Letters to the Editor:
We take exception to Mary C. Curtis’s implications that feminists and feminist organizations have not engaged in a spirited defense of Michelle Obama when she has received biased treatment from the media. We also have an answer to her wondering what Gloria Steinem is doing about it.
The Women’s Media Center, a feminist media advocacy organization founded by Ms. Steinem in 2005, has been a consistent voice for fair media treatment of women, including Michelle Obama. We have been vocal from the first “proud of my country” flap through the current campaign to cast her as anti-white and un-American. As media monitors and advocates, we’ve written about bias, issued statements and given interviews protesting the insistence that she be “made over.” We fight sexism in the media wherever we find it.
Feminists are no more a monolith than women are. Many feminists supported Barack Obama in the primaries — hundreds signed petitions and wrote commentaries — and many posted these declarations on our Web site. And they support Michelle Obama now.
Ms. Curtis may indeed have a complaint — not necessarily against feminists but against mainstream media outlets that often do not let these voices demanding fair coverage be heard.
CAROL JENKINS
President
The Women’s Media Center
New York
