A Prophet Without Honor in Her Own Country

It is unsurprising to see disparaging remarks about the late Gloria Steinem on the political right, nor especially the political wing with Christian ideas about abortion's immorality. What is perhaps more surprising is to see how strong the reaction against her at the hour of her death happens to be on the political left, which views her as a CIA-funded effort in mind control, and her version of feminism as an attempt to suborn and subjugate genuine liberation movements in the name of American/Israeli hegemony. 

The CIA connection is not a conspiracy theory in the usual sense of the term; it is well-documented, including by the CIA. 

Was at least her feminism, or a strain aligned with it, a CIA project to destabilize traditional societies? It's not a ridiculous idea. We know that USAID -- often said to be a CIA funding/action arm -- supported similar transgender movements globally. The aim seems to have been to build out and identify networks of people with deep, existential grievances against their own society and its mores -- an ideal recruiting base for agents who would act against their own governments. The CIA also funded modern art as a psychological warfare approach against traditional societies. 

In a way, such efforts were at once revolutionary and counter-revolutionary. The disruption being wrought by left-leaning movements to traditional societies is inherent in Marxism, which aspires to revolutions against agricultural/feudal societies towards capitalist/industrial ones and, then, against capitalist ones towards communist/socialist ones. Marxism always advocated for the equality of women as a liberation from traditional roles, even though women who joined Marxist and Maoist movements rarely found themselves in positions of power once the revolutions carried the day. Trying to find a way to suborn and redirect this feminist thrust to support the position of America and its allies was an insight that made a lot of sense to the American elites who ran both State and the Agency.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum. I merely note the controversy; may she rest in peace.