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Gloria Steinem 'irons out' a few things with Moses Znaimer

"Someone's described you as, you know, a chick with a good sense of the vibrations," says the CBC's Moses Znaimer in this 1968 TV clip. He's interviewing the up-and-coming American feminist writer Gloria Steinem. They're discussing "the new journalism," which Steinem calls "a journalism that's more personal." Throughout the interview, the two move from room to room in her New York apartment. Znaimer even chats with Steinem while she irons a shirt, prompting him to ask, "How many ladies' things do you like doing?"
• Gloria Steinem was born March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio.
• She graduated from Smith College in 1956. After graduation she went to study in India for two years.
• In 1960, she moved to New York to embark on a journalism career.

• The article that first brought Steinem fame was a 1963 exposé called "A Bunny's Tale: Show's First Exposé for Intelligent People" published in Show magazine. Steinem had gone undercover to expose the sexist treatment toward women working at the Playboy clubs. As a 1985 People Weekly article recalls: "In New York's Playboy Club, Steinem learned how to walk with a wiggle and 'give those boys a treat,' how to pad her bust with socks (and a reporter's notebook) and how to put up with pig squeals that passed for jokes from customers."

• In 1971, Steinem helped found the National Women's Political Caucus, a group dedicated to encouraging female participation in politics.
• Later that same year, Steinem became one of the founders of Ms., a feminist magazine. Ms. was first launched as an insert in New York Magazine in December 1971. Its first regular issue was available on newsstands in July 1972. By 1977, Ms. had a circulation of 500,000. Ms. is still being published today (2006), with Steinem on board as "consulting editor."

• Steinem is famous for a number of witty, memorable quotes, including:
-"A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle."
-"I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career."
-"We are becoming the men we wanted to marry."
-"What has the women's movement learned from [Geraldine Ferraro's] candidacy for vice president? Never get married."

• In 2000, Steinem got married at the age of 66 to David Bale, a South African-born entrepreneur and environmentalist (and father of actor Christian Bale). Many people were outraged, considering some of her previous comments about marriage. In a 2005 article in England's The Guardian, she said she was surprised at that reaction: "No one saw how much marriage has changed since the 60s, when I would have had to give up most of my civil rights."
• Bale died of brain lymphoma in 2003.

• The same 2005 Guardian article commented on Steinem's famous good looks, which the article said were still intact after all these years: "Steinem at 70 looks very much like Steinem at 35: same long hair, same leather trousers, same oversized sunglasses, which she wears throughout the interview... She is still movie-star glamorous, a fact that has confused people who like their feminists in dungarees."

• Moses Znaimer began his broadcasting career at the CBC in the 1960s. In addition to his work on The Way It Is (shown in this clip), he was also one of the creators of CBC radio's Cross Country Checkup and co-hosted TV's Take 30.
• After leaving CBC in the late 1960s, he co-founded Toronto's Citytv in 1972, a channel best known for its revolutionary unconventional broadcasting style. In 1984, he created Canada's highly popular 24-hour music TV station, MuchMusic.

• According to the American Heritage Dictionary, new journalism is "characterized by the reporter's subjective interpretations and often features fictional dramatized elements to emphasize personal involvement." It was popularized in the 1960s and 70s by writers like Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese.
• In a 2005 article in See magazine, Znaimer said new journalism actually helped to shape his vision for Citytv. "Absolutely, I was influenced by new journalism," he says. "It was transforming reporting about the time that I was plotting Citytv."

• Znaimer left Citytv (and its owner, CHUM Ltd.) in 2003.
• He began working with the CBC again to produce a TV comedy series called Rumours, launching on CBC in the fall of 2006.
Medium: Television
Program: The Way It Is
Broadcast Date: Nov. 24, 1968
Guest(s): Gloria Steinem
Interviewer: Moses Znaimer
Duration: 8:09

Last updated: March 15, 2013

Page consulted on March 25, 2013

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