there's a great gloria steinem quote which is that "it's all fine and good that we're raising our daughters right, but let's also bring up our sons to be good men." and so, in my book, i do talk about various ways that you can do that. the first is that men have to -- husbands, fathers -- have to model the right behavior. the second things is that we have to start to encourage that male and female leadership attributes, that things that are traditionally defined as a strong leader or a great leader, traditionally, that's been conventional male attributes of assertive, aggressive, go get 'em, right? and female attributes tend to be stereotypically described as nurturing, collaborative, communicative, and we have to start modeling behavior that both of those or a blend of both of those is 100% acceptable. >> i have to tell a heartening story here. i have a now-24-year-old son who happens to have a twin sister, and two years ago, i was in the kitchen, and boys were home from college, and there were at least 10, maybe 12, of my son's friends, all boys, in the kitchen. and they were making pizza

some of them were clearly on the radical side, but going back to betty friedan, even gloria steinem to some extent, they weren't going near that far. and to go back to our caller who has left us, i think she's quite right, that if you were a married woman in 1969, you couldn't sign for a home mortgage. you couldn't sign for credit cards without your husband's permission. there were some very important issues that women faced that had nothing to do with the more radical piece of what became the feminist agenda. guest: yeah, i think you and i might disagree about how radical they were. if you look at the writings, there were feminist blockbusters in 1970, sexual politics, the dialectic of sex, the female eunuch. these books were big sellers, celebrated on the front page of "time magazine." they were very much part of the culture and they were extremely radical in their solutions. they were doctrinaire marxist except for a few little quibbles, and they were absolutely endorsing the abolition of the nuclear family which they felt was the cradle of all problems of women. guest: some of thos

some of them were clearly on the radical side, but going back to betty friedan, even gloria steinem to some extent, to go back to our caller who has left us, i think she is quite right. if you were a married woman in 1969, you could not sign for a home mortgage or credit card without your husband's permission. so there were some very tactical issues women faced at that time, which had nothing to do with the sort of more radical piece of what became the feminist agenda. guest: i think you and i might disagree about how radical they were. if you look at the writings -- there were feminism blockbusters in 1970, sexual politics, the dialectic of sex, the female eunuch, these books were celebrated on the front page of "time" magazine. they were very much part of the culture and they were extremely radical in their solutions. they were doctrinaire marxist except for a few little quibbles, and they were absolutely endorsing the abolition of the nuclear family which they felt was the cradle of all problems of women. guest: some of those books were, but again if you go back to betty friedan and

she said with the women's movement, i'm not gloria steinem but i'm going to use my platform and my talent i deposited it. what i didn't tell was that, she said, boy, haven't you heard how you can copy a check and keep it and put it in the bank? but that's how she was. she was real committed to a lot of works, and she stood -- she was so proud of president obama, and when he had her do the inauguration -- she had done others, but i think she saw it the coming together of her father's dream, for her to be standing there with her church hat on -- i mean she had a hat that became iconic unto itself. >> let's get a picture of that. >> and sang for the first black president. i know, and we talked about it, she was thinking of c.l. franklin and the marches he did with dr. king. >> she sent him a check, he needed the money but he framed it. >> aretha franklin signed the heck. >> i'm with you. >> reverend al, didn't you know you could copy it? chris, you interviewed aretha franklin a number of times. you were at her 70th birthday a few years ago. what stuck out to you the most when you think of he

gloria steinem in her memoir writes about how she tried to disassociate from her mother when she was younger because she saw her mother as passive, weak, having struggled with mental illness and having given up a career as a journalist to raise a family. it was a stance she revised when she discovered quote, we were alike in many ways, something i hadn't seen or couldn't admit out of fear i would share her fate. it is something so many of us can relate to. we want to think we aren't subject to the same forces in others' lives, that we are free to do whatever we choose. sometimes we come so attached to this heady narrative we will throw our true allies and even ourselves under the bus. it's frighteningly easy for so many of us in this country to empathize with those who abuse power. there's a tension evident in the fact 2017's person of the year was the silence breakers, all the women who had come forward about being sexually harassed. the runnerup for the honor, president trump. what better evidence of how we are wrestling with what power means and where it resides. just because i wo

gloria steinem -- sorry about that. that was truly a slip of the town. tongue. many on the left who were upset with ruth bader ginsburg, they that you should have retired when obama was still the president and now they say she is just holding on. i believe she is trying to give them a reason to rally during the midterms. now you have a reason to vote because ruth is going to hang on for another five more years. >> laura: i understand that people -- i saw this last night on twitter -- are offering up their organs, their internal organs, to keep her going. is that true? you see here with the barbells. >> the woman survived pancreatic cancer. >> laura: she's amazing. i actually have known her for almost 30 years. >> you will get another five years. >> laura: she's a delightful person. >> we will move on. basketball superstar lebron james just opened a brand-new state-of-the-art school in his hometown of akron, ohio. during a media tour, he had this to say about the president.ho listen. >> this race thing has been taken over, and because -- i believe our president i

when she was asked about her role in the women's movement, she said, "i think that's gloria steinem'smily friend. what are your thoughts this morning, michael? >> well, we've lost the greatest voice of the 20th century. the greatest sound a voice made when it sang was aretha franklin, the daughter of one of the most remarkable preachers in america. over 76 albums he made in a career of extraordinary evangelism across the country. she debuted at 14 years old on record. "never grow old" was the song she sang. she had a soul that was much older than her body. she then eventually left the church to, you know, make soul music. there was a tremendous scism and a tremendous conflict, and yet the church was in her, she wasn't in the church. she carried the gospel fervor into the world and, as you indicated, she was a catalyst for so many movements, not only the feminist movement in terms of respect, but "respect" was a song of self-assertion and racial pride. and she was a member of that generation that raised funds for civil rights movement, that spoke out against injustice. she sang, of cou

she was different from gloria steinem.n put a finger or pinprick some of the deep yearnings women withside from politics just a have a voice, and identity, to have dreams of being something other than a housewife. and beautiful writer. i think she just a voice out there that people responded to. steve: debora spar is the former president of barnard college, joining us in new york. , thea -- mona charen ethics and public policy center. leo from the bronx in new york, democrats line. caller: good morning. thinking that the issue of women's rights i want to raise is last year you saw an explosion of reckoning against people in the media such as harvey weinstein and charlie rose for being abusive towards women. why do you think this suddenly happened and why now and why 50 years later? steve: thank you. let's turn to debora spar. the #metoo movement. debora: this has been a watershed moment in the women's movement. i don't think it flash and panic. very important. i think what happened is the stories have been out there for ye

in the 19th century the slavery and 20 century there's paragraph about martin luther king and gloria steinembut then that's a -- it's distinctive about who i am as a scholar and citizen and different about this book. the other thing is there's a lot of technologies here because we know now even if we did not know it before that technology and commission form are political arrangements because we know people understand social media accounts conferences and even the internet itself has conferences for political arrangements and populism, for instance. that's always been the case. early newspapers change political arrangements. the telegraph dramatically changed the order of the united states. nothing bigger than the history of radio in terms of creating political communities and offering opportunities for politicians to reach the people directly. the book is full of the history of technology and computers, mainframe computers. i'm happy about that because you pick up a history book and it's if technology has no history or part of political history. it's pretty distinct thing and you'll find in