By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
Greeted by a standing ovation from over 650 Jewish women, Gloria Steinem, feminist icon and co-founder of Ms. Magazine, turned a large meeting room at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel and Towers into a community-wide celebration when she spoke at Connections 2003, Mosaic of a Woman – Celebrating All That We Are on Sunday, Feb. 2.
“This event brought women into the fold who have never come to a Federation event before,” said Alise Tarica, co-chair of Connections 2003. “They walked away meeting other dedicated women and feeling a sense of community. Also, Gloria Steinem was so impressive. It was an honor to be able to bring her to Connections.”
Now in its 11th year, the annual Connections event is organized the by the Women’s Division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, and is also the largest gathering of Jewish women in the Greater Seattle Area.
In the past, Women’s Division has raised nearly one-third of the Federation’s annual campaign total, and Connections is the Women’s Division’s largest event. Connections 2003 exceeded its attendance records from previous years and hopes to increase its contribution to the Federation’s Community Campaign fundraising total.
Rabbi Laurie Rice delivered the D’var Torah and Patty Lazarus introduced Steinem.
“Gloria is one of those people that has strong universal appeal, and we wanted to draw women from a broad demographic,” said Naomi Weiss, co-chair of Connections 2003. “She talked a lot about human rights. She’s a real humanitarian and she has a really deep interest in people.”
Steinem touched the hearts and minds of women during the expansion of the feminist movement in the 1970s, crossing economic, racial and generational barriers with messages of economic equality and health and safety issues for women.
Her words resonated with those in attendance as she articulated the ongoing struggle for reproductive rights, equal pay for equal work and the need for both men and women to have access to universal child care.
“We haven’t even yet achieved equal pay or comparable worth,” she said, “much less having begun to do what we need to do, which is to redefine work itself and stop this system that still allows us to believe that raising humans and nurturing a family is not work.”
Steinem said that even though some laws have been changed, there has not been a change in the structure by which money and power is distributed. She recommended looking at the way we use our resources both personally and in our communities.
“To what we attribute our money is the most real statement of our values,” said Steinem. “I’m very, very grateful to be a part of this Federation fundraising effort that seems to be a very interesting model for what the taxation system of the Unites States should look like in it’s priorities. Someday, maybe our federal budget will more closely resemble what the Federation has been doing. And, I hope that when you raise the bar for contributions to the Federation it means that women have equal say so in where those contributions go.”
Steinem spoke at length about gender roles and, in particular, the male need to earn his masculinity. It is this aggressive imperative, she said, that leads directly to the violence perpetrated on the most vulnerable in society, women and children.
“I want to emphasize how gender roles are the source of violence and how women are living in fear everyday about what might happen to us,” Steinem noted. “Most violence is committed on women and children statistically. The idea of masculine control and dominance, the idea of earning manhood is the primary way in which violence is normalized.”
Using the example of the Sept. 11 terrorists, Steinem described the life of ringleader Mohamed Atta, a man who was rejected by his father for being less intelligent than his sisters. This, Steinem said, was the genesis of his madness.
“He became a man who went to study in Germany and was so obsessed with trying to earn masculinity that he wouldn’t shake hands with a woman and he wouldn’t accept his diploma from a woman,” Steinem said. “He left a will saying that no woman may touch his body or should be allowed to come to his funeral. He was obsessed with the concept of masculinity.”
Transitioning from gender roles to the politics of reproductive rights, Steinem reported, on a somewhat sad note, the loss of major ground on abortion rights.
“Mostly, we’ve lost it,” she said. “The rest of it will be lost with a Supreme Court appointment that is probably upon us.”
Although Steinem’s visit to Seattle was brief, it was not without controversy. Steinem signed a petition that ran as a full-page advertisement in the Seattle Times on Dec. 29. Paid for by an anti-war organization called Not In Our Name, the text of the ad contained two statements referring to the group’s support of Palestine “where Israeli tanks and bulldozers have left a terrible trail of death and destruction,” and a reference to courageous Israeli reservists who “at great personal risk, declare there is a limit and refuse to serve in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.”
Steinem did not address the question of her signing this petition directly with the Transcript, but told event co-chairs that she felt she was signing a petition for peace and against going to war with Iraq, and that she was unaware about the inclusion of comments negative to Israel. The event organizers were aware of the document.
“We researched and discussed it,” said Weiss, speaking on behalf of the Federation’s decision to have Steinem speak. “We felt she would make a wonderful speaker. We knew she signed the ad but our desire was to have a speaker on women’s issues. We had an agreement that she would speak on one subject only.”
Tarica echoed the unanimous decision of the Federation and event organizers.
“We thought long and hard about Ms. Steinem’s political views,” said Tarica, “but at the end of the day, we decided that bringing the most renowned feminist icon of our times to Connections was the right thing to do.”