Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem, "Sex, Lies, and Advertising"

Gloria Steinem (1934- ) was born in Toledo, Ohio, and earned a B.A. in 1956 from Smith College. Steinem is probably America's best-known feminist activist, thinker, and writer. She was a founding member of both the National Women's Political Caucus and the Coalition of Labor Union Women. Steinem was also co-founder, editor, and columnist for Ms. Magazine. She's also been an editor at Glamour and New York magazines, and a correspondent for the Today Show. Her books include Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (1992), and Moving Beyond Words (1994). Steinem also contributes to periodicals such as the New York Times, Social Policy, and Belles Lettres. "Sex, Lies, and Advertising," a look at Ms. Magazine's struggles with advertisers, was first published in Ms.in 1990.

CONTENT

1. What is glasnost?
2. In the beginning, why did Ms. refuse ads for hygiene sprays and cigarettes?
3. Describe the magazine's relationship with ads for alcohol. How did some readers react?
4. Who are the "two mothers from Indiana" the author mentions in paragraph sixty-nine?
5. Define the term complementary copy. (Note: This is not the same thing as acomplimentarycopy.)
6. Why does Steinem speculate that foreign car companies sold more cars to women than U.S. companies did at the end of the 1980s.
7. For what two reasons did Ms. decide to accept advertising initially? What kinds of ads did it sell? What kinds of ads could it not sell?

STRATEGY AND STYLE

1. Study the title of this piece. What do you make of the word lies in light of the author's feelings about the relationship of women's magazines to advertisers? Do you recognize the name of the film to which the title refers, by the way?
2. How did you picture the author as you read this essay? (Many of the links below will lead to sites with her image.) Where in the essay can you point to support your answer?
3. What is the author's argument in this essay? Describe her main points and the types of support she provides. Do you find her support persuasive?
4. What is Steinem asking her audience to do in her conclusion? Who is she talking to, anyway?
5. In paragraph sixty-two, Steinem compares the cost of a lunch to something else. Complete the comparison. What does this literary device have to say about her feelings of the relative positions of big advertisers and the publishers of women's magazines?

1. Are you a feminist? Can men be considered feminists? Explain. How did your answers to these questions interact with your experience of reading this piece?
2. Do you study ads in magazines or do you find them a nuisance? How might your feelings about this type of advertising have affected your reading here?

SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING

1. Steinem calls the idea "that advertisers simply follow readers" a myth. What does this statement have to do with cause and effect concerning ads and consumers? Using your reading and your own experience, write an essay about cause and effect in consumers' buying habits. Who really creates demand: advertisers or consumers?
2. The author mentions that the last two mass media that reach the public without having to embed ads are movies and books, but that encroachment has been made within those media as well. Pick one of those forms and think about the last few movies you've seen or the last few books you've read. Has the trend Steinem mentions continued? What is the relationship of the medium you're studying to embedded advertising?

FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

Get a hold of a current issue of Ms. Magazine, and do some research to answer these questions: Who owns the magazine now? What kinds of ads do you find today? What is the current circulation of the magazine? How do these things compare to the state of the magazine described by Steinem?

WEB CONNECTION

Here is the homepage of Ms. Magazine, which Steinem co-founded. To see what other visitors there have on their minds, be sure to check out the bulletin board area.

LINKS

Biographical

Here's a biography from Lifetime Online, with a photo and links. It's a good place to start your Internet research.

This is a brief bio with photos, a timeline, and links. Do you trust the accuracy of this information? How do you go about checking the accuracy of information that you find on the Internet?

This page at Equity Online has a brief bio, information about Steinem's awards, a bibliography, and some links. What's the focus of the biographical material here? Is it different from the sites above?

Bibliographical

Here is "'Women's Liberation' Aims to Free Men Too" in etext. Do you like reading electronic texts? What advantages do e-texts have over plain old paper? Do they have any advantages?

This is an interview with Steinem at Feminist.com. Here, you'll find Steinem discussing her views about feminism.

This page contains a link to a Steinem audio interview with Salon about reproductive politics. What is her stance? What does it have to do with politics? What's your position about women's reproductive rights?

Cultural

Would you like some background to start your research of this author? Here are some links to feminism sources online from the Association for Progressive Communications that are sure to get you going.

How about some information from another point of view on a topic that Steinem's written about? Here's an essay about feminism and pornography by a male author. What is your position on this topic?

O.K., so you'd like some way of putting Steinem's work into a historical context. This is a 1998 transcript entitled "Is Feminism Dead?"