Feminism with Gloria Steinem

have Glorious Steinum on the phone today. Gloria Steinhum. You have seen her picture. She wears a nice pair of Aviator glasses, a Kashmir turtleneck, and a tiny little cowboy hat perched on the top of her head. I think she got it from a doll. No, one of those things is not true. But yes, we're talking to work Sun today. She's calling in. I'm excited and Um, I'm a little bit nervous. Nervous. Okay, why are you nervous? Oh? Are you afraid your speech impediment might act up? I don't.

I don't have a speech impediment. No, it's that thing, you know where your voice gets really high and annoying. I think that's just my voice. Oh sorry, Well, the good news is at least you're not on the radio, You're just on a podcast. Maybe you can just maybe you can try a different voice, one that's easier to listen to. Back to our guests today. Your voice is as if a small little singing bird had an evil crow as a sister, one that crows and crows until

little children scream and run into their homes. Okay, let's move on back to our guests today. Right, Carolina is nervous about talking to Glorious Steadem. I'm not, but Carolina is. I'm actually more nervous about you talking to Glorious. But my why really? Because my voice isn't annoying. It's smooth, like a like a Coultrane solo. Your voice is like if someone handed a bunch of eight year old some clarinets and told them to blow as hard as they can.

This is why I'm nervous about you talking to Glorius Steinham. I just can't stress what an important figure she is to the feminist movement. And you can just be I can be what, Oh, I can be Bosley from Charlie's Angels. Okay, we'll talk to legal, but we can't play Charlie's Angels this episode anyway. Glory Steinham is a woman who has worked her whole life for the feminist movement, and you can be a little misogynistic. How dare you? How dare you call me that? That word that? What does that

word mean in English? It's it's French we ron. Misogyny is when you act prejudiced against women. I know what that where it means? Well, you're writing it down on your notepad with a question mark next to it, and you and you spelled it round. Oh and I bet that is misogyness, misogyn Listen, sometimes you just treat women differently, So please, I'm interested. After our first season wrapped, you gave all the guys cigars and all the girls tootoose

and ballerina slippers. Yes, and I got size of leven for you big feet care liner. You're welcome. By the way, How are those ballet classes coming better than that African drumming class you took at the Y Huh? I think well, and just want you to recognize that they're equal to men and that our interests aren't necessarily whatever the patriarchy is deemed feminine. Yes, right? Are you writing? Is that

patriarchy you're writing down? I'm writing something else. I'm writing St. Patrick's Day, remember when, don't forget St Patrick's Day this year. That's what I'm writing. So you saw the pay of Patrick, the saint who drove all the snakes out of Ireland. Let's just try and keep an open mind today. Carolina, you're so nervous to talk to Gloria's She's very she's just really I get I am, I am, well, I'm not. That's the headline here. I'm gonna go in and we're

gonna go toe to toe, right, very well. Well, but as she tangled with Ron Burgundy, no the journalist, I don't think so. I don't think so. All right, yeah, all right, we'll see what happens. You know, you're not talking to some piece of wallpaper here, No, you're You're a formidable figure. So I'm gonna I'm gonna get in there and I'm gonna give as much as I get. Okay, right, once we come back from commercial, Oh yes, glorious, I'm

watch out all right, and we are back. This is Ron Burgundy on the Ron Burgundy Podcast, And as promised, we are joined by feminist icon. Glorious Steinham, Gloria, I just have to ask you this, coming out of the gate. What's up, my lady. It's an honor m um. Do you uh let me look at my notes here? You you your name is Gloria. You went to Smith College, I believe, and um that's located in New Mexico. Uh close Massachusetts. Oh well, not close at all. Sorry, um,

Smith College. I want to ask you you, in today's world of AI and robots replacing all of us, is there any value anymore in a liberal arts education. It's valuable just to sit in the same room with other people, because it turns out that we can't empathize or really learn on a screen or without all five senses. So whatever the experience is, we need to spend at least as much time with each other as we do looking at a screen or listening. With all due respect to

this listening. We're trending towards avoiding human contact. But but we have to somehow maintain that. You know, there's a reason why solitary confinement is torture. We are communal animals. We have to be together. All kinds of bad things have mounted since we've been looking at screens, depression, sadness. So aside, we need to spend at least as much time with other people as we do with objects. Do you hear that, Carolina? So you need to stay off here, Yeah,

put down your iPhone exactly. No more screen time. Let's make eye contact, okay for future? Yes, well, I totally agree with you, Gloria. I mean luckily for me, I don't even have any sort of sell your device. I still have a hard line and a rotary dial phone. So I'm contributing positively, I think, Gloria. Yes, I'm here, I'm here, okay. Um I want to you. So after college you spent a couple of years in India. Is that? Is that correct? Yes? That's right? And what was was that?

Like the craziest spring break ever? Is that? What? It was? The longest, the longest and the craziest. But it turned out to change my life in all kinds of positive ways. Although, to be honest, I was escaping getting married, I was engaged. I needed to go very far away. But but I'm

glad I chose India. And you talk about taking the train in India and that being sort of a revolutionary experience right, Yes, because first of all, the train system is very good, and the third class cars, especially the women's third class cars, are like traveling dormitories or women's groups. The women you know, looked after me. We got an endless difficult conversations. Difficult mainly because I couldn't speak handy. Um, no, it was, And I spent a couple of days, you know,

going down the coast in a train in that car. Well, if you can take solace, I can't speak hindy either, so um, I would have been in the same boat, our train or train. Yes, um, Gloria, you you worked undercover as a playboy bunny when you were a journalist. Um, during that experience, did you run into any misogyny? Well, probably not, because they were not smart enough to know what the word was, So yeah, tell me about it was.

It was. It was just wall to wall exploitation. It was an assignment to write an article, and X was a I had invented a background of being a secretary and wanting a more interesting job because the advertisements for being a bunny said that this was a glamorous, wonderful job. But the bunny mother who interviewed me said honey, if you can type, you don't want to work here. That should have been a warning. That should have been warning. Was that in was that in Chicago? No? Here in

New York? And yet I don't know if people even know what Playboy magazine is nowadays, you know, you know, I'm I'm sorry to say that that now here in Manhattan a Playboy club has just opened, even though it was given up as uh, totally out of date, even by Hefner. So I'm not quite sure how the one here is able to call itself a playboy club, but it's pretty crazy that they just opened it a few months ago. Well, I used to have I had a subscription for as long as I can remember. And I'm

not just saying this because I'm talking to you. I read it strictly for the articles. Uh. You know, they had a formula even in the articles that in no way were women allowed to win. I mean that was was Hefner's formula. You know, whatever was printed or whatever was photographed, it had to be clear that men were dominant. Holy smokes, you and his sat in pajamas? Huh. Well, I do think he was kind of pathetic and insecure, you know what I once gotten a fist fight with

him at the Playboy Mansion. Kidding well, they lost my car. The valet lost my car, and so I had to spend three weeks at the Playboy Mansion. Um, it was. It was the worst three weeks of my life because of all the Missalgermy. Yeah, Gloria, you were. You were part of the effort, in conjunction with miss Foundation for Women, to institute a take our Daughters to Work Day. Um, let me ask you this. Do you think gambling bookies should be taking their daughters to work? Or drug lords?

You know, why did you start such a dangerous holiday? Well, now that you say that, I think it might not be bad for kids to see the terrible things their pair are doing. Maybe they would help to reform their parents. We we actually we started it just because we wanted girls to feel at home in the workplace. And actually there was no other day devoted to girls, no national day devoted to girls at all. It turned out to be one of the few things that girls had that

boys wanted. So now it's take your child to work day boys too. You know, I I had a son later in life, Walter Burgundy, and I should have brought him to work more often. You left him in the car. I left him in the car a lot, which is which is not the right thing to do. Um, Gloria, You've got in trouble with with Bernie Sanders supporters during the presidential race because you said the boys are with Bernie and with him running again, would you say the

boys are back in town now? Actually I was talking about free tuition. I wasn't talking about sex, but the way because I was on my track of talking about free tuition and that's there. Therefore the boys were attracted to that, and the girls too. It ended up sounding like sex instead of an education. So completely end of no, end of problem. Um. Now, this is something you may not be able to answer, and I totally respected if you can't. But I was looking on Wikipedia, which we

all know is controlled by the Russians. Um, were you involved in the CIA at one point? If you can't answer, you could just make the sound of a bird of prey. It's so much more boring than that. I hesitate to disappoint you, but I went to to Communist youth festivals UH several years apart, which was sponsored by the then Soviet Union and where where would that have taken place?

There was one in Vienna, uh and one in Helsinki, I think, Oh fancy okay, So, and those the attendants at those festivals was sponsored by foundations that in turn, we're sponsored by a world federalist, a left wing person who was in the CIA and their forehead escaped McCarthy. M So. So it's it's it's kind of obscure, and it's it's not boring at all. Well, but the problem with it is that it makes it sound as if anyone was telling any of us what to do or say,

which just wasn't true. So no one gave you like a lipstick that was actually a pistol or something like that. You didn't get any spy devices or anything like that. No, nothing like that or nothing like that. Well then yeah, that's really boring. It is. Yeah, no, it was. It was interesting, but it's just there are some initials, you know, that make everything sound subversive, and the CIA is are three of them. Well, it's funny because I have also

never been involved with the CIA. Wink wink um. Here's a wild card question for you, which I thought of on my drive over here. What are some TV shows that you like, Well, I'm a news I'm a news junkie, so I confess that I'm almost always listening or looking at the news when I'm watching television. So are you're You're not, because I'm really into Roswell on the c w uh huh. Anyway, Um, now, if you didn't finish an entire school year until you were twelve, uh, much

like myself, how do you think that affected your career? Well, at the time, I kind of wanted to go to school like other kids, you know, because I saw kids in movies. But looking back on it, I think it was a kind of good thing because I escaped a certain amount of brainwashing that I would have got in those years with Dick and Jane books and what girls were supposed to do when boys were supposed to do. Uh. And instead of that, I could just follow my interests

and read anything. I mean, I hope it would be better now because schools are better now, but in that era especially, I think probably it was better to be able to follow my interests. Just so I'm following the math. That would have been sixth grade that you just took the year off. I think I entered sixth grade. I didn't enter at the very beginning, so probably seventh grade was my first full year because I sixth grade. That's a toughie, isn't it. I repeated it three times? Sixth grade? Um,

you wrote a book about Marilyn Monroe, did you not? Yes? I did. Yeah. What was your fascination with with Marilyn Monroe? Was it? Was it just based on the fact that blonds have more fun? You know? I think that a lot of us have a kind of rescue fantasy about Marilyn Monroe. If she had lived at a time when there was a women's movement, might she still be alive? I mean, she had such a tough life. She was a foster kid, she was sexually abused, she was as

an adult treat for her. Outside is not her inside's not her heart or her mind. And I've always been and I think a lot of people are a little haunted by the early end of her life and what might have been. I wrote a book on Marilyn Manson, and there's a Marylin right, yes, and it's still sitting on the shelf at the manuscript No one wants to publish it. So maybe you could help me publish my book on Marilyn Manson, Well, I probably would be a good thing to see how we could avoid having more

of them. Great, let's get to work on that. I'll get your home address when we get off the podcast, and I'll just joke at your house and we can start working on that. Gloria, you famously said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. Did you know that? Farrell Williams, the singer, songwriter producer, says that at the top of one of his latest songs, Lemon, no are you pissed? I don't. I don't. I don't mean to start a beef, but no, I'm honored to

be to be quoted. I mean, I said, it is a kind of smartass thing to say, but it does have a lot of applications. The truth will set you free, but first of all, piss you off. What exactly does that mean? Do you think that we need to know how bad things are and then we're we're happy and then um, but then we get angry? Well I do? I mean, the truth will set you free comes from the Bible, So the idea of the truth was a

religious truth. Um, I started to add, but first of all, piss you off during the Vietnam War era, because there were some young men who were carrying signs saying the truth will set you free them at the truth of the war would set them free from the draft, and it kind of uck with me from from that time forward, and being a smartass myself, I just started to say, but first it, we'll piss you off. And now I

see it in amazing places. I mean, it's on campus, on bulletin boards, it's I saw it as a tattoo. It's uh, it's amazing birthday cake. Really, yeah, I've never seen that. And I love quotes anyway, because I think quotes are kind of populist poetry and they're short enough to remember, but smart enough to be memorable. Carolina gave me a wonderful book of quotations, very heavy, sturdy book. Um that is I use as a paperweight. Yes, very

good use for books. And one of these days I'm going to crack it open and take a look to do. I mean, that's why I got it for you. Yes, I'm sure you've produced many great quotes. Yes, I've been quoted a fair amount of times, and I find it to be very flattering. But I cannot set myself on the same bar as you. There's no question. Well, it's just it is kind of populist poetry to to try

to say things short. I think it also comes from being a magazine person and sitting around at editorial meetings trying to think of titles and blurbs and you know, how to how to be intriguing in a small space. One of my one of my favorite quotes, and I believe it was Sophocles who said, and I hope you get this right. If this van's a rocking, don't come a knocking God, I hope sophically said that, I hope he had fun. Oh you you know, Sophocles, he did,

he did have fun. Uh. Gloria, we cannot thank you enough for coming on the podcast today. We know you have a incredibly busy schedule, so thank you for taking time and talking about your life and and you're welcome back anytime. Thank you so much for no thank you, Thank you everyone, Glorious Dynham will be will be right back on the Ron Burgundy Podcast after this break, and we're back for Ron Burgundy Podcast. Carolina, I don't know

how you felt that. I I just I froze up like a like a I don't know something that's really frozen about freezing up? Yes, is formidable and uh, you know, she had a lot of compelling things to say, important things, and I don't know, I feel like I I feel like I dropped the ball up time. I felt like I mean, I just wanted to. I just hope she liked us. Yeah, that's the thing. I hope. Right, do you want me to ask? Let's yeah, why don't you try to reach your team and see if she likes us?

Because I don't know if i'll sleep tonight, you know, just because I don't know if I put my best foot forward. Look, I'll say this, I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty damn good of the time. And this was in that you know where we don't know Old Ronnie had as you know what flying in the wind and you could tell where was all your your Sarah Lownds training didn't kick in blank, I don't know what happened,

well as you can probably tell. I I learned a lot this season, even learned how to pronounce miss sand and new But it's time for me to go back to learning from my everyday life, learning from my long walks on a few of my neighbor's properties, learning from the trees, talking to the birds, hearing their side of things. What do you learn talking to the trees or birds? You wouldn't understand a man of nature. I mean by the pale color of your skin, I'd estimate you haven't

been outside for a while. Come to think of, do you do you ever leave this podcast booth? Do you live here? Wait? Were you born here? Now? That's that's enough. Where do you shower in a sink like a baby? You don't have to answer that anyway. It's that time again. Today's episode was our last of season two. The season is over, and like the Barrenstein bears, it's time for us to go back into hibernation. There Stein bears didn't

wait to you mean, just like a bear? Well, sure, any any park ranger or or you know, nature specialists will We'll tell you. There's many types of bears. There's the black bear, the brown bear, grizzly bear, polar bear, and the barren Stein bears. And they're the ones who wear clothes and live in a treehouse. And you know, when you see a grizzly you have to play dad, right, well, if you see a barren Stein bear, you should strike up a conversation and try to be reasonable. If they're

they're really nasty, give them your watch. That's my last tip of the season. I bet you're you're glad you stay tuned to hear that jewel of advice. Anyway, we'd like to give a warm thank you to our listeners, a warm, warm thank you. We'd like to hug you, pat you on the head and tell you it's all going to be all right. Disregard all of the stuff about the Barrenstein bearries. Please, We just we just like

to thank everyone for tuning in. That's it, that's all, And we'd like to invite you to our cabin for a cup of hot cider. Wrap you in a warm wool blanket. Ah, look outside, the snow was falling. The ice has frozen over the nearby pond. Oh look a fox. Until next time when I have you in my house and we can really talk man to man. This was the Ron Burgundy Podcast. Thank you for joining. The truth will set you free, but first it'll piss you off.

The Ron Burgundy Podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and funnier doc I'm Ron Burgundy, the host, writer and executive producer. Carolina Barlow is my co host, writer and producer. Our producers are Jack O'Brien, Nick Stump, Myles Gray, and Whitney Out. Our executive producer is Mike farre Our consulting producer is Andrew Steele. Our coordinating producer is Colin McDougall. Our associate producers are Anna Hosnier and Sophie Lechterman. Our

writer is Jake Fogelist. Our production coordinator is Hannah Jacobson. This episode was engineered, mixed, and edited by Nick Stop. Until next time, this is Ron Burgundy.