How Gloria Steinem Established Fashion in the 1970s

History Of Fashion: Gloria Steinem -- Feminist Chic

The fashion style of Gloria Steinem is perfectly reflected in the photograph by Yale Joel as well as in the ideology which she promoted throughout the early days of the Feminist Movement.

Steinem's fashion style mirrored her Feminist advocacy history, when in the 1960s, she started Ms. Magazine, which addressed such topics as the problematic nature of the word "male" being in "female." "[footnoteRef:1] In Yale Joel's photograh, Steinem sits, Indian style (cross-legged), and holds a placard that reads "We Shall Overcome."[footnoteRef:2] The emphatic nature of this prophecy is apparent in the underscored verb and the clothing that Steinem wears indicates a kind of militaristic "chic" -- a fashionably elegant, streamlined radical femininity that a leader like Steinem could use advocate change. She would use this image to advocate abortions, as she did in a 2006 article entitled "We Had Abortions," which discussed the lives of women who made a decision more than thirty years prior to abort their babies.[footnoteRef:3] These women were proud of what they had done and believed that their decision had been a good one not only for themselves but for all women everywhere. Plus, they wore the uniform of Steinem -- the high-waisted flare jeans, the belt, the turtleneck or t-shirt, hair parted in the middle, and her signature optical aviators -- the same outfit she wears in her Joel photograph. She was like a commander flying at the "V" formation, leading other women onward through the Women's Movement of the 1970s. [1: Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (NY: Henry Holt, 1984), 18.] [2: Yale Joel, The LIFE Picture Collection, TIME. Web. 31 Oct 2015.] [3: R. Cooke, "Gloria Steinem: I Think We Need to Get Much Angrier," The Guardian. Web. 31 Oct 2015.]

Women's status in the 1970s was under a lot of pressure from the Establishment, which had already given the women the right to vote in the early 20th century, then allowed them the right to work in the WW2 era: now women wanted sexual rights, sexual liberation, the right to demolish the glass ceiling, the right to be heard, the right to be educated, the right to control their own reproductive systems. It was an ideological movement that focused much more on the actual nature of women and womanhood than at any other time. No longer did women within the Feminist Movement want to be viewed as individuals who could bear life within their wombs. They wanted to be viewed as individuals with minds and wills which were free to do as they pleased.

In this context, Steinem marked Fashion by her adherence to a dressed-down, casual style with a hint of militarism -- which was much in vogue in the 1970s as well, what with various militant protest groups, like the Black Panthers, coming into existence and appealing to a youthful spirit of militancy, which was sick and tired of seeing its leaders being assassinated one after the other: JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X, all within the span of a few short years. In protest against these atrocities, and the "oppression of women" that Feminists voicing, Steinem went into action and inspired an entire fashion line, so to speak, that other young Feminists for generations would look to in order to stand out as they stood up to be heard for their opinions and their attitudes regarding their sexuality and their rights.

Thus, there was Karl Largerfield who "sent 90-and-change proteges of the ineffable Steinem towards a finish line called victory" in high waist jeans, belts and those famous aviator glasses -- suggesting in a visual manner that the Feminist Movement consisted of unique, individualistic women who each embodied her own special charisma and was not simply engaged in conforming to an ideological fad mainly supported by fashionable trends.[footnoteRef:4] This was a deeply rooted ideological war and women were at the front line, and the fashionable Steinem, as seen in the photograph, with her Fonda-like hair exuded sex-appeal in such a way that the women embraced both sexuality and the sex kitten like aura of the popular girls of television in the 1950s and 1960s (which women like Betty Friedan had protested in the her book The Feminine Mystique as being wrong-headed).[footnoteRef:5] Nonetheless, Steinem and her proteges made being sexy and being hip and fashionable okay again because they attached it to their ideology of Feminism, which was anti-Establishment, just like the other youth movements, like the anti-Vietnam War movement. [4: Leandra Medine, "Gloria Steinem -- Style," Man Repeller, 2015. Web. 31 Oct 2015.] [5: David Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), 2.]

In this manner, Steinem labeled the "fourth wave of feminism" uniting women and girls from all over the world with their "take me as I am" attitude.[footnoteRef:6] She marched for women's rights and marked a new period in women's fashion, elevating modern "chic" and uniting it to an ideology that was both sexy and militant at the same time. [6: Alexandra Thurmond, "Happy Birthday, Gloria Steinem!" TeenVogue, 2015. Web. 31 Oct 2015.]