Gloria Steinem to lead women's march in North Korea

Gloria Steinem is among 30 female activists traveling from Beijing through the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea in a call for peace next Sunday. The event marks the International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament.

The 81-year-old activist told Reuters that “it seems to me that the past of no contact has not worked,” invoking former President Ronald Reagan’s call to tear down the Berlin Wall.


“We are saying: ‘Take down this isolation,’” she said, according to the report, which also notes that the organizers will meet with North Korean women and tour a maternity hospital, a women’s factory in Pyongyang and a preschool.

Both countries have approved the rare crossing of the DMZ, a rare event that has generated criticism among those who say the event could be used as propaganda by the North.

“There is nothing in this action that reflects prioritizing of one or another government,” the group said, according to The Associated Press.

The two countries have technically been at war since 1950, though a cease-fire has kept the war cold for more than 60 years. The conflict has not been without its flareups, most recently in 2013 when Kim Jong-un’s North Korea launched its third nuclear test and declared the 1953 armistice no longer valid. The North’s actions have been met with various sanctions over the years.