Feminist leader Gloria Steinem attracted considerable attention this weekend after she rejected John McCain’s heroic period as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton as over-rated and suggested the Hillary Clinton was a better president because she was not “trained to kill.” McCain cannot lift his arms above his shoulders due to the beatings and torture that he endured in Vietnam.
Steinem is upset because she feels that Clinton’s gender should be more important in this election. However, she has a bizarre way of supporting her. She rejected the criticism of Clinton’s use of her time as first lady as part of her oft-cited experience. According to press reports, she stated that if successful people might “finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss’s job and take it over.”
Steinem raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton.
“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience.
Steinem mocked that getting shot down and being taken prisoner is a weird thing to be proud of: “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”
In fact, during the war, McCain saw a lot of action including a near death experience on the aircraft carrier Forrestal. He was not captured until his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam later in 1967. He fractured both arms and a leg on landing, almost drowned iin Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi, and was then beaten and bayoneted by Vietnamese. He was then refused medical treatment for refusing to give up intelligence and his colleagues did not expect him to live.
One could easily dismiss this type of advocacy as what Obama called the “silly season” of politics, but it is far too disturbing. She seems to be attempting humor, but it hardly came across in this context. Feminists (including Clinton herself) will now have to do their own “denouncing and rejection” if they are to have any credibility at all. As for Steinem, she has succeeded in transforming herself from an icon into a cartoon.
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I think there is so much anger in people and we need to focus on love instead and with that said I think you have missed the point of what Gloria Steinem was saying.
She wasn’t mocking being a POW. She was questioning McCain’s politics and ability to be President of this country. It takes more than just “grave suffering” to be the ruler of the free world.
It sadens me deeply to hear anyone dismiss someones pain and missery endoured while in service, it inrages me when someone who has no right too does it. I was crippled and ingested massive quantites of benzine, which has caused kidney cancer and a myrid of other medical concers during my 18 yrs of service and suffer every day sometimes wishing I would go to sleep and never wake up and im only 39!!! Does Mr high and mighty hate us all? was it all for nothing? does anyone even care anymore? at what point do we deserve respect? or do we at all?
When I see my dead friends again I will make sure to tell the Ms Steinem didn’t approve of their sacrifice
Soooo this woman needs to jump off a high cliff head first and while plumiting towards earth shoot herself in the face, she has no right morraly to “go there” this crosses the line way to far if you still listen to this womans babbel and take her serious you should probably jump with her and save us all from the crap spewing from your faces. she pisses and moans about sexism? than does it herself towards men? hey if women want to killed in combat thats fine and dandy with me knock yourself out just do it in the next foxhole (the idea is to make the enemy die for his country not visa versa!!) AND PLEASE TAKE THIS WRETCHED WITCH WITH YOU!!!
You can hate us and mock our sacrifices, we didnt make them for you anyway!! respectfully, U.S military past, present and future…..
I would like to add something to my statement above. It concerns this entry and the one prior. I recommend the movie: Persepolis. It is a searing look at how things can go terribly wrong when people revolt against oppression.
If we want to end oppression we can’t keep the one that benefits us while railing against the one that harms us. Either we oppose the oppression and mistreatment of everyone or we will free no one, not even ourselves.
I would like to add something to my statement above. It concerns this entry and the one prior. I recommend the movie: Persepolis. It is a searing look at how things can go terribly wrong when people revolt against oppression.
If we want to end oppression we can’t keep the one that benefits us while railing against the one that harms us. Either we oppose the oppression and mistreatment of everyone or we will free no one, not even ourselves.
I am truly disheartened by Ms. Steinem’s words. Torture is a defining issue in this country: speaking to the heart of who we are as a people. John McCain’s experience was horrible.
Given his experience I was appalled when McCain renounced his repudiation of torture and I am appalled by Steinem’s dismissal of the cruelty he and all victims of torture suffer.
A feminist in Toledo.