Shame on Steinem

To be honest, since my recent relocation to the Charm, I haven't been up on the news. We don't have cable and only recently got an antennae for the TV, but that's no excuse, really--it's been years since I considered any television program (besides Colbert and Stewart--and not even them, really) reliable news sources. It's funny because living in NYC and before that, in DC, I seemed to absorb the news effortlessly, as if by osmosis. Here, it's going to take some effort.

Anyway, so it was that I only saw Gloria Steinem's NY Times op-ed when I ran across it on Shark-fu's brilliantly thoughtful reaction to it on her blog, Angry Black Bitch.

First, let me note that I link to ABB on my (too short) blogroll to the right, because I've admired her since I discovered her blog a year or two ago. Last week she dropped a comment here and I nearly pissed myself, I was so excited--though excitement gave way to a short-lived embarrassment (there's not really any shame in my game) when I realized she'd checked in the day I gave a shout out--kind of--to the disgusting 2 Girls, 1 Cup.

Anyway, Shark-fu's got the bases covered, so I won't get too far into it. But I will say this:

As a white woman (I mention my white-ness because too many don't--unless we whiteys, be we women or not, acknowledge our privilege, we unwittingly promote the status quo and the idea that it goes w/o saying that we are white, white being the "norm") who grew up in a very white part of the world, to later live in several under-served, predominantly black neighborhoods, I understand how easy it is for even educated women to not realize exactly how fucking privileged they are. But for Gloria Steinem, a woman who has been around long enough to realize that not all women are white, this op-ed was fucking ridiculous.

Pardon the F-bombs. They're only words, people. Only words.

I hate the way that the media is covering Hillary's bid--in ways that they would never cover a man's. But I also hate what they've done to Obama. Come to think of it, I hate the ridiculous shit that she's doing to Obama. I shudder to think what the Republican hate-machine will have in store for either one.

In a perfect world, Kucinich would not only be a contender, but he'd be a black trans man and a contender. And the media would be talking about the candidates' stance on (gasp!) the issues.