Gloria Steinem | The New York Observer

Paterson's Choice: The Feminist Versus the Woman

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:37:03 -0500

With a decision from the governor just days away, the list of prominent feminist types who have declared support for Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat is a short one. The best-known are probably New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, 79-year-old Representative Louise Slaughter and former Kennedy White House correspondent Helen Thomas.

In the meantime, the women’s rights establishment is placing its hopes elsewhere. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem, former...

Congressional Candidate Harrison: 'I Will Not Cast Ms. Steinem Aside' Over McCain Remarks

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 09:14:43 -0500

Facing attacks from a group of local veterans over his campaign's ties to Gloria Steinem, Democratic congressional candidate Steve Harrison is choosing to stand by the famed women's rights activist.

Steinem has endorsed and actively supported Harrison in his campaign to win a congressional seat representing parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

She was widely criticized last week for implying that John McCain’s experience as a prisoner of war is overrated. Steinem made...

Stumping for Clinton, Steinem Says McCain's POW Cred Is Overrated

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:49:37 -0500

AUSTIN, Texas—Feminist icon Gloria Steinem took to the stump on Hillary Clinton’s behalf here last night and quickly proved that she has lost none of her taste for provocation.

From the stage, the 73-year-old seemed to denigrate the importance of John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In an interview with The Observer afterward, she suggested that Barack Obama benefits—and Clinton suffers—because Americans view racism more seriously than sexism.

Steinem also told...

Harrison Will Have Some Money This Time

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:31:45 -0500

Here’s an invitation to Democratic congressional candidate Stephen Harrison’s February 27 fund-raiser at Social Bar in Midtown West.

The event is being organized by Lewis Cohen, a local fund-raiser here who has been keeping busy with a number of these get-togethers.

It's the kind of financial infrastructure that Harrison was missing when he ran against the Republican incumbent, Vito Fossella, in 2006. The lack of money was a major reason the party didn’t...

Why Can’t These Mothers and Daughters Be Like Sisters?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:37:19 -0400

SISTERHOOD, INTERRUPTED: FROM RADICAL WOMEN TO GRRLS GONE WILD
By Deborah Siegel
Palgrave Macmillan, 170 pages, $14.95

Review By Linda Hirshman

I’m having a very bad time with Deborah Siegel’s very good book, Sisterhood, Interrupted, about how modern feminism has fared across the generational divide.

It’s a helluva yarn. A small number of lefty women pissed at the only position in the movement being prone plus one scribbling housewife from Peoria...

The Morning Read: September 4, 2006

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 04:40:19 -0400

The New York Times endorsed Hillary Clinton for re-election, highlighting how she differed from Sen. Joe Lieberman after they both voted for the Iraq War. Lieberman stood with the administration; Hillary didn't. (Gloria Steinem, though, is not impressed.)

"All that said, she has hardly been a profile in courage...Mrs. Clinton's biggest flaw is her unwillingness to risk political capital for principle. That is not to say that she lacks principles, but whenever her moral convictions...

Buying Ballots

Mon, 01 May 2006 08:34:58 -0400

In today's money-game news: A small vault's worth of deep-pocketed donors will gather at the Manhattan home of George Soros this Wednesday to throw some serious cash towards the campaign of attorney Judy Aydelott. Aydelott is running for congress in the 19th District (i.e, the Hudson Valley 's "country house" region) against six-term incumbent Sue Kelly. Among the hosts of the $1000-$2100 event? Jayni and Chevy Chase, Stanley Tucci, Gloria Steinem, Ambassador Robin...

What Mystique Did Betty Friedan Wield? Very Powerful One

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

It was fitting that Betty Friedan, whose book The Feminine Mystique exploded through the suburbs when it was first published in 1963, was remembered at the Upper West Side’s Riverside Memorial Chapel, in the midst of elegant brownstones, where women who “opted out” of high-octane careers spend their days pushing $700 strollers toward Central Park. The irony would not have been lost on Ms. Friedan, who died last Saturday, Feb. 4, on her 85th...

Love, Honor, Obey and ... Oh

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

As Jaclyn Geller, 38-year-old feminist, entered the bridal atelier on the eighth floor of Barneys on Madison Avenue on a recent June Friday, she was breaking out in hives. “Seasonal allergies,” she said, sniffling. The pollen count was indeed high, but it seemed more likely that the store’s racks of sumptuous wedding gowns (one cost $40,000), white candles, rose petals and piped-in Sting songs were the culprits. Against the tide of giddy nuptials that...

Gloria Steinem

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Ms. Steinem, a luminous 71, still curses, looks hot and paints her nails. Extremely thin and clad in black, she was wearing her frosty gray-blond hair in a loose ponytail. She kept...

Gloria Steinem

Sun, 18 Dec 2005 19:00:00 -0500

What is Gloria Steinem’s advice to young women these days? To do “whatever they fucking well please,” America’s foremost feminist said, stabbing into poached eggs at a brunch-mobbed diner on a recent Sunday. “Ha ha ha! … Have some fries.” Ms. Steinem, a luminous 71, still curses, looks hot and paints her nails. Extremely thin and clad in black, she was wearing her frosty gray-blond hair in a loose ponytail. She kept her aviator...

From The Cockpit: Women On Top

Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:58:00 -0500

An irregular dispatch from the Observer's men's blog. Power Chicklets How do those ladies over at the Catbox keep themselves so busy? Looks like one of 'em found the time to count vaginas in the Observer's Power Geezers issue, and concluded the Pink Paper needed a little more pink! Gloria Steinem, the Salonettes report, "is one of the 10 women on the Observer's 31-person geezer list (cough, cough)." It's cute when chicks try to do stuff with...

Les Ms.-erables Bust Cover

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 20:00:00 -0400

When the spring 2005 issue of Ms. magazine-the old feminist glossy that you almost forgot still existed-arrives on newsstands this week, readers might notice something a little odd. In the "Letter from the Editor" column, Ms. editor in chief Elaine Lafferty, 47, reveals that she's leaving the magazine after a two-year tenure. "In the last two years, I believe Ms. has been lively, provocative, thoughtful, and a fierce feminist example of advocacy journalism at...

Eight Day Week

Sun, 18 May 2003 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday 14th

We're knee-deep in May, and that means drag queens, your skin going blotchy because of finicky weather, nubile editorial assistants pondering fake 'n' bake (answer: not till June, girls) and, as every schoolboy knows , 396 years ago today, the Brits sailed into Jamestown wearing puffy blouses , hoping they could cadge a place to stay and some free food and booze from naïve Americans. (Some things never...

Eight Day Week

Sun, 04 Mar 2001 19:00:00 -0500

But Sirio-sly, folks Are you one of those annoying, Palm Pilot poking New Yorkers who likes to insist loudly and frequently that you really just want to chuck it all, flee to the country (singing along to Tracy Chapman in your chubby S.U.V.) and become a simple, artisanal goat-cheese farmer? Put up or shut up at tonight's big benefit for the Career Through Culinary Arts Program honoring Le Cirque 2000's Sirio and Egidiana Maccioni....

Husband's Helper Wanted-Must Be Docile and Energetic

Sun, 18 Feb 2001 19:00:00 -0500

A History of the Wife , by Marilyn Yalom. HarperCollins, 441 pages, $30.

Didn't anyone else feel the least bit upset when Gloria Steinem got married? I was shocked by how unshocked everyone was by this news, how insignificant everybody seemed to think it was. It's as if half the population presupposed that the other half was going to take umbrage–and were ready to rear up indignantly, defensively on Ms. Steinem's behalf. But no defense...

Fountain of Youth? No Thanks

Sun, 28 Mar 1999 19:00:00 -0500

Recently, we've had a heavy rainfall of books on the virtues and pleasures, the excitement and opportunity of living after 50. We've seen Gloria Steinem as beautiful as ever, more beautiful perhaps now the wind has made its mark on her willow-in-the-field look. We've seen Erica Jong, still playful, a blend of wit and hope, blue-eyed, smiling from the back of book jackets, inviting us into her private fountain of youth. We've had Letty...

Ally McBeal and Time Magazine Can't Keep the Good Women Down

Sun, 12 Jul 1998 20:00:00 -0400

Whenever Time magazine runs one of its "Is Feminism Dead?" cover stories (there have been no less than 119 articles in the magazine sticking pins in feminism during the last 25 years), you can be sure we are in for a resurgence of feminism-even though the f-word itself may be out of style. It's not just that Time has an infallible knack for missing cultural trends, but also that women get so ticked off...