Gender roles challenged

By 6:30 p.m. Thursday night, the doors into the IU Auditorium were letting in a constant stream of people. Young and old, one thing united them -- they had come to hear noted feminist leader, activist, and journalist Gloria Steinem. The steady flow of people did not cease as Stephanie Sanders, associate director of the Kinsey Institute, began to introduce the lecture. \nSteinem's speech, titled "Sex and the Feminist Revolution," was part of a Kinsey Institute series dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Alfred Kinsey's book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female." \n"She's an American icon for human rights," said Doug Dalrymple, a retired IU faculty member. "You never know what she's going to say."\nWearing black trousers, a black shirt and a tan vest, Steinem came onto the stage under a flood of applause, which continued throughout the speech.\n"I've always been interested in feminist literature," said senior Christine Boone before the lecture. "The field I'm going into, music theory, is predominantly male. I want to find out all I can about progressive movements in feminism."\nTHE SPEECH\nFor Steinem, the word feminist has never carried the pejorative connotation it has for so many, she said. It is controversial, but it has always been misunderstood. Steinem said one-third of all women identify themselves as feminists making more women identify with feminism, even if it has no definition, than identify with the Republican party.\nIn this lecture, Steinem's main focus was sex and the idea that sex is the cause of female subservience.\n"The only difference between male and female is sex itself," Steinem said. "The idea of sex is how women got into this jam in the first place."\nThe jam is the history of men's desire to control women's bodies as basic means to reproduction, thus also controlling the increased number of children, she said. For this reason, women have been considered a subservient species to men. \n"One of the biggest lies in history is that female sexuality is only moral if it takes place within the sanctity of marriage and is connected to reproduction," Steinem said.\nThrough this view, men have victimized themselves in addition to enforcing a strict policy against birth control and abortion, Steinem said. A choice is the means to control oneself. She said that a person who can choose to have an abortion is rebelling against the culture of a reproductive prison. \n"It's like saying that you have freedom of speech to only say one thing," Steinem said. \nThrough this cycle of reproductive control, men have lost the qualities that make them human -- compassion, patience and flexibility -- characteristics that are generally considered feminine, she said. They have created a standard of masculinity, which in turn creates the notion of a male right to dominance. \n"We have already begun to raise our daughters as we would our sons," Steinem said. "But we have yet to raise our sons as we would our daughters."\nSteinem said she believes the standard of masculinity deprives men of a full life. They commit acts of violence, making themselves victims of their actions. Steinem said those men who are obsessed with this cult of masculinity commit most acts of senseless violence -- when the criminal does not know his victims. When they are deprived of their "right" to dominate, they lose their identity, causing a rift in themselves. \nA change in everyday behavior is the only way to truly uproot violence in the longterm, she said. \n"The art of behaving morally and ethically is to behave as if everything we do matters," Steinem said.\nTHE QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION\nAfter the applause quieted, close to 15 people lined up at the two microphones available waiting to hear Steinem's opinion. The questions during the session ranged from sex education to the AIDS epidemic in Africa to the changing gender roles in America and voting.\nMost notably, a Bloomington High School South student asked about improving sex education in Bloomington schools. She said local high school students are taught reproduction but not sex education. While they know body parts, they do not know anything about sex, the questioner said. \nSteinem said the Kinsey Institute was one of the best teachers for those students who would like to receive a comprehensive sex education. She also suggested implementing educational plans adopted in Washington, D.C. \n"I care much more about going into the future than about the past," Steinem said. "Knowing the past may help in the future, though. You see how to do it again"