i went looking for this online as soon as i heard she’d died, and could not find it anywhere. i don’t know whether that’s because the corporations have destroyed internet searching or because people were reluctant to post it while steinem was alive, but i figured i’d just solve the problem myself, since my copy of Redstockings’ book Feminist Revolution has the insert version of the chapter their publisher deleted from the Random House edition.
so: here it is. the original 1975 write-up, with documentary sources included, on gloria steinem’s long and close relationship with the CIA.
it’s a hellova ride! i recommend reading all of it!
steinem is also very important to keep in mind as a very central example both of what recent and contemporary enemy feminisms can look like and of how well-protected enemy feminists who present themselves as tolerable liberals or moderate leftists often are by people whose fundamental political commitments are in direct contradiction to those enemy feminists’ work and ideological anchorings.
that plays out in all kinds of ways, but one thing that steinem is not usually given appropriate credit for her role in is the transformation of the u.s. feminist movement from basically supportive of palestinian liberation (through the early- to mid-1970s) to largely captured by a zionist framework and the transparently useless fantasy of partition (a/k/a the “two-state solution [sic]”). her magazine, Ms.1, was at the forefront of pushing a zionist line before and during the 1982 israeli invasion of lebanon (and the sabra & shatila massacre), as well as with increased energy afterwards.
steinem’s co-editor letty cottin pogrebin took the lead, writing some memorably racist pieces while cultivating astroturf support for the u.s./israeli intervention at the 1985 UN women’s conference in nairobi, to prevent a renewal of the feminist resolution explicitly opposing zionist colonialism and south african apartheid (acting in parallel to the Heritage Foundation, among others). but she had the backing of the rest of the magazine’s editors, with steinem the most important voice among them.
- incidentally, the honorific “Ms” is not an abbreviation, and does not need a period following it – Ms. magazine’s use of one is likely key to why that is still confusing for people. never trust a liberal project that uses a term or phrasing that comes from justice movements improperly in high-profile writing. it shows that they don’t understand what’s behind it and are already actively refusing to learn. ↩︎