History Of Fashion: Gloria Steinem -- Feminist Chic
The fashion style of Gloria Steinem is perfectly reflected in the photograph by Yale Joel as well as in the ideology which she promoted throughout the early days of the Feminist Movement.
Steinem's fashion style mirrored her Feminist advocacy history, when in the 1960s, she started Ms. Magazine, which addressed such topics as the problematic nature of the word "male" being in "female." "[footnoteRef:1] In Yale Joel's photograh, Steinem sits, Indian style (cross-legged), and holds a placard that reads "We Shall Overcome."[footnoteRef:2] The emphatic nature of this prophecy is apparent in the underscored verb and the clothing that Steinem wears indicates a kind of militaristic "chic" -- a fashionably elegant, streamlined radical femininity that a leader like Steinem could use advocate change. She would use this image to advocate abortions, as she did in a 2006 article entitled "We Had Abortions," which discussed the lives of women who made a decision more than thirty years prior to abort their babies.[footnoteRef:3] These women were proud of what they had done and believed that their decision had been a good one not only for themselves but for all women everywhere. Plus, they wore the uniform of Steinem -- the high-waisted flare jeans, the belt, the turtleneck or t-shirt, hair parted in the middle, and her signature optical aviators -- the same outfit she wears in her Joel photograph. She was like a commander flying at the "V" formation, leading other women onward through the Women's Movement of the 1970s. [1: Gloria Steinem,...
Web. 31 Oct 2015.] [3: R. Cooke, "Gloria Steinem: I Think We Need to Get Much Angrier," The Guardian. Web. 31 Oct 2015.]
Women's status in the 1970s was under a lot of pressure from the Establishment, which had already given the women the right to vote in the early 20th century, then allowed them the right to work in the WW2 era: now women wanted sexual rights, sexual liberation, the right to demolish the glass ceiling, the right to be heard, the right to be educated, the right to control their own reproductive systems. It was an ideological movement that focused much more on the actual nature of women and womanhood than at any other time. No longer did women within the Feminist Movement want to be viewed as individuals who could bear life within their wombs. They wanted to be viewed as individuals with minds and wills which were free to do as they pleased.
In this context, Steinem marked Fashion by her adherence to a dressed-down, casual style with a hint of militarism -- which was much in vogue in the 1970s as well, what with various militant
protest groups, like the
Black Panthers, coming into existence and appealing to a youthful spirit of militancy, which was sick and tired of seeing its
leaders being assassinated one after the other: JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X, all within the span of a few short years.…
