GLORIA STEINEM – who dedicates her life to ensuring we know that we are not broken, but were born into a system intended to break us – lives in the DNA of millions who are giving birth to movements or to themselves. She reminds us why there’s nothing more radical than telling the truth of our lives, and listening to the truth of others’ lives. She reminds us that leaving our lives unlived is no badge of honor. She reminds us of the thirst-quenching, life-giving, revolutionary power of laughter. She reminds us of the three different kinds of laughter, and that we can do hard things – like laugh our way to liberation. About Gloria: Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, political activist, and feminist organizer. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of Indigenous Peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. She lives in New York City. TW: @GloriaSteinem IG: @gloriasteinem To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why is Gloria Steinem an influential figure?
She is a writer, lecturer, political activist, feminist organizer, and lifelong listener. She is the author of The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off, My Life on the Road, Moving Beyond Words, Revolution from Within, and Outrageous Acts in Everyday Rebellions. And a founder of New York Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the National Women's Political Caucus, the Ms.
Foundation for Women, the Free to Be Foundation, and the Women's Media Center in the United States. Although she wants us to be linked and not ranked, it's true that she is widely regarded as the iconic leader of the second wave feminist movement. She has spent decades traveling in this and other countries as an organizer and a listener.
She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles, and child abuse as roots of violence, in nonviolent conflict resolution in the wisdom of indigenous cultures, and in organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
And in 2019, she received the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum. She lives in New York City and in the DNA of every woman who is trying to give birth to a movement or to herself. Welcome, Gloria. Thank you for doing so many hard things with such tenacity and wisdom and humor and, most importantly, with the refusal to leave anyone behind.
Well, thank you for that introduction. I'm already worrying about, can I live up to my... Right, right, right, right. But I'm really looking forward to this talk today because I know I'm going to learn too.
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Chapter 2: What impact did Gloria's mother have on her life?
Oh my goodness. So we would love to begin where it all began with Ruth, your mother. You knew your mother as a woman whose life was ruled by her mental illness. And by the age of 10, in fact, you were her caretaker. And later on, you learned that she was a pioneering journalist with huge ambitions and a man she loved, both of which she never pursued.
In Ruth's song, which I reread all the time, you said of her, I miss her, but perhaps no more in death than I did in life. Oh, does that line speak to so much. Can you tell us what you meant by that?
I think many of us had mothers who could not be fully their own talented, autonomous, independent selves. And that's a source of sorrow for us. And also, in some ways, we're living out the unlived lives of our mothers.
I'm a journalist, and I'm happy to be a journalist, but I'm sure that it had something to do with the fact that I knew that my mother had worked for the Toledo Blade, and she used to show me how to fold a piece of paper to make a reporter's notebook in your palm before there were reporter's notebooks. I mean, I'm sure that I absorbed some of the love for it from her,
And the sorrow is that she should have been able to complete her own life and to continue with what she loved, and she just couldn't.
Can you tell us about when you asked your mom about why she didn't pursue the love and ambitions of her life?
Well, I knew that she had not actually left the Toledo Blade, the big local newspaper in Toledo, until my older sister, she's 10 years older than I am, was about six. So I realized that she had tried to continue even after... She had a child to look out for. And even after she was married to my father, a wonderfully kind, but kind of also irresponsible person.
But I realized that it had been such a toll on her that she had had what was then termed a nervous breakdown, quote unquote, and been unable to function, spent almost a year in a sanatorium. And when she came out, I think her spirit was broken. She felt she couldn't continue as she wished to.
Yeah. And I love this part of, I think it's an on the road. When you said, why didn't you continue the ambition, go with that man who you were truly in love with? What did she said? You, well, then you wouldn't have been born. Yes. It's hard to argue with that. Yeah. But in your mind, you did argue.
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Chapter 3: How do talking circles empower women?
I think this simple act, whether it's a talking circle or two women at a kitchen table or whatever it is, of being able to tell the truth about your feelings and your life experience and be heard and hear someone else's truth is how we understand life. the collective truth.
It's possible to understand it from reading statistics and so on, but I think it's much more likely if we hear other people's personal stories that we identify with. So every social justice movement that I'm aware of started out that way. The civil rights movement started in Black churches in the South with people testifying about what happened to them. The anti-Vietnam War movement started with
a few men resisting going off to what was an unjust war in the first place. And there's nothing more basic or radical than telling the truth and listening to the truth from other people.
In so many photographs of you and your organizing partners, whether it's you and Bella Abzug, Flo Kennedy, Dorothy Pittman Hughes, or Wilma Mankiller, You all seem to be laughing. There's so much joy and laughter. We have to understand how this is possible after so many decades of fighting against this unrelenting bullshit. How were you and are you so full of laughter instead of bitterness?
Well, I think we need each other. I'm not sure that if I were isolated, I would be laughing. Right. Maybe. But laughter is crucial, you know, because laughter turns out to be the one emotion that can't be compelled. It's a proof of freedom. And in many Native American cultures, there's a god of laughter. who is neither male nor female and connects the known world to the unknown world.
You can make somebody afraid, obviously. You can even make someone feel they're in love if they're kept isolated and dependent for long enough, but you can't make them laugh. And I just love that as a proof of freedom. And laughing together is such a communal experience. And I think we should beware of... Churches and temples that keep us from laughing. Wait a minute. What is that about?
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Chapter 4: Why is laughter important in activism?
Right? I can't stop thinking about the laughter as proof of freedom because, Gloria, one of the things that makes me so furious about myself is when I giggle. Like it's compulsory at something a man says that isn't funny. It's like I'm in the middle of this mandatory scripted, like it's my job in any public square to reward a man for mediocrity or bullshit.
The other evening I was at dinner with the guy and it was a work thing. So there was a power differential and I couldn't say what I wanted to say. I really couldn't in that moment because there were other people there, but I swore to myself, what I'm not going to do is laugh. I'm not going to laugh at any of the things he says and then expects me to laugh. And Gloria, it felt like a war.
He would talk and then I would refuse to giggle. And then he looked confused and then furious. And then once he said something so arrogant that I actually burst into laughter and he looked like he wanted to kill me.
Well, now that's very interesting. You've raised a whole other frontier of laughter that I wasn't thinking about. I was thinking of the kind of sincere, irresistible desire to laugh. And you're thinking about compulsory laughter as an expected response to bullshit or, you know, whatever. Right. So thank you for saying that. Now, from now on, I should talk about the resistance to phony laughter.
Fake laughter, right? Like, it felt like the bravest thing in the world. I felt like I am a warrior of non-laughter. And then Gloria, I think about like Christine Blasey Ford, when she's talking about the laughter of the men, when she testified and she said, what is indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter.
There's something about laughter that is so fraught with power and I guess proof of freedom.
Yes. Well, that's, yeah, that's a belittling kind of laughter. Yeah. No, I agree.
Because when you think about it, yes, the one that can't be compelled is the actual axiomatic response to something where it's just the reflection of your connection and joy and solidarity with that person. You get them. But then the fake laugh that you're talking about, Glennon, like I think of a fake laugh is exactly like a fake orgasm and a fake orgasm is exactly like a fake laugh.
Both are intended to placate the outside of while slowly killing you inside because it's this idea that it isn't for you. It's for keeping the outside steady. We're giving up on our right to have that pleasure and enjoyment and instead placating the moment and the power dynamics that we're in.
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Chapter 5: How does Gloria Steinem view modern feminism?
She's like hyperventilating.
Snorting. And it's when I see my mom the most free. And it is often when she's with her sisters or her grandkids. And yeah, I guess it has to do with
bodily autonomy yeah and authenticity have you told her that no but she'll listen to this so hey mom love that about you great hey mom i i'm sending you my love too and laughter a laughter of your own yes perhaps that's we should do that we should say that as well as a room of your own
A laugh of your own. Yes. Speaking of bodily autonomy, you say that the root of sexism is controlling reproduction. And many people think of reproductive justice as kind of one slice of the pie. Why is it that you believe that every aspect of liberation is predicated on that?
Mm-hmm.
Well, it's the most universal and the most basic. I'm not saying that people who are wage or domestic workers without rights, it's not that that's necessarily immediately connected to reproduction. But the very definition of patriarchy is controlling women's bodies as the means of reproduction because we happen to have wombs. And there were many centuries and cultures
Before patriarchy, it wasn't always this way. The power to give birth was a reason why women were equal and powerful and not something to be despised. to be controlled. I remember sitting once with women in the Kalahari Desert and they were showing me the natural growing herbs that they used for contraception and abortifacients and that they also used to increase fertility.
So obviously, ever since there have been human beings, and this is probably true of animals too, there have been ways of increasing and decreasing fertility according to the food supply or how many children or cubs you already have. I mean, it's always been present.
And isn't that part of how the witch trials started, looking for women who were using herbs to control?
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Chapter 6: Why do some women vote against their interests?
Well, I think we're born into some kind of hierarchy. And in order to move up in the hierarchy, we may think we have to imitate a hierarchical mind. So if you're identifying up only, then it may be much whiter up there than it should be.
Mm-hmm.
But it's still, to me, not feminism because if just in the dictionary, you know, feminism includes all women or it's not feminism.
So we have a lot of theories, but why, Gloria, do you believe that so many of us white women are still voting with the patriarchy?
Well, for one thing. A large proportion of white women are dependent on the identity and incomes of white men. So they may be voting the interests of their husbands. They may not have information to the contrary. So in some ways, it's amazing that the majority of white women are not voting in the way that they're supposed to, in the ever-increasing majority.
Because it is kind of crucial where your income is coming from and who your neighbors are and what you know. And it's the job of a movement to make another supportive force in the world so that there's more choice.
It's so interesting to me because it just occurred to me that we're talking about fake laughing at men and... Fake orgasm. Is it possible that we fake laugh at offensive things for the same reason we fake orgasm, for the same reason we vote with men because we believe that we somehow have a stake in in their happiness. That if they're content, we're treated better.
Whether it's the grocery store or the bedroom or the polls, that on some level, we believe that pleasing them will make our life easier. Keep us safe.
Safety. Well, it's not just belief. If you're entirely dependent on a man's income, But women do, in those situations, also rebel. I mean, I remember meeting a woman after one election who told me she locked her husband in the bathroom for the entire election day because she realized that his vote negated her vote.
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