Gloria Steinem Called For ‘Work Divided Equally At Home’ In Chat With Hillary Clinton
Topline
Women’s activist Gloria Steinem called on men to take a more active role in child rearing and domestic labor as she praised the Forbes 30/50 Summit in 2023, a multi-day leadership event for women, as a launch pad for women realizing their full potential in the work force.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, left, and Gloria Steinem at the Forbes 30/50 Summit International Women’s Day Awards Gala on March 8, 2023 in Abu Dhabi.
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Key Facts
Steinem, who died Wednesday at the age of 92, was a speaker at the Summit in 2023 and spoke on a panel moderated by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about fathers taking an active role in raising children.
Clinton asked the feminist icon about the challenges women continue to face both in the workforce and inside the home, and she framed active parenting by fathers as essential to resolving core societal and economic imbalances.
Steinem said that until men take on an equal responsibility at home, “children will grow up not thinking that men can be as loving and patient as women can, and that women can be as active and achieving in the world outside the home.”
HERE’S WHAT GLORIA STEINEM SAID ABOUT EQUALITY AT FORBES’ 30/50 SUMMIT
CLINTON: “Gloria, you have been pointing out for decades that while women can and do work fulltime in the paid labor force, it is still often expected they continue to work fulltime in the unpaid labor force. And, as you look at where we are and think about what now needs to happen to move this agenda forward, what are you hoping to convey to this audience and everybody watching?”
STEINEM: “”How long do we have? Well I’m glad we started out with the whole concept of work because in fact, until work is divided equally at home, that is until men are, fathers are raising infants and little children as much as women are, then men maybe won’t be able to develop their full nurturing, patient selves, which of course they are and they have, and children will grow up not thinking men can be as loving and patient as women can, and that women can be as active and achieving in the world outside the home. So, I’m so thankful for this conference. I mean, on spaceship Earth. And I hope that we raise our sights and we meet each other and we continue this conference wherever we are, right? I mean, this can be a revolutionary cell right here, so thank you to all who created it.”
NEWS PEG
Steinem died at her home in New York City on Wednesday, her foundation announced Thursday morning. The statement said she was surrounded by “some of the many who loved her” and praised her for living “true to her independent spirit, always with curiosity and a great sense of humor.”
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“Gloria Steinem pushed open doors not just for herself, but fr literally millions of women behind her,” Clinton said in a statement Thursday. “Gloria was, at heart, an optimist. Her activism was rooted in optimism, and that’s a moral choice she made every day. I want her voice to remain in our heads. It’s wonderful to do what you can do to further your own future, to get the best education you can, and to pursue your dreams. But it’s even better to bring other people along with you.”
Key background
Steinem was a pioneering American feminist and social activist who became a leading voice of the women’s liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. She campaigned for reproductive rights, equal pay and the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, and consistently fought to dismantle traditional gender roles by advocating for equal political, economic and domestic partnerships between men and women. She emphasized in her work that when fathers take equal responsibility for raising children, women are no longer saddled with two full-time jobs—one in the workplace and another unpaid job at home. She often blamed rigid gender roles as the root normalizer of gender-based violence, including child abuse and domestic abuse, and often argued men who were directly involved in the day-to-day work of raising children positively contributed to reproductive autonomy.
TANGENT
Steinem’s advocacy on fathers “stepping up” was deeply informed by her own childhood. Her father was an often-absent traveling antique salesman who struggled to support the family financially. Her parents separated when she was 10 and Steinem became her mother’s primary caregiver.
