To feminist icon Gloria Steinem, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is unusually brave and businesswoman Carly Fiorina is just unusual.
During a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, the 81-year-old Ms. magazine founder, who’s been celebrated for decades in feminist circles, weighed in on the two female presidential hopefuls, saying she’d award Clinton’s campaign an overall “8 out of 10” and describing why Fiorina is both good and bad for feminism.
“[Clinton] is just more experienced and braver than anyone else,” Steinem said of the presumptive Democratic front-runner. “I think she should have a button saying, ‘I wasn’t born a Clinton.’ And I do wish that Bush hadn’t had a son, the first Bush. But if it’s OK to be a son, it’s OK to be a spouse. ”
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Steinem continued, “Only [Clinton] looks at the status of women and females everywhere as part of foreign policy. And this is especially crucial now because, for the first time that we know of, there are fewer females on earth than males as a result of domestic violence in this country, sexualized violence in war zones, preference for male babies, FGM, child marriage … and only she considers it.”
Turning to Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard and first woman to lead a Fortune 50 company, Steinem said: “[She’s] good for feminism because she demonstrates that it’s not about biology, it’s about consciousness.”
She added, however, that Fiorina is simultaneously “bad for feminism because she doesn’t represent the majority interests, even according to public opinion polls of women in this country.”
In late September, Steinem blasted Fiorina on her personal Facebook page after the female GOP candidate took a hammer to Planned Parenthood during the second Republican primary debate.
“If you thought Republicans could find no woman more damaging to the diversity and needs of the female half of this country than Sarah Palin, take a good look at Carly Fiorina and what she stands for,” the wrote on Sept. 18.
Asked during an interview in June if there were any feminists who deserved the title “hero,” Fiorina included Steinem in her answer.
“Susan B. Anthony, Gloria Steinem, they’re all heroes in their own way because, when someone challenges the status quo, that’s heroic. Even if I don’t always agree with them,” Fiorina reportedly said.
Fiorina dropped to fourth place in this week’s Washington Examiner presidential power rankings. She has slipped in several national polls recently, most notably falling from 15 percent to 4 percent support among Republican voters In a CNN/ORC survey released Tuesday.
