The Feminist Queries: Gloria Feldt

by Jen Nedeau

categories: Interviews, The Feminist Queries

Published September 08, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT

For this Feminist Query, we are very lucky to have Gloria Feldt, a leading women's activist and best selling author of Send Yourself Roses (co-authored with Katheen turner) and The War on Choice.

Gloria is the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she's an expert on women's lives and health from where the personal meets the political. Her commentary has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, The Daily Beast, Elle, and numerous others. She serves on the Women's Media Center board. She's a public speaker for universities, women's groups, and professional groups on these topics, and loves touring with the WomenGirlsLadies inter-generational feminist panel. She's currently writing a book about women's relationship with power to be published by Seal in Fall, 2010 and she wants to know the story of when you knew you had the power to (fill in the blank). You can e-mail your story to gloria@gloriafeldt.com  or tweet @heartfeldt.

Onward to our interview...

When I met you at Netroots Nation this year, you shared with me a sense of urgency to get things done and take action. What are the major action items in the women's rights movement you think we should address immediately?

This is an amazing moment for women to get full equality of opportunity and influence at last--if we see our moment and seize it. Today's economy moves on brains, not brawn; American women make up more than half of university students, including half of budding lawyers, doctors, journalists, and even some denominations' clergy; marketers know women control over 80% of expenditures; and ironically the recession has pushed personal relationships to become more egalitarian because more men than women are losing jobs and more women than ever are the primary or equal breadwinners in the family. In politics, the public basically trusts women more since they have seen how men have screwed up everything from the economy to their marriages.

But women have historically been at these moments and stepped back ourselves from getting to the parity and social justice we deserve. That's my sense of urgency. I think women need to band together to address such issues as getting universal health care, passing the Equal rights Amendment, CEDAW, Freedom of Choice Act, and Prevention First Act. I also think that in the workplace, women should enlist men and together they can change things so both can have a life, including responsible parenting, and earn a living.

You might be interested in this article I wrote that unpacks more of the political agenda and how to get there here.

In an interview with Samantha Ettus you mentioned that all young girls go through the "jelly woman phase" - can you explain to Change.org readers what that means?

When I was 15, I wanted more than anything to please my 19 year-old boyfriend. I was willing to mold my body and my behavior to fit what he and others in my social circle wanted me to be. I still see that phenomenon in girls today once they hit puberty. The self-assured 10-year-old becomes the 13-year-old jelly woman who gets her affirmations from her friends rather than from her own core convictions, needs, and wants. Giving sexual gratification without getting it in return is one frequently cited example, but I think girls are still raised with much less sense of their own intention in life than boys are about choosing careers and civic leadership aspirations as well.

How can we get more young women and young men to embrace feminism?

If you don't worry about terminology, it turns out that they have embraced feminism for the most part. By that I mean, they live their lives believing women can do whatever they want to do with their lives. Feminism to me is simply about social justice, and I think young men and women today tend to value diversity more than previous generations and they've grown up in a world without "help wanted female/help wanted male" ads or other such overt discrimination. But they don't know the history of the struggles to get here, so they don't know why there we need to have a continuing feminist movement to counter remaining injustices and advance an agenda to expand on the past victories. One solution would be to integrate women's history much more fully into general history courses throughout the school years. And then we need to teach each new generation about the power of joining together in a movement to accomplish great things.

During your time as CEO of Planned Parenthood, what was the greatest accomplishment for you there? What was the biggest challenge?

I set forth to do two things. First to change the mindset about advocacy from defensive to proactive, which I did by creating an ambitious legislative agenda. Even though we were faced with the Gingrich-led congress, when we, for example, worked to get contraceptives covered by insurance plans, we made the anti-choice folks fight on our terms--and sometimes we even won, such as when we got contraceptive coverage for Federal employees, also passed in about 25 states, and by suing some of the big self-insured companies. As a result contraceptive coverage is routine in most plans now. Second, I changed services to our affiliates across the country so that they had top notch consultants available to help them improve their services. As a result of that, after years of no growth in patients served, we were able to increase the patients served every year. Once we had turned those basics around, the whole organization worked together to create a bold new 25 year vision. Oh yes, and then there was the March for Women's Lives, the largest protest march on Washington in the nation's history in 2004 :-) It gave many young people the chance to participate in that power of being in a movement that I mentioned above. I guess we did quite a lot, come to think of it.

The biggest challenge was keeping the movement moving, courageous, and willing to have a big vision in spite of George Bush, attacks on clinics, and other challenges.

According to your website GloriaFeldt.com, you have six children, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. How do you teach them to be conscious of social justice and understand feminism early on? What tips do you have for parents out there trying to share those values?

Breaking news--now there are three great grands! (This is a blended family--my husband had three and I had three when we met.) Children learn most by observing. I don't recall consciously teaching them about these things, but they did participate with me in my work when they were young. And politics was a regular dinner table conversation. Amazingly we're all on same political wavelength.

Finally, if you could ask women everywhere one question, what would it be?

I'm writing a book about women's relationship with power, so I am obsessed with that topic. I want to know from every woman: What were the defining moments in your life when you knew you could (fill in the blank)? To anyone reading this, I invite you to send me your story.