Gloria Steinem's Real Legacy for Women

0:00Welcome to the Carey Appet Show, your place for news, views and values you can trust, and relationship insights you need. Now here's Carey Appet! And another great day to be together. I trust you were doing well. The show that I did yesterday was a challenging one for me. It was on the Lindsey Clancy trial and that whole story, the tragedy, that is that story and the mistrial and all the other things that went with it. If you did not hear that, I'm going to encourage you to tune in and listen to that because it is one of the bigger stories. But part of my agenda in having you tune into that show is to pay attention to the nuances of the male-female debate and the views of women in that situation, the views of men in that situation are quite different, which makes sense on one hand, right?

1:03And a lot of men are relating to the husband and the father who lost his three children. And we need grace upon grace for people who are struggling. That's absolutely the case, but we also need justice. So I would encourage you to tune in and I'm going to, I'm jumping off of that today because the attitudes of women in today's culture have been shaped and formed and influenced by a couple different worldviews. And if you have a biblical worldview, you see femininity as a good, you see masculinity as a good, you see male and female as God's divine design. And of course, on this show and in our work at the Legacy Institute, we want to encourage you to live in agreement with your divine design because we believe God did not make mistakes. He made image bearers, those who would lean into their design and understand that God made me a certain way, but I have gifts and talents and I can be like him and I can be creative and I can use those talents.

2:05And eventually, of course, we're called to become like his son, Jesus Christ. And when we do that, the world flourishes. Well, there was a person who had great influence in the views of women in the secular world. And I would say those without a biblical worldview, those trying to figure out how to be a woman successfully in a world that often mistreats women. There's no question about that. And so Gloria Steinem is her name and she has recently passed away and there are a lot of people who pass away and I mentioned them and I mentioned people's views of them. Dolly Parton was the last one. Interestingly, I would say 99.9% of the world had nothing but positive to say about her. And that didn't mean that she was perfect. It meant that's how people viewed her. That's how they responded to her weirdly. And this rarely happens. We got a negative response for me commenting on the positive nature of her legacy. I found that interesting, actually, not super gracious, not something that we're used

3:10to doing, getting at our, at the Legacy Institute or those of us who manage this show because it was just a couple positive statements. It's made me wonder, actually, about the person who sent it and I thought that's really sad. If you have a legacy where people appreciate you, that's just the reality of what that is and her internal working is between her and the Lord and her faith, which was very clear to her, she practiced it as she felt best to do. She had a very strong influence in country music, right? Well, Gloria Steinem had a very strong influence in feminism. And in fact, she wasn't just among one of the feminists. For many people, she was the it girl. She actually normalized feminism and she made it broadly more attractive. A couple great articles, one at the Daily Wire from Carrie Grass who writes on this and she has written a couple books on these issues. But you just need to know the obituaries that are pouring in after the death of this feminist

4:15icon are, they're real. And if you're a person who appreciates a woman who's trying to bring equality to the sexes, that's one thing. If you look at the inner workings of her life and the things that she actually tore down, that's a completely opposite issue and those are the things I want to address. And there's a connection here between the women who are struggling with the fact that Lindsey Clancy killed her children. And they want people to to side with her because she has mental health issues. Well, you can have mental health issues and not kill your children, right? That's one thing. But the women who are saying, well, that could be me. That's because they have been formed and framed apparently in a worldview that says children can be discarded if they are a problem for the mother. And I'm not saying all the women supporting Lindsey feel this way, but you have to recognize we are in a really, really weird place where women who should naturally say, no matter

5:17what's going on with the mother, she protects her children. And even if you say she's mentally ill, we remove her from her children or we remove the children from her. We do everything to protect them. And that's not the feeling you're getting from some of these women. And that's a concern to me. And I take it all the way back to the influence of one woman. And Gloria Steinem is not the only feminist who had power, but she was one of the most powerful. And it's because of the way that she managed to communicate and the way that she wrote, she was a journalist, a real journalist actually. And a couple of the articles respond to some of her background. I'm not going to go into all that. But let me refer to a couple of things here. Because again, she was sort of the it girl. Prior to her arrival on the scene in feminism, the movement was populated by a lot of angry, can tankress and mentally ill women. And that made them difficult to work with. Kate Millette was one of them. She literally was mentally ill.

6:19And she came out as bisexual Angela Davis who was an angry black panther and Betty Frieden or Fridand, depending on how you say her name. She wasn't the kind of woman other woman dreamed of being like. And then came Gloria. Her long blonde dresses, her aviator glasses, the way that she looked, she was articulate, she was savvy and she was a fresh force for the feminist movement. And that's one of the reasons why people responded to her. She was pleasant. Not everyone appreciated the star power she brought to the movement. In fact, some of the women in the movement, this will not surprise you. It did not appreciate it. And one of them said this, what can I say about Gloria only this? My generation of feminists needed Susan B. Anthony, but we got Mary Tyler Moore. We needed Harriet Tubman, but we got Jane Fonda. We got the blonde, blow dried feminist and the aviator glasses, the one in the skinny jeans. Oh, there was skinny jeans back then. The feminist who posed in a bubble bath for People magazine as a glimmer, as movie star, Gloria repeatedly came, gave the same pseudo apology.

7:23I'm not that attractive. I'm only attractive for a feminist that you have to admit that's funny. That is funny. So they went from this harsh, really angry women to a woman who's attractive. And of course, her comparisons to Mary Tyler Moore and Fonda, however, were exactly what the movement actually needed to take hold in the imaginations of millions of American women. She became sort of the high priestess, carefully crafting an image of the new feminist woman through media and protest. And of course, the pages of Miz magazine, which she started. And her appeal never seemed to win. She morphed with the culture, rebranded the movement to make sure it maintained its freshness. Her one misstep apparently was a lands and photo shoot, which outraged as family oriented customer base. It was quickly removed, but she related need families and was able to maintain the limelight through her powerful friends. And looking over at another, let me just click on this really quick here, something else

8:25I found interesting about her career. Her work included in the 50s and 60s. She was the director of the independent research service. And it was an organization that was funded in part and secretly by the US intelligence agency, the CIA. And there were those, she'll say later in life, no, we weren't funded by the CIA, but then it comes out that, well, actually we were, we didn't know it, we were anyway. She was. They were. So I wonder why that was the case. She also worked in a separate undercover role in 1963 as a playboy bunny. As she, she was a journalist and they thought it would be great to have her go undercover ever. She said no. And then she changed her mind. They didn't manage that very well. She wasn't happy with how that came out. But it did add to her expose of the exploitive and demeaning nature of work at playboy, which I think is a good thing, right? And it also fueled her then intensifying a donation at the sexual demands placed on women.

9:29They're long work hours and meager compensation and the vulnerability of young mothers poorly treated or completely abandoned by the fathers of their children now on its face. So when you look at some of those things, you say, well, that's not bad. No, actually, it's not. It's not bad for women to say we want to be treated a certain way with dignity. We want better pay. And of course, that depends on the job now. And we've seen that change. And that was part of what was going on in the second wave of feminism. But there were other things about her second wave feminism and the radical feminism. It included, you know, things like, remember, bra Bernie. I mean, yeah, maybe some of you do. Some of you don't. And of course, they added to their defiance this proclamation of women's strength and independence, which meant, I don't need a man. I don't need marriage, right? And she also chafed at the notion of being considered pro abortion,

10:33although she talked about her own abortion, her elective abortion, which she noted. And it was public that she made at the age of 23. And in 2015, she dedicated her newly published memoir, My Life on the Road to, apparently, to the London-based Dr. John Sharp, who had helped her obtain what was then an illegal abortion. And she rooted her support for legalized abortion in language about the rights of women to quote, power over our own bodies. So that's where some of that language came from. Going so far as to assert that opposing women's right to control our own bodies is always the first step in every authoritarian regime. So that's where the militancy started. But then she added this note, which is interesting. She kind of chafed at the notion of being considered pro abortion, right? Instead of pro choice, pro abortion. Nobody, this is her quote, nobody would choose one if they didn't have to.

11:34And she said that as recently as 2019. And previously, she said things like, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I think I'll have an abortion. It's a pleasurable experience. That's so true. But unwittingly with such comments, she conceded that women do not actually choose abortion, but as a resort or a last resort, they choose it. And sadly, and ironically, this staunch feminist, who together with her sisters and arms, tried to move on the rights, dignity, and well-being of women, remain focused on promoting ever wider access to abortion. Like it's this final solution. Instead of thinking about the life-giving options that could have happened. And I'm pointing this out again to connect some dots and also to make the point that it only takes one woman, one woman in a generation to bring so much influence. That you could take what others have done and move it forward to change the behavior,

12:37the attitudes, the thinking, the culture in your time. If you have the gifts and talents needed to do so. And I think this is so critical for us to understand. We keep waiting for government to do something. We keep waiting for those people. We keep waiting for the pastor. We keep waiting for those people who have a platform. I am here to tell you. And yes, the platform matter. She used her platform very, very well. That's one of the reasons that she was so successful. But I'm telling you today, and this will be my refrain for some time. It's that we need good women and good men to say, I can be that one. I can make a difference in my area of influence, whatever my topic is. This woman and her friends, Gloria Steinem, literally changed the landscape of the traditions that were social norms during this time. And a lot of people push back. A lot of good people said, no, marriage is great. I love having children. But when that story is told over and over and over again,

13:38and that child becomes a problem for you, right? If literally, if the child is in the way of your dreams, then that is going to come across to who, the next generation, right? And she was a powerful feminist visionary. And she actually, using some of the people from the past who had put their mark on the feminist movement, it started out in feminism wave one for the right to vote, right? And Susan B. Anthony, another really good woman who wanted to bring equity, any quality to women. I understand that. And in fact, as a woman, I want things to be fair. But I recognize that things are not the same for men and women. And that we do not have to be the same. And that I can't even imagine undoing and disregarding men the way that these women have. And I don't mean wave one. I mean, feminism wave two, definitely wave three and wave four,

14:40which we tend to be in. And another time, we'll go over what those waves really were doing in their influence. Going back to Gloria Aestin, her disregard for men can be traced back to her extremely difficult childhood. And I think this is important for us to remember. When I see women who are not acting in their best interest and the people around them, when they are so raging in front of a camera, so upset because someone is not doing what they want them to do, I imagine that they have been hurt and wounded. That's usually my first response. And I try to have grace for people that aren't at their best. Listen, I see we need to take a break. I'm going to save this part for just a moment talking about her father and some of that influence. But I want you to connect the dots on the culture we're living in right now. Where do all these women get the idea that a child or where, why would this woman Lindsay Clancy want to take the life of her children?

15:41I believe it was a demonic influence. I really do. And if you listen to the show that I did yesterday, you'll hear the details on why I believe that. And I believe that that case stands out as a tragedy for all of us. But the fact that the children were discarded is not a new idea. Where does that come from? The Lord Himself has said, let the little ones come to me. Satan is the destroyer. He doesn't want a single image bear left on the planet. He'll destroy everyone, including the mother, including the children. But the children are always the ones at risk. And so I want us to recognize. Feminism that does not protect children at all ages, all stages, is not truly feminism. It's a lie. We'll be right back. Friends culture may change, but truth does not. Alliance defending freedom stands ready to protect every person's right to live and speak truth.

16:44Today we're facing an unprecedented challenge. We're safer and richer than ever before, but we're living in a culture that has rejected the very foundations upon which our liberty was built. Freedom cannot survive in a culture that is abandoned truth and rejected reality. This is the battle of our generation, wherever human freedom is under attack. We stand ready to defend it. In courtrooms, legislatures, and the public square, you'll find us on the front lines. This is why Alliance defending freedom exists. ADF strategic victories will bring lasting change in law and culture, and with a coalition of courageous clients, allies, advocates, and supporters, ADF now has 18 Supreme Court wins. This is a great time to join the coalition. So to find out how you can get involved, go to ADFlegal.org. That's ADFlegal.org. Friends, does the teen, college age, or young adult woman in your life struggle with her image, purpose, or her identity?

17:44Is she finding it difficult to have joy when she thinks about her future? Does she seem confused about what the Bible teaches about male and female relationships, or is she being drawn into the lies from the culture? There is something you can do to help her. Introducing True Beauty, a powerful positive study that answers the question, what is a woman? With the guidance of a mentor, mother, or leader, each young woman will discover her unique true beauty as she is equipped and empowered to embrace her female identity and discover her own unique design and purpose in this generation. Go to the LegacyInstitute.com for your small group, class, or family study materials. That's the LegacyInstitute.com or call 425-354-8517. Our girls need this truth now, so don't wait. And now back to the carry-out, but show! I'm bringing to your attention the passing of Gloria Steinem in the happened on September 2nd.

18:46She was an American journalist. She was really good at what she did, by the way, and a social movement activist. She emerged as a Nashie-recognized leader of Second Wave Feminism in the United States in the early 60s and 70s. And she remained very prominent in that she was a columnist for a New York magazine, co-founder of Miss Magazine. She published after Black Power Women's Liberation articles. She co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus. She co-founded the Women's Action Alliance and so on and so on. She helped establish, take our daughters to work day. And a lot of the things that she did on its face to bring equality to women is understandable for women. Many women, many women, even women listening to me right now, have been mistreated by other women or men. And depending on your childhood experience, it makes sense to me that some women would have a real fight in them anytime they see a man who is not treating women with respect. I completely understand it and I think it's just natural, right?

19:48But the problem with the Second Wave Feminism and Third Wave Feminism is it actually undoes one of the most powerful reasons that were called a woman. Our female ability to pro-create and house another person of equal value inside us, separate, equal and still connected, right? And she lauded the fact that she had the abortion, even though it was illegal and it said my life would have ended there. Where did she get that idea? Well, that obviously it wasn't the millennia old Judeo-Christian anthropology of Genesis 1, right? Understanding that men and women are both created in God's image and likeness and we're meant to pro-create and serve one another, she promoted the feminist notion that men are contemptible and that women should be just like them, which is very odd when you think about it. And so many feminists have said this, we are equal to men and so we'll act like men. We'll have, we'll be sexually promiscuous like men. We'll leave the family all, get out of that marriage,

20:50I'll do what I want, I'll be independent, I'll be autonomous and all this will be great. And what have we gotten from that? Raging women, broken family and this attitude about men that continues to be awful and you know, you've heard the saying, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, interesting, right? A gender equal society would be one where the word gender does not exist, this is Gloriston and wherever one can be themselves. Okay, right? The Bible says there's neither male or female. Some day we're going to see that but right now God made a male and female on purpose and what was that purpose that they would become and pro-create? They would become one and pro-create. That's just a fact and build families which is the basis of the church and this kind of second ways feminism actually not only disregarded men but as I mentioned it goes back to the difficulty in her childhood her father was a traveling salesman apparently gone most of the time while providing

21:50very little financially or emotionally and she was left for months at a time to care for her mentally ill and bedridden mother and that is just something no child should be left to do, right? So the brokenness made her one of the lost girls the women with serious issues who believe that getting rid of tradition and morals and gender were the most effective way to help other people because she said, well this was my story and if I was abused in this situation or my family didn't work then maybe family just doesn't work and let's just throw all that off and help people be independent. Well that's foolishness, right? If you happen to have a car that breaks down and you don't say all cars break down let's just give up on cars let's go on foot again, right? Family is the vehicle for human flourishing and anybody that doesn't recognize that a lot of it is because they have been hurt and again I have grace for that but we cannot stand for that. We have to stand for what the Judeo-Christian ethic is and the theology of human flourishing means God makes a male, he makes

22:52some female, he brings them together, they form a family, they procreate children and we fill heaven for eternity which is simple, right? Not so simple. And according to one of the articles I saw and I think this is so so wise, Kerry Grest writes this, today we live with the results of this tragic twisting of women into well not even being good men, right? If they do those crazy things that bad men do supposedly that's good for women, promiscuity and all those things. Mental illness right now is through the roof and if one in every five women she writes is on some kind of antidepressant medication the war between the sexes is at an all time high and in fact article out of new states been reported that among young women which should be women under 25 for this particular survey. Only 35% of women under 25 have a favorable view of men and the West faces a birthed earth

23:52which is that fertility issue we all talk about that threatens us on a civilizational level. These women have said and the refrain has been for decades starting with women like Gloria Steinem who on one hand fought for the protection of women from sexual harassment. I say thank you for that. She fought for the right for women to be treated with respect. I say thank you for that. She got lost and sidelined and has done great damage because of the refrain of so-called reproductive health. She and many other women and you'll see a lot of women a lot of women with the big name saying oh yeah, she was incredible and she gave women a voice in part that is true but she gave them the wrong framework. She tried to undo the framework of family in order to help elevate women. Jesus did not do that. He treated women with the kind of respect that God has always seen for women and just because there's some order even in the family that does not mean that that is not protecting them or caring for them and that's the sad part to me is that we have you know for some

24:59Gloria Steinem is heralded as a heroine truly but I don't think that that's going to be the case as the story continues and in part because women are not flourishing. We have had you know feminism we have one two three and four and four is basically tearing down even the regard for what it means to be a woman and promoting transgender. So you see where this is gone from we need to give women the right to vote too. You know we need to treat them with respect which is true. We need to pay them equally for the same job. Great idea right men and women are not the same and they continue to tear down one of the key rules for a woman to be a wife and a mother which was God's plan for human flourishing. You do not have to be married as a woman to be completely effective being a woman made in God's image but most women will be married. You do not have to be a mother to be effective at being a woman. Most women will in some form mother somebody else whether it's

26:03through adoption, biology or the way that they tend to other people and this is all a good you do not have to tear down the scaffolding of female and feminine design in order to treat women with respect and dignity and favor which is how God treats women and that is why glorious dynam God bless her in trying to do something good but she did it without a biblical world view and so she was hampered in her own thinking. So we can say hey well done on this one thing but you did so much damage on this other because you did not let God write the story of what it means to be female and that is why we do what we do at the legacy institute because we believe so wholeheartedly in God's divine design for men and women. There's a reason why we fight for it, why we push it, why we ask you to train other young women with true beauty it's because we need to change this narrative. The influence has been great and then great damage and it's time for the church

27:03to rise up and not just rise up and say we love the gospel and we want people to be saved. Yes, we do but we want them to flourish now and that means we bring in the whole measure of the gospel which is healthy relationships and everything that goes with it is really an important time for us to do that and we can do it with grace and that'll be the plan going forward. Hey, thanks for tuning in today. It's so good to be with you. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the Carriabit Show. If you'd like to listen again to today's episode or share it with a friend, simply go to thelegacyinstitute.com and remember the Carriabit Show is made possible by donations from friends like you and of course our text deductible. If you'd like to donate today, go to thelegacyinstitute.com or call 425-354-8517. That's thelegacyinstitute.com.