Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

Gloria Steinem Shares Anecdote About Casual Retail Anti-Semitism

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.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.