Award-winning journalist Katha Pollitt believes the issue offeminism is as important today as it was during the ‘60s and‘70s.

“What isn’t a women’s issue these days?”Pollitt said. “I find this such a sort of fiesta ofwomen’s issues.”

Pollitt finished out the Gartner Honors Series on Tuesday nightwith her lecture “Equality for Women: Are we ThereYet?”

The self-labeled “extreme leftist,” Pollittaddressed an audience, largely made up of students, on how womenstill struggle for equal rights involving marriage, war, education,the job market and politics.

These issues did not go away after the ‘60s and’70s, nor have they been solved, she said.

“The women’s movement, according to the media, isdead,” she said.

Instead, there is a “post-feminism” push in themedia nowadays.

“Women finally get their own television network, andwhat’s on it?”

“Crap.”

She referred to all the special networks targeting women thatdevote a lot of airtime to shows featuring traditionalwomen’s roles such as housekeeping, cooking, gardening andother domestic tasks.

The media wants the public to believe that most women are goingback in time and back to the home, she said.

These “trend stories” only look at the smallminority of women who were able to drop out of the job marketbecause they were married to wealthy men.

Even then, she said, “these women did not want to quittheir jobs.” They faced grueling work situations but couldget out of them because they could afford to live on theirspouse’s income.

“People are suffering in a variety of ways for not havingto rely on a partner,” she said, referring to women andsingle mothers who make up most of the women’s workforce.

Another issue that Pollitt thinks has been influenced by thefeminist movement is the trend of women getting married later.

“The age of marriage is higher than it has ever been inhistory,” Pollitt said.

People wanted to be married because there were things that youcould only do when you were married. That has changed, shesaid.

Today, people can live the married lifestyle while they arestill single.

“The late ’60s and early ’70s succeeded inoverturning basic discriminations against women,”she said,but there is still work to be done.