Gloria Steinem "A Bunny's Tale"

Journalist and feminist Gloria Steinem has been involved since the early 1950's in liberal causes and became a leading spokeswoman for the feminist movement. One of her early works was "A Bunny's Tale" which helped her path in the women's liberation movement in the 1970's. 

By the 1960's Playboy was reaching staggering million readers a month, and in 1963 a table-turning article "A Bunny's Tale" was published. During this time Hefner was at his height of his influence and making himself rich, all the clubs were flourishing.

Steinem was not amused by the 1962 publication of "the Emancipation Proclamation of the sexual revolution" that Hefner published. She decided to react in the best way possible.  Steinem used her journalistic abilities, created an entirely new identity and infiltrated Hefner's upcoming empire by becoming a Bunny herself at his New York club exposing what it truly is like to work there.

"A Bunny's Tale" is written in the form of a diary, Steinem made daily entries, keeping track of the events of the day. The tale starts out with the background of Steinem and her initial reasoning for starting this venture it then moves to the creation of her alias, Marie Catherine Ochs. A name that is a family name and easy for her to remember it.

Ms. Ochs did not waste any time, she went to the club and fill out the application, where she is met with automatic catcalling and automatic realization where her stance would be if she decided to take this avenue.

Steinem, 1963

When she entered the club, she was automatically told to remove her coat in order to reveal herself to the woman interviewing her. The application only asked for an address, phone, measurements, age and last three employers. Once hired all the girls who are hired to be a bunny must get venereally tested before being allowed to work at the establishment. On top of being tested and subjected to people objectifying her, forced to wear a costume two inches too small everywhere except the bust area. She is told who she can date and cannot date, that she is not allowed to talk to anyone outside the club; if she does it must be two blocks away. 

After Steinem finished her training she was assigned the Coat Bunny station, where you stand by the front door in order to take guests' hats and coats. You get the first glance at the reality of wearing the infamous Bunny costume. Steinem described how cold it is with just a small shaw over her shoulder leaving her chest exposed, every time the door would open a gust of cold air would freeze her coworker and herself.

Cover of Playboy at the time Steinem was undercover

Every costume is custom made for each girl and it is made two inches smaller in every way but the bust area as said before. That area is where they stuff with various objects. Steinem made a list of what girls would put under their breast to make them appear larger. Some of the things were plastic dry cleaner bags lamb's wool, socks, scarves, kleenexes, cut up bunny tails. The upkeep of the outfit is $2.50, to get a perspective that is about $20 in today's currency, their nylons is $5 per pair which is about $40, and they have a minimum heel height of three inches, any heels lower than that they will receive demerits which some clubs that is actual money the girls need to pay to the club, so if a girl had 100 demerits, she has to pay $25. If you see if $5 is $40 today, $25 is a lot of money. Especially when the girls are not paid well. 

As she continues to work as a bunny in the club, Steinem starts to take note on the difficulty it was to gain tips from customers since they could only keep the cash tips, anything charged the company takes a percentage of it away. So the advertised salary of $200 was just a pawn to gain the eye of girls. Steinem made $29.85.

She notes about working long hours and how difficult it was to work. She wrote about how her feet hurt her so back they ached like teeth and they would swell so badly that she could barely put her shoes on. Her usual shift would be from 7:30 PM to 4:00AM with no break having to do 16 round trips to the bar each hour. With working so much Steinem lost almost ten pounds just in a few days because she never got a chance for a break and she is not allowed to eat in the dressing room. 

     

Steinem, 1963.
During her last few days at the club.

After Steinem published her work, people recognized the difficulty she endured while working there and acknowledged how she resisted the desire to go against what this company stands for and many things the Playboy Club was doing towards their workers until after the article was published. Playboy did lash out against her calling her a homely girl, who they would never hire her and then deny the quality of work is of that nature. 

Steinem is a prominent feminist activist. After this article publishing, it gained popularity. Many consider her work and writing as  Steinem created other works and she will later be a co-founder of Ms magazine, which is one of the first magazines to feature American women protesting for the repeal of laws that criminalize abortion, to rate presidents based on how they handle women's issues, conducted a national study about the dangers of date rape. Ms. Magazine made feminist voices audible, allowing the views be available to the public, and made it possible to write about feminism.

Work Cited

“About.” Ms. Magazine Blog, msmagazine.com/blog/about/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

History.com Staff. “Gloria Steinem.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/womens-history/gloria-steinem. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

Mills, Nicolaus. “Gloria Steinem's 'a bunny's tale' – 50 years later.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 26 May 2013, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/26/gloria-steinem-bunny-tale-still-relevant-today. Accessed 21 Sept. 2017.

Steinem, Gloria. “A Bunny's Tale.” Show, May 1963, pp. 99–116. 

Steinem, Gloria. “"A Bunny's Tale Part II.” Show, June 1965, pp. 66–116.

Steinem, Gloria. “Gloria Steinem on Why You Should Become a Feminist.” Glamour Magazine, Women of the Year Awards, 25 Oct. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxmklZxqkWM. Accessed 20 Sept. 2017.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. “Gloria Steinem.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 9 May 2017, www.britannica.com/biography/Gloria-Steinem. Accessed 20 Sept. 2017.