Gloria Steinem

Gloria Marie Steinem ( born March 25, 1934 in Toledo, Ohio) is an American feminist, journalist and women 's rights activist. She is the founder and editor of the American feminist magazine "Ms. ".

Life

Early years

Gloria Steinem was born in Toledo ( Ohio). Her mother, Ruth Nuneviller, had German ancestors. Her father, Leo Steinem, was the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany and Poland. He worked as a traveling antiques dealer and was accompanied by his family. The parents split up 1945. 's Father went to California to find work. Meanwhile, Gloria stayed with her mother and her sister Susanne in Toledo. Even as a child she provided her sick mother and contributed to the family income at.

Steinem paternal grandmother, Pauline Perlmutter Steinem, was a suffragette and was elected as the first woman in Ohio in a training committee. Gloria Steinem learned from the achievements of their grandmother not from her family, but from a monograph that had written a feminist historian Pauline Perlmutter Steinem about. Steinem later wrote that feminism had rediscovered her grandmother for her.

Steinem attended Waite High School in Toledo, and finally graduated from Western High School in Washington, DC. During the school year she teamed up with four friends in a Chi Alpha Tau baptized group together, the girls promised each other good school performance and commitment in other working groups / clubs in high school. The Sisterhood won the interest of other girls. Steinem also attended ballet classes among others. She had excellent school records and competed at various prestigious colleges. Thanks to its good results in English (SAT 675 of 800 possible points ) and the previously announced approval of her sister, she attended Smith College, one of the most famous woman in colleges in the United States. Steinem was afraid there not to be recognized because of there encountered students from some extremely wealthy families. The opposite was the case, Steinem was highly regarded as a gifted and dedicated student. She chose the fraternity Zeta Beta Psi. Steinem had once noted jokingly that she would like to work undercover as a Playboy Bunny to infiltrate the Hefner empire. Your environment, it dared to her and she put the intent to. In 1963 she worked as a Playboy Bunny at the New York Playboy Club. The experiences of the published articles there A Bunny 's Tale was groundbreaking and made it immediately famous. In the 1985 TV movie turned to Steinem was played by Kirstie Alley.

Political Activities

After a series of interviews with celebrities, Steinem received the political mandate to support the presidential candidacy George McGovern. In 1962, she published a year before Betty Friedan's book " The Feminine Mystique " ("The Feminine Mystique or the mystification of women" dt ) are an article in Esquire magazine, in which she describes the pressure at which women between career and marriage to decide. She was editor of the magazine New York in 1968. She was active in the feminist movement, and the media tried to stylize a kind of feminist leader.

Steinem brought other significant feminists in the front rows, and went with the lawyer Florynce Kennedy through the country. In 1971 she co-founded the National Women 's Political Caucus, and the Women's Action Alliance. In 1972, she picked up the feminist magazine "Ms. " from the baptism and wrote for the magazine until its sale in 1978. Steinem In 1991, the magazine Choice USA, which was transferred to the Feminist Majority Foundation in 2001. However, Steinem remains as one of the six founding editors in the imprint and works in the Board of Directors. Contrary to popular belief, Steinem has not influenced the feminist slogan "A woman needs a man so much as a fish a bicycle. " Gloria Steinem co-founded the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and took in 1977 at the " National Conference of Women " in Houston in part. As the magazine "Ms. " was revived in 1991, it was an advisory editor. She was inducted into the American National Women 's Hall of Fame in 1993.

1998 Steinem was asked in a newspaper interview on the impeachment of Bill Clinton, whether Clinton should be impeached for perjury, and was reported as saying, " Clinton should be condemned in the Paula Jones hearing for perjury regarding Lewinsky; perhaps also because of the stupidity to answer at all. "

More life

In the 1980s and 1990s, Gloria Steinem had to deal with some personal tragedies, especially with the fact that her breast cancer in 1986 and 1994 were diagnosed trigeminal neuralgia. In two television reports of the American magazine Frontline and in the magazine "Ms. " is Steinem turned against the abuse of children by staff in day care (see, for example, the case McMartin ).

On September 3, 2000, she married, at the age of 66 years, David Bale, father of actor Christian Bale. The wedding took place at her friend Wilma Mankiller, the first female chief of a tribe of Cherokee Indians. The marriage lasted only three years, as David Bale died of brain lymphoma on December 30, 2003 at the age of 62 years.

2005 Gloria Steinem appeared in the documentary " I had an abortion" (Eng. " I had an abortion " ) by Jennifer Baumgardner and Gillian Aldrich on. There she describes the abortion she had as a young woman in London, where she lived for a short time before her studies in India.

Steinem was also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America ( Social Democrats ) and a member of the advisory board of the organization " Women's Voices. Women Vote ".

The Canadian songwriter David Usher processed in his song " Love Will Save The Day " recordings of speeches by Gloria Steinem. The beginning of the song is her saying is: " It really is a revolution " ( "It's really a revolution "). The song ends with the quote: "We are talking about a society in Which there will be no roles other than Those chosen or Those earned; . we are really talking about humanism " ( " We are talking about a society in which no other roles will exist than that which one has chosen or earned,. , we talk seriously about humanity " ) This quote is also in the credits of the film "V for Vendetta" use.

Awards (selection)

• Penney - Missouri Journalism Award
• Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists
• Society of Writers Award from the United Nations
• 2006: The Ridenhour Courage Prize
• 2012: Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association
• 2013: Presidential Medal of Freedom

Works

• "What does that already emancipated. My search for a new feminism "; Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1995; ISBN 3-426-65094-0 (orig. "revolution from within " - 1992).
• " Unheard of. Reports from Ms. ' "; Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1984; ISBN 3-499-15368-8 (orig. " Outrageous acts and everyday rebellions " - 1983).