On Monday night, the Marriott Hotel in Walnut Creek hosted the 2012 East Bay Women's Conference featuring feminist and political icon Gloria Steinem. During the conference, which culminated in her standing ovation-causing "The Progression of Feminism and Social Equity" speech, Oakland Tribune's Angela Hill caught up with Steinem for a one-on-one interview. When asked to give her thoughts on the recent political battle over contraception, Rush Limbaugh's slut-gate, and the conservative "war on women." Behold:

Yes, and there has been for a long time. But it wasn't always that way. The Republican Party supported the Equal Rights Amendment before the Democrats did. What's happening now is about a relatively small percentage of religious and economic extremists that have taken over the party. Reproductive freedom is a fundamental human right -- to decide what happens to our own bodies is as basic as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. But there's a backlash against it from patriarchal religions that have enshrined the idea of a male God and control of women. Religion is sometimes politics you can't -- or you're not supposed to -- criticize.

As to Rush? You're listening to Rush hang himself. I'm glad to see his sponsors withdrawing. He ought to be fired. He's been saying horrific things for a long time.

Hear, hear.

But. Before we herald the second coming of Steinem, her thoughts on pop culture, at least according to this television theoretician of unparalleled taste and scrutiny, leave much to be desired. When asked if the various Housewives shows on Bravo, Jersey Shore's Snooki, and the prostitutes known as the Kardashians are setting women back, Steinem replied:

Well, yes. Women are portrayed as ornaments. The media shapes our views of what we can be. Part of the backlash says, if we just changed our bodies, society would be fine. I'm not trying to demonize these people. I don't know the Kardashians or Snooki. But what is going to happen to Snooki later in life? She is a joke.

Eh. Granted, the Kardashians and the girls (and boys) on Jersey Shore are wastes of molecules and, yes, do fuck with young girls' minds. But the Housewives? They're platinum. Let's not put The Countess or Kim Richards in the same class as a living dandruff flake rolling around drunk on the Jersey Shore.

Read the entire interview at Oakland Tribune.