Gloria Steinem Hates Men

Gloria Steinem, one of the great stalwarts of the feminist movement, recently made a statement disdaining John McCain's military service, especially the five and a half years he spent being tortured by the North Vietnamese, while stumping for Hillary Clinton. Steinem inadvertently revealed not only the left's true attitude toward people in uniform, but her own attitude toward men.

The New York Observer reported:

"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.

McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five and a half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, "I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don't think so."

Steinem's broader argument was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises.

"I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn't been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn't even play war games as a kid. It's a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting."

The Clinton Campaign quickly distanced itself from Steinem's remarks. Noting Hillary Clinton's well known disdain for people in uniform, one might wonder why bother?

The Left has hated the military and people serving within it ever since the Vietnam War, when returning soldiers were regularly spat upon and called names such as "baby killers." Bill Clinton himself, as a young man dodging the draft, wrote about his deep "loathing" for the military. So Steinem's obvious hatred for people who serve in uniform is hardly new or unique. It is something, however, that the Left would prefer to conceal. "We support the troops" is a phrase one often hears from the Anti War Left these days which has as much meaning as the constant use of the word "change" in a Barack Obama speech.

Hatred of the military from the Left is manifest in recent Hollywood films, ranging from the Valley of Elah to Redacted, which depict American soldiers fighting the War on Terror as drug crazed murderers. There are no films coming out of Hollywood that "support the troops."

Part of this attitude stems from a complete ignorance of what it is to be a soldier and the demands it puts upon one. Steinem's dismissal of John McCain's years being tortured is illuminating. One gets the impression that she thinks that her experience at the Playboy Club in 1963 was somehow more degrading. Without going into details, Gloria Steinem would not have lasted a day in the Hanoi Hilton suffering the torture that John McCain did.

Gloria Steinem's problem is a little deeper, though. She not only hates men in uniform, she hates men period. The phrase, "A woman needs a mad like a fish needs a bicycle" is often attributed to her, but it was actually first coined by Irina Dunn, an Australian politician. It does, however, describe to the T Steinem's own attitude toward men, despite the fact that she actually married one in the year 2000, an act that many feminists considered a betrayal.

That attitude seems to go double for men like John McCain (and George W. Bush and-curiously-John Kerry.) One can imagine how such men, masculine, confident, even a little arrogant, must set Steinem's teeth on edge. The fact that each of these men is also married to strong women and seems comfortable in that fact does not enter into Steinem's consciousness.

Does Hillary Clinton share Gloria's Steinem's disdain for men? Senator Clinton would doubtless deny that accusation. But she is, however, married to Bill Clinton, a man whose disloyalty, brought on by just a hint of the misogynist, would surely drive even the most patient woman into the fever swamps of feminazism.

Source: Stumping for Clinton, Steinem Says McCain's POW Cred is Overrated, Niall Stanage, The New York Obsever, March 2, 2008