Those who adhere to a strict "don't speak ill of the recently deceased" protocol will want to sit this one out, because your boy here is gonna unload.
One of the most execrable figures to emerge from the counterculture movement of the 1960s has passed away. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem died on Wednesday at the age of 92.
There is no denying that Steinem was a powerful force in American culture and that her legacy will live on. The perspective on whether any of that is good or bad exists on either side of a very wide ideological divide. The most benign thing that I can say about Steinem is that no one who knows her story is ambivalent about it.
She was, of course, lionized by godless, secular leftists. To them, Steinem embodies all that they perceive to be good about feminism. Abortion ghouls will forever be singing her praises. She is seen as an enduring symbol of feminine empowerment, a woman who inspired others to knock down barriers and shatter glass ceilings. Superwoman Steinem was also the voice of eternal dissatisfaction for women.
Some of the achievements of the women’s movement — greater economic independence, more legal rights and protections, inroads into all levels of virtually every profession, more men sharing domestic responsibilities — may be taken for granted today. But they were unimaginable when the movement began.
And for Ms. Steinem and many others, that struggle never ended.
Women still earn less than men for the same work (81 cents for every dollar made by a man, according to the 2024 census). The Equal Rights Amendment, prohibiting discrimination on account of sex, was belatedly ratified but is still not part of the Constitution. The 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, a central goal of the movement, was overturned in 2022; some states went on to reverse or curtail other hard-won reproductive rights. No woman has been elected president. Anti-female bias remains entrenched.
“I feel proud, and I feel mad as hell,” Ms. Steinem told The Times in 2022. “We are still dealing with the same issues.”
Sure, nothing changed for American women from 1969 to 2022. Perhaps Ms. Steinem wasn't up on current news in 2022, when a woman was the vice president of the United States of America. Or — bear with me here — perhaps seeking out grievances and constant complaining are woven into the fabric of the feminist movement.
Earlier this week, The New York Times published a profile of young conservative women who want to be working moms. The headline of the article said that "The Manosphere Disapproves." The author dug real deep for proof of the disapproval, offering gripping anecdotal evidence like this:
Ms. Begg, a lawyer with five children who often draws on her Catholic faith, has heard some conservatives pushing for a return to rigid gender norms, with women firmly planted at home. One of her sons told her that some of his male high school classmates have openly questioned whether women should be able to vote.
Wow, the gritty journalistic sourcing there is something to behold, isn't it? Hearsay from "some" conservatives and "some" high school boys (who never, EVER joke around about anything). One wonders how many fourth-wave feminists in corporate boardrooms today are being held back by the idle chatter of pubescent boys. It would be nice to reference a Times journalist from yesteryear and say that he or she is rolling in his or her grave over this nonsense, but the ones I'm familiar with from my lifetime were just as bad.
One could make the case — and I frequently have — that feminists have rendered themselves completely irrelevant by not vigorously defending young female athletes and decrying the participation of biological males in girls' and women's sports. After spending decades telling girls that they can be whatever they want to be, feminists are willing to let the dedication and efforts of female athletes be wiped out in a heartbeat by boys who "identify" as girls.
The feminist movement's silence on this issue is a travesty and more of its leaders should be pressed to explain why they're suddenly so quiet.
Relevant: After Not Shutting Up for 50 Years, Feminists Go Mute About Trans 'Females' in Women's Sports
In the end, Gloria Steinem's sick legacy is all about abortion. When I was checking out the reports of her death, one of the first things I saw was a photograph of her with a huge smile while wearing a shirt that said "I Had an Abortion." It's quite a leap from the Dems' old line about supporting abortion that's "safe, legal, and rare" to "Hey, let's get infanticide shirts made!"
Gloria Steinem taught generations of young women to believe that abortion was an accomplishment. That lunacy holds them back more than any man ever will.
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