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Sunday, Nov 22, 2009
On the other side of the room, Ms. magazine editor Elaine Lafferty was experiencing faux-exasperation about another kind of branding. "Greta vandalized my car!" said Lafferty in mock distress. She was referring to her friend Greta Van Susteren, the Fox News anchor. Van Susteren had placed a Fox News bumper sticker on Lafferty's car before Lafferty arrived; it wasn't exactly de rigueur ornamentation among the feminists. Lafferty was wearing a pink version of a popular shirt featuring a chiaroscurro image of Hillary Rodham Clinton on the front. The day before the demonstration, it was still unclear whether the New York senator would be making an appearance during the weekend. "Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows," said Lafferty.
Steinem, who had removed her medium heels to get closer to the microphone, was addressing the party. "Tomorrow is going to be a life-changing event for all of us, but also as a country," she said. "Who knows what's going to happen in the next two days, but it's going to be exciting." About a third of the hands shot up in response to Steinem's question about how many were at their first march. "So that means we've got the hardcore and we've got the young ... Onward!" she crowed, before turning the podium over to other speakers, including actresses Kathy Najimy, Camryn Manheim and Tyne Daly, Sen. Boxer, and Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal.
Daly, the star of "Judging Amy," who made her name on "Cagney and Lacey" -- possibly the best television show about women ever -- is silver-haired, and had dyed the ends of her coiffure a shocking pink, in honor of the march's "raspberry" color scheme. Her fingernails and toenails were polished to match. After her speech, Daly retreated to a quiet corner and talked about media priorities. "People didn't seem to care about the death of soldiers or the ruination of the economy, just about Miss Jackson's breast," she said, suggesting that "we as women should go to Washington to march and collectively bare our breasts" -- and here she grabbed her own ample rack -- "These are the WMDs: the Weapons of Media Distraction." Daly, a mother of children ranging from 36 to 18, said she knew that she, however well respected, was not likely to be the lightning-rod personality that electrified the nation's youth. "I wanted the cast of 'Sex and the City,' I wanted the cast of 'Friends,'" she said of her Hollywood organizing for the march. "But we live in an atmosphere of fear. It's hard to get people out."
Jennie Eskin, a 19-year-old Princeton student there with her mother, Santa Barbara state Assembly member Hannah-Beth Jackson, said that among her college friends, there isn't a high rate of activism. "I think we're more complacent about it, we just accept [reproductive choice] as our right," she said, adding that most of her friends wouldn't know Steinem if they fell over her. "They'd know the name, maybe," she said, "but not really who she is." Eskin and her friend Chase Taylor, a 19-year-old Hofstra student, said that they would love to see more celebrities with whom they identified up at the podium. "Brad Pitt! Good lord!" said Eskin, adding, "It's not going to be the older women who fought the battle who are going to inspire us. It's people we recognize and quote-unquote admire."
Later that night at the Armory, NOW president Kim Gandy boasted that a third of the next day's anticipated demonstrators were coming from college campuses. And Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal told the crowd, "We're going to outnumber the right wing! Doesn't that sound beautiful?" The enthusiastic response to Smeal was nothing compared to the hoots of support that followed California Rep. Maxine Waters' suggestion that George W. Bush "go straight to hell!" (Unfortunately, Waters' comments were followed by a folky performance of "Every Sperm Does Not Deserve a Name.")
On the Metro after the Armory party, a young man with low-slung jeans and a sparkly lion face painted onto his neck fingered a button on his female companion's jacket. "What does 'no coat hanger' mean?" he asked. "That's how women used to get abortions," replied the young woman.
"No way!" said the young man. "That's awful! I mean, I like the button, but that's awful!"
The girl looked shocked. "Haven't you ever seen 'Dirty Dancing?'" she asked.
