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Gloria Steinem lived to see a powerful backlash against her vision of feminism (apnews.com)
submitted 23 hours ago by Wren@lemmy.today to c/wildfeed@sh.itjust.works
13 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

It was the fight for abortion rights that launched Gloria Steinem into feminism.

The idea that women couldn’t reach equality without the ability to decide whether or when to have children was central to the feminist movement of the late 1960s, which Steinem came to embody until her death at age 92 on Wednesday.

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[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 5 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

A few things I think about are:

a) what are the economic conditions which allowed for the liberation of women from child rearing and (to a lesser extent) domestic duties? what happens if those conditions are reversed? and is that what is currently driving the regression of rights?

and

Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said progressive proposals — such as expanded and longer paid family leave and better access to affordable child care — are in fact about championing families and making childrearing easier without pushing women to abandon careers and financial independence.

b) would enough women, raised to see motherhood as one of many options, choose to have children at replacement rates? Because the stats are looking like there is no amount of government support that makes enough women willing to put with with the demands of child birth and child rearing to sustain populations. We should absolutely provide those supports, but there's an idea that with enough support, we can have sustainable birth rates, and I don't think that is correct. So maybe the policy discussion should switch to how do deal with a declining population instead of trying to dragoon women into breeding.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Because the stats are looking like there is no amount of government support that makes enough women willing to put with with the demands of child birth and child rearing to sustain populations.

What stats? No govt is currently providing enough support to make being a parent not an economic burden, so we have no stats on whether that would actually work.

[–] Feyd@programming.dev 6 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Because the stats are looking like there is no amount of government support

This oversimplifies and lacks vision.

  1. There are more reasons than just government support that determine whether people want kids, such as "holy fuck look at the way the world is going, do I want you bring children into that?"
  2. Government support is not a substitute for the economic conditions that cause a lot of people to choose not to have children. Right now people that 2 generations ago would have assumed a retirement with a nice pension was in the way are assuming they'll never get to retire even without adding the cost of kids. You think free daycare or whatever is going to fix that? If the powers that be want people to have kids, people need economic breathing room.
[–] velma@sh.itjust.works -1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

While the government should be supporting families more and economic conditions do impact people's decision to have children, there is more and more evidence coming through that shows the driving force of the falling birth rate is women having control over when and how many children they have. Access to birth control, abortions, and family planning have had a huge impact.

Edit:

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a historic low U.S. birth rate of 1.6 children per woman in 2024, much of the decline, said McConnell, comes from teenagers and young women delaying childbearing.

“The population where the birth rate has been declining most rapidly is actually women 15 to 20 years old,” McConnell said. With better access to contraception and sex education, she explained, teen pregnancies have fallen dramatically—a trend Tiemeier called “a big societal success.”

McConnell also cautioned that the fertility rate, measured year by year, can obscure the bigger picture: completed family size over a woman’s lifetime has not fallen nearly as sharply. “If you look at numbers…that give you a sense of how many babies women have over their lifetimes—women between 40 and 44—the number of children they’ve had is actually not changing as much over time as the fertility rate,” suggesting that the supposed crisis reflects demographic shifts rather than collapse.

One of many sources saying the same thing.

[–] WraithGear@lemmy.world 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

what are replenishment rates? it depends on who you ask, and for what. the world can not sustain our current levels of population without massive changes in how we live, but at the same time others argue that to maintain our current way of life, we must match the amount of children to keep the current levels… but also to care for the current amount of people, replenishment rates force a forever growth!!

ultimately any argument for reaching certain amount of replenishment is by definition short sighted. anecdotally these arguments have only been made by people who only care about their comfort at the cost of the future.

the real answer is that the current way of life was never capable of sustainment, and as such there is no need to push for replenishment. we should be incentivizing fewer children. best way i see to do that is to keep the populous highly educated and free from the fear of not being able to provide an idealized life and free medical care. I believe Societies who obtain these qualities find slower or reversed population growth with out draconian measures, or relying on war and famine to cull the weak

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Gloria Steinem was a CIA plant to blame the ills of Capitalism entirely on the patriarchy. I mean, sure, blame the patriarchy, but name a tool it loves better than Capitalism today, or a more useful tool for keeping everyone down.

Apparently, its not feminism if an issue isn't exclusive to women. White lady wrote a book about it, so she would know, right?

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

As any good socialist knows, the patriarchy is a tool of capitalism. DUH

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 12 hours ago

So attacking the tool alone accomplishes . . . what, exactly? You just accused patriarchy of being nothing more than another distraction thrown-into the pits with the lions and gladiators.

Does that mean we get to keep a little patriarchy, as a treat, when the bread and wine and circusses are truly free?

I'm totally in favor of consigning both to roleplay behind closed doors, between consenting-adults, but I'm not here to point at a doll and pretend "feminism hurt me there". Can't say the same about patriarchy or capitalism, and pretending they weren't both in the room isn't going to help anyone.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 1 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Do you have sources that she was both a CIA plant and that she blamed the problems of capitalism on the patriarchy?

I've read that she was an anti-communist, but was primarily against the soviet union, which had become synonymous with communism for a time. I'd like to think someone as educated as her would have a broader picture, but that seemed like one of her blind spots.

The idea that she was a "plant" is so far out of left field I hope to see something to back it up.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

She was a CIA operative long before becoming a feminist icon, and this isn't even mildly obscure knowlege. You think the MOVE Bombing, the labelling of the Black Panthers as gang-bangers and terrorists, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and Steinem's rise to feminist "icon" around the time all those movements were approaching a concensus against Capitalism was a coincidence?

Idk friend, what did she blame the ills of Capitalism on? Did she even achnowlege them, or just parot CIA/Capitalist talking-points?

https://hrnews1.substack.com/p/feminist-icon-gloria-steinem-was

She called the CIA “liberal, nonviolent and honorable”. After the Iranian Revolution mind-you, although before Noriega, Pinochet and so-much else came to light, except, she never criticized the CIA for any of it, not even on her dying-day.

https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/05/01/black-feminism-the-cia-and-gloria-steinem/

Divided feminism and turned it into yet-another tool to lock-up black men. It walked like a duck and quacked like one.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 2 points 11 hours ago

Working for the CIA and being a "plant" are two entirely different things. I never doubted she worked for the CIA, as you said, that's public knowledge. Again, I'm not condoning those actions.

I asked where she blamed the problems of capitalism on the patriarchy.