The Life and Legacy of Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem

0:00It's the Bryan Lair Show on WNYC, I'm Kusha Navidar, filling in for Bryan. Early this morning we learned of the death at 92 of Gloria Steinem, the journalist, writer, activist, and feminist icon, and we are sure that many of you want to share a memory of her what she accomplished, how she kept going. She has a new book about to come out, for example. So call us at 212433WNYC, that's 2124339692, you can call or text us. Here's some of the social media posts that announced her passing, quote, yesterday Gloria Steinem passed away peacefully at her home in New York City, surrounded by some of the many who loved her. Gloria's near-century on earth were years well-lived and she continued working for equality until

1:05the very end, unquote. And this was one of the first comments on that post, thank you Gloria. I am a proud, never-married, child-free, cat-lady, lawyer, powerlifter because of you. You helped pave the way for me to have choices, to have a voice, to be independent. So listeners, do you want to share what Gloria Steinem meant for you? Were you an early reader of Ms. Magazine that she co-founded? Was your consciousness raised by one of her favorite slogans? A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. If you were born after the 1970s and the early days of the feminist movement, what made you a fan? Call or text us at 212-433-WNYC. That's 212-433-9692. Joining us now is former Manhattan congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who worked alongside Gloria Steinem to try and pass the Equal Rights Amendment. She is now the president of the New

2:09York State chapter of the National Organization for Women and founder of Sign for ERA. Welcome back to WNYC, Ms. Maloney. Can I call you that? Pauline Carolyn. Carolyn, hi, welcome to the show. And I'm sorry for your loss. Well, Kysha, thank you for really sharing this opportunity for us to talk about what she meant to us, what she meant to the country. She was a groundbreaking trailblazer. She was a great strategist, a great supporter of all women and like-minded men. And she brought tremendous change for women. She founded the co-founded, really, the Women's Political Caucus, and also the Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, which we've always honored in Congress. She would come up for the press conference, the meetings, and go around to some of the offices where daughters were going. And we always spent that time to talk and strategize. When I became a committee

3:12chair, I held the first hearing in Congress in 40 years on the ERA and Gloria participated by Zoom. At that time, she was not going out that much. And she was always making a contribution right up to the end. I loved her dearly as a friend and a great inspiration, a great leader. Thank you, Kysha, for having this program on her. Oh, of course. And thank you for being a part of it. I'm wondering for you, Carolyn, former Congresswoman, what are your thoughts on hearing of her passing this morning? What's going on for you right now? Well, she was the type of person that you wanted to live forever. And even though she was 92, and you could see that she was becoming frail, she still didn't go out, but she would hold events at her home, always usually to support empowerment for not-for-profits that were trying to help women in some way. She was a great

4:14inspiration. I feel her loss, but I feel that her contributions and her leadership and her wisdom she was always a great advisor and a great strategist on how to move things forward. She'll be with us always in that respect. I adore her and the best and to the word. Yeah, it looks like we've got our first caller, so let's hear from some others as well. We've got Pia from Queens. Hi, Pia. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. I wanted to share my favorite line from my life on the road by Gloria Steinem, that really changed how I looked at my own language, Bengali. And the line is, I discovered that native languages, Teriki, and others like Bengali, and other ancient languages didn't have gendered pronouns like he and she. A human being was a human being. And when I read that line, it's rubber-changed how I looked at my own

5:15language, Bengali, and the world. So rest in peace, Gloria Steinem, you really made a different. Pia, thank you so much for that call. Congresswoman, there are, I mean, Pia is just probably going to be the the start of what is many calls of many different ways that Gloria Steinem touched people's lives. I'm wondering for you, what do you see as her most significant achievement? I would say empowering women and really becoming a force for the woman's movement. Before it was sort of something that was not talked about, I realized that she was always front and center for so many causes and concerns and successful and beautiful and articulate and brilliant and it was not so much which she did, it was which she made other women feel that they could do

6:18the way she inspired us and let us. You worked with her for the passage of the ERA, but it's still not done. Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, but here's something she said to Brian in 2015 when she was on the show. I do think that our expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies, so it's important, though it's important to be skeptical, I think it's important not to be pessimistic. Do you share her sentiment, Congresswoman? Oh, absolutely, you're never going to win, if you don't feel that you can win. We are the only democracy in the world that does not have an equal rights amendment in our Constitution. As you and Brian pointed out with the DOBS decision, if they can roll back a woman's right to choose, they can roll back any other right. That's why when I left Congress, I wanted to dedicate my time and energy to protecting women,

7:19and I think the best way to protect people and women and to empower them is to put them in the Constitution where they rightly belong so that they can't roll back our hard-earned rights, many of which Gloria and other members of Congress and other leaders helped enshrine and loss that we need to enshrine women in the Constitution. It's long past due. She believed that. She worked for it. I left work with her on raising money for a tour across America for the equal rights amendment, called driving for the vote for equality, and we took the facts and the facts and card that went across the country in 1960, for the right to vote, and went across the country to 25 different states and got started mayors for the ERA and leaders for the ERA. We have a petition. I urge everyone to sign it in her honor. Sign for the letter 4-ERA.org.

8:24We're trying to get thousands of signatures in every congressional district for them to lobby their Congress members and senators to pass it. She was working up to the end. I couldn't even go to the fundraiser she had because I fell on ice and broke my arm, but it was a huge success. It was just another, we talked about the trip by Senator Information about it and all of that. She was very encouraging that we were moving forward. She was always optimistic. She was always optimistic and supportive and even an impossible task would be the biggest cheerleader, the biggest leader for the goal if it was one that would help the country, help women. I just want to echo what you said. Sign for the number 4-ERA.org. And did I hear you correctly that you toured the country with her in the

9:26not not she she had a fundraiser to raise money to raise she at this point she was this was this past February at this point she was not really going out at all hardly and it she helped raise money for the tour sign for the ERA driving the vote for equality. We have legislation before Congress and the Senate the same legislation that recognizes the ERA as ratified and removes the time limit. We need to pass it in the next Congress. We are appealing to a hiking jeffries who will hopefully be the new speaker to put it on the agenda for the first 100 days. Probably an honor of Gloria let's get it done. Let's get it passed. I passed it twice through the House but I never got it through the Senate and the petition is very important because we're able to locate supporters who then can reach out to their senators their Congress members urging

10:30for their support. Let's go to Julie in Hastings New York. Hi Julie welcome to the show. Hi thank you so much by the way I still have my ERA amendment lobbying teacher and I'm going to put it on again. Yeah I'm calling to salute Gloria Steinem in yet another way and that is being a trailblazer in promoting the recognition of Latinas when the National Women's Political Caucus was founded in 1971 one of the founding members was Lupe Angiano who had been the first woman to be in a sub-state department committee under the Johnson administration but who would notice that Gloria Steinem and a few other people noticed and Lupe who deserves her own profile actually. Lupe Angiano was one of the founders of the National Women's Political Caucus so

11:36Steinem was going beyond you know just quite and professional class women for sure. Julie thank you so much. Let's go to Carrie and Croton on Hudson. Hi Carrie welcome to the show. Oh thank you for this show. I just have such memories of Gloria Steinem I'm 74 years old and when I was in college in the 70s I I formed a women's coalition because in those days you couldn't get birth control without parental permission and I figured out where the doctors were that would allow for birth control. She was such an inspiration as magazine it was so uplifting and I did work some with the ERA in Texas. I remember Bella being there you know and with her wonderful hats and it's just she was such an inspiration and I really well miss her she was a real icon

12:38real inspiration. Carrie thank you so much. For listeners who might not know Gloria Steinem was a journalist who famously worked as a playboy bunny at the New York City Club and exposed the degrading conditions the women faced her obituary in the New York Times quoted her as saying quote when we started there was not even a term for sexual harassment it was just called life. On quote we've since seen the Me Too movement awaken a new generation of women. Carolyn do you see young women continuing the work that you and Gloria did? Oh absolutely absolutely and they're better prepared they're trained on social media they're trained on computers they have all the new skills and high tech that you need for them to go forward with and I see they are better prepared because of women like Gloria who broke down class feelings I would say that Gloria broke down a marble feeling she she broke down more feelings for

13:40women and really showed them they could do it they should do it they should go forward. She also had a great sense of humor you saw that in the first cover of Ms. Magazine where she put Wonder Woman and she was always in her paintings she was funny but most of all she had wisdom and and really vision and tremendous courage she overcame a very sad childhood and and she accomplished great things. Here's one more clip. Yeah here's one more clip of Gloria from the show on working with young activists this is from when she was on the show in 2019. I feel so heartened and encouraged and moved and touched by younger folks I mean I really feel as if I just had to wait for some of my friends to be born. We can let that be the last word from the right yeah we'll have to leave it there thank you all for your calls and thank you honorable

14:43Carolyn Maloney former Manhattan congressmember president of New York state now and still very involved with trying to pass the ERA through her group sign for ERA and that's the number four thank you so much honorable Carolyn Maloney thank you and rest in peace Gloria Steinem