminist has mostly to do with how many votes Hillary Clinton got in the presidential race. Yes, you can be a feminist who doesn’t agree with abortion, but you can’t be a feminist who says that other women can’t…to make it criminal and dangerous is not a feminist act.
As for how she feels about the rise of Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and Nikki Haley, Steinem says “I support their right to be wrong. But the reason they are being put forward is because the women’s movement has been so successful…the Republican party saw how well Hillary Clinton did and is now fielding female candidates.”
Steinem also had this to say about why Hillary Clinton was given such a rough ride by the media during her 2008 presidential campaign:
We associate female authority with childhood, we think it’s appropriate to childhood and not to adult life and politics because we really haven’t seen it that much. And some people, especially men as we saw during this last election, men on camera felt regressed when they saw Hillary Clinton, a powerful woman, because the last time they saw a powerful woman they were eight.
Draw your own conclusions about how this analogy follows through to Sarah Palin. Watch the clip on Palin below. The whole 40 minute interview, which is with both Steinmen and Women’s Media Center president Jehmu Greene is worth your time and can be found here.
