The issues of working people are central feminist issues

In response to: "Women are never frontrunners," New York Times, January 8, 2008

To the Editor:

As a young feminist, I take umbrage at Gloria Steinem's suggestion that not to support Senator Clinton's bid for the presidency is to show insufficient radicalism (Jan. 8, “Women are Never Frontrunners”).

As bell hooks and others have pointed out, a feminism concerned primarily with “who must be in the kitchen or who may be in the White House” (Steinem's words) is a feminism relevant primarily to affluent white women. While Betty Friedan and others of her class struggled to escape their confinement to the domestic sphere, poor women and women of color were already in workplaces, struggling against many varieties of exploitation and marginalization.

Minimum-wage workers are disproportionately women. Working people without health insurance are disproportionately women. People reliant on our eroding social safety net are disproportionately women. Unfortunately, Senator Clinton is more conservative than other candidates for the Democratic nomination on these central feminist issues.