女权运动

美国女权运动先驱斯泰娜As a little girl growing up in a poor Ohio neighborhood in the 1940's, Gloria Steinem dreamed of becoming a movie star or a dancer. In college, she studied journalism, and when she saw that reporter jobs seemed to go to men, she became a freelance writer. In her thirties, she helped start a social revolution.

There was little gender equality in the early 1960's, when Steinem wrote the article that brought her national attention. To research " Bunny's T ale" Steinem worked for 3 weeks as a Playboy Bunny - a scantily clad waitress in a men's club.

"I learned what it's like to be hung on a meat hook. That's the emotional experience of walking around in a costume that's so tight it would give a man cleavage," she says, recalling the experience. "It makes your thighs cold from lack of circulation and meanwhile you're carrying heavy trays, and you're getting paid two pennies, and you have to rent the costume. It's a humiliating experience, but it's a way of making a living."

Gloria Steinem continued making her living as a journalist, covering political campaigns and peace rallies, and becoming politically active herself. She championed women's causes like legal abortion and increased representation in public office, and became one of the leaders of the new feminist movement.

Over the past three decades, that movement has made great strides in changing laws and expectations. However, Steinem says, there's still a long way to go to reach full equality between men and women.

"For instance, we have convinced ourselves that women can do what men can do. But we haven't yet convinced ourselves, and therefore the rest of the country, that men can do what women can do," she says. "Therefore, women still have two jobs. You cook three meals a day, you have several perfect children, you run the house, you dress for success. And that was the source of 'Superwoman,' but of course, it's not possible to do two full-time jobs."

Since the early 1970's, Gloria Steinem's full-time job has been promoting what became known as Women's Liberation. She helped found the flagship publication of the feminist movement, Ms. Magazine, and several women's political organizations, including the National Women's Political Caucus, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, and Women Against Pornography. And, she continued to write. In The Revolution From Within, Steinem discussed low self-esteem is a problem for most women, including herself.

"I'd been wandering around the country and other countries for 20 years or more seeing women who were smart or courageous or wonderful, and who compared themselves to perfection instead of the real, who started their sentences with, 'It's probably only me, but…' And it broke my heart really," she says. "So I started writing for other people, and only later I realized that it was for me too."

For more than 40 years, Gloria Steinem has worked to help women seize

control of their lives - economically, socially, sexually and politically. What she wants, she says, is more than just reform.

"This is no simple reform, it really is a revolution. Sex and race, because they are easy visible differences, have been the primarily ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labor, on which the system still depends," she says. "We're talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We're talking about humanism."

In recognition of her efforts, Gloria Steinem was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. Now in her 70s [born March 25, 1934], Steinem refuses to slow down. As a speaker, writer and leader, she continues to advocate the cause of equal opportunity for women around the world. She says the feminist movement is not about men and women trading places, but rather men and women moving ahead together.

格洛丽亚.斯泰娜姆20世纪40年代在俄亥俄州一个贫穷的社区长大，她小的时候曾梦想成为电影明星或是舞蹈家。在大学里她学习新闻专业，当她看到记者这一行业大都雇用男性时，她就成了一名自由撰稿人。她在30多岁的时候帮助发起了一场社会革命。

在20世纪60年代初，几乎不存在性别平等，当时斯泰娜姆写了一篇引起全国关注的文章。为了撰写《兔子的故事》，斯泰娜姆做了三个星期的兔女郎，也就是在男性俱乐部里穿着裸露的女招待。

斯泰娜姆说：“我感觉就象就被挂在卖肉的钩子上被人出售一样，这是一段很难受的经历。穿着裸露的、就连男人穿上都会显出乳房的紧身衣走来走去。由于缺少血液循环，大腿很冷。同时，你还得托着沉重的盘子，你只能赚到两美分，还不得不租服装。这是令人感到屈辱的经历，不过这也是一种谋生的方式。”

格洛丽亚.斯泰纳姆继续以新闻报导为生，她报导政治活动及和平集会，她本人也成为了一名政治活动人士。她带头支持合法堕胎、支持增加在政府部门的女性代表等妇女平等的事业，并成为新女权运动的领袖之一。

在过去的30多年里，这一运动在改变法律和人们的理念方面取得了很大的进步。不过，斯泰纳姆说，要达到男女完全平等还有很长的路要走。

“比如说，我们已经确信女性可以做男性所能做的事情。可是在美国的其它地区，我们还不确信男性可以做女性所能做的事情。因此女性还要身兼两职。你一天要做三顿饭，你还有几个完美的孩子，你要管家，还要穿戴打扮，以便在事业上取得成功。…超级女性?就是这么来的。不过当然，不可能同时做两份全职工作。”

自从20世纪70年代初以来，格洛丽亚.斯泰纳姆的全职工作就是推动广为人知的妇女解放运动。她帮助创立了女权运动的旗舰出版物《女士杂志》，并创立了好几个妇女政治组织，其中包括全国妇女政治核心小组、工会妇女联盟和反色情妇女组织。同时她还继续撰写文章，在《内部革命》一文中，斯泰纳姆论述了缺乏自尊是包括她自己在内的大多数女性普遍存在的一个问题。

“我在美国各地及其它国家游历了20多年，见到很多聪明、勇敢或出色的女性，她们力争完美，而不切实际。她们以这句话开头，…可能只有我这么想，不过……?这句话令我心碎。所以我开始为别人撰写文章，到了后来我才意识到这也是为了我自己。”

40多年来，格洛丽亚.斯泰纳姆一直致力于帮助女性在经济上、社会上、在性方面和在政治上掌握自己的生活。她说她想要的不仅仅只是改革。

“这不只是简单的改革，这其实是一场革命。性别和种族革命，因为这两方面很容易看

到差别。这两方面是把人类划分为高等和低等群体、把人类组成廉价劳动力的主要方式。而目前的制度就依赖于这种廉价劳动力。我们所提倡的是一个没有廉价劳动力的社会，只有选择和凭自己的能力争取到的角色。我们所说的是人道主义。”

为了表彰她的贡献，格洛丽亚.斯泰纳姆1993年被选入全国女性名人堂。现在她已经70多岁了，仍在积极努力。作为一名讲演者、撰稿人和领袖，她继续推动全世界女性获得平等机会这项事业。她说女权主义运动并不是要男女交换位置而是要男女共同进步。