In this episode, in honour of the late Gloria Steinem, Dara attempts to mansplain feminism – so women, I hope you are listening! No, rather than that foolhardy exercise, he reads in their entirety two blazing feminist articles from the 1970s. Miami by Nora Ephron documents the dynamics within the National Women’s Political Caucus at the 1972 Democratic National Convention and prominently features the animus between Steinem and Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (arguably the core text that ignited second wave feminism).
The other is If Men Could Menstruate, Steinem’s own satirical piece printed in 1978 which propositioned the very different perspective on menstruation if it were to be located in the male body. Both articles are somewhat timestamped by both tone and cultural references, but in terms of capturing an attitude and a collective energy, they are unimpeachable!
Dara prefaces the readings by recollecting his own grasp of the women’s struggle as a child and how it seemed to him almost a self-evident position.
Nora Ephron’s ‘Miami’ – https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/lets-go-full-crocodile-ladies/essay/
Gloria Steinem’s ‘If Men Could Menstruate’ – https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23293691.2019.1619050