Steinem continued from page 7

Steinem continued from page 7

realistic solutions to these problems. Lansing answered that what Congress needs isn't more economic experts, but more variety. "55% of Congress is lawyers, and the only thing they're trained for is defending property and arranging divorces." Another questioner wondered whether she'd be able to withstand the pressures of the white male establishment. "I've been confronting the male power structure since I was 10 years old," she retorted. Lansing seemed surprised at the audience's eagerness to hear her views ("You came to hear Gloria, so I'll sit down now."), and her explanations often seemed rushed and unprepared. In a brief interview following the speech, she explained that "primaries are run on personalities, not issues. Ed Pierce and I probably don't disagree on anything. I'm running against six men, and I'm running as a woman."

She suggested that wage and price controls should be re-instituted and prices rolled back. "Low and middle income people are suffering, but if you look in the Wall St. Journal you'll see that corporation profits have gone sky high. We also need to change the tax structure to take some of the burden off low and middle income people, so they can deal with higher prices. In the last election, Nixon promised no tax in creases, then he turned around and instituted a higher Social Security tax, one of the most regressive taxes we have."  

"Many low and middle income families are really in a bind. If you wonder why we have 47% of adult females in the labor force now, in many cases it's because a family needs two wage earners to be able to buy the groceries." Earlier, Steinem had spoken of women's needs for choice-freedom to choose to have children as well as freedom from pregnancy, freedom to raise children or work at a meaningful job.

A wide ranging informal question and answer period covered subjects from women's studies to an analysis of women's role as the means of reproduction.The message of the evening was best summed up by one interchange. A woman asked how she could get men to change their actions toward her. "All I can tell you," replied Steinem, " is take no shit."  --Barbara Meyer