Life

Gloria Steinem Shares Anecdote About Casual Retail Anti-Semitism

Gloria Steinem at the Women’s March. Image by Getty Images

By Phoebe Maltz Bovy March 7, 2017

Sign up for Forwarding the News, our essential morning briefing with trusted, nonpartisan news and analysis, curated by Senior Writer Benyamin Cohen.

Feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem, whose series about anti-woman violence appears on Viceland UK on March 8th, International Women’s Day, recently gave a fascinating interview to Rosanna Greenstreet in the Guardian. One part especially jumped out:

What’s the worst job you’ve done?

Being a salesgirl in a baby shop where the others said things like, “He’s Jewish, but she’s American.” Also, after college, being a waitress in London, and trying to make change in the old money of shillings and pence.

Steinem’s presumably not-so-recent anecdote, about colleagues who inadvertently let on that didn’t think a person could be Jewish and American, seems disturbingly timely.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. Her book, The Perils of “Privilege”, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is a former editor of the Sisterhood blog at the Forward. Her writing has appeared in several publications, including The New Republic and The Atlantic. Her book, “The Perils of ‘Privilege,’” was published by St. Martin’s Press in March 2017. She has a PhD in French and French Studies from New York University, and has read a lot of 19th century French Jewish newspapers for a 21st century American.