Feminist writer and activist Gloria Steinem dedicated her life to advocating for women and girls. And yet, in the latter part of her life, she told Terry Gross that she had entered a new phase in life, one free of the "demands of gender" that she had faced starting in adolescence.
"Remember when you were 9 or 10 and you were this independent little girl climbing trees and saying, 'I know what I want, I know what I think'?" Steinem said in a 2015 Fresh Air interview. "That was before gender descended for most of us."
"Ironically, I found by 60 you're free again. So you're the same person you were at 9 or 10, only now you have your own apartment, you can reach the light switch, you hopefully have a little money. So you can do what you want," Steinem explained.
Steinem, who died Sept. 2, was the voice, and often the most identifiable face, of women's liberation for more than half a century. An early contributor to New York magazine, in 1971, she co-founded Ms., the first national magazine to center feminist voices. That same year, she also co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus, which lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment and encouraged more women to run for public office.
Later in life, Steinem continued to speak out about the political, social and economic barriers to women's rights. She cited violence against women and the fight for reproductive rights as two of the most important issues facing women today.
"The definition of patriarchy is to be able to control reproduction, and that means you have to control women's bodies," she said. "It seems to me that every child has the right to be born loved and wanted, and every person has the right to control — male and female — to control their own bodies from the skin in."
Steinem spoke to Fresh Air in 1987, 1992 and 2015. This interview is a compilation of those conversations.
Interview Highlights
On co-founding Ms., a magazine written by and devoted to women
Even before I began to think about anything that might be called feminism or to question the structures that women encountered, I and lots of women could not write about political subjects for the existing magazines. We were thought to be the experts on, you know, food, makeup, babies and celebrities. But that was pretty much it. And though I railed against it, as many other women did, perhaps not hard enough in retrospect — but at least we tried — it really didn't budge very much. ...
We began to realize that there was a reason why women felt connected to other discriminated-against groups and kind of identified with the underdog — 'cause we were also underdogs. And there began to be a women's movement. Then the magazine said, well, you know, "We published our article on feminism last year," or "If we're going to write one article saying that women are full human beings, we'll have to publish one right next to it saying they're not in order to be objective." So it became more and more clear to lots of us that we could not either write what we wanted to, or read or edit what we wanted to in the existing magazines. So we started to meet and discuss whether or not, you know, a magazine might be possible.
On becoming pregnant at 22, before abortion was legal
I had been doing all of the foolish things that we then did [to terminate a pregnancy], like riding horseback, throwing ourselves down stairs. ... I am the most cowardly person you can imagine, physically speaking, but I did [throw myself down stairs]. ... I was desperate. I really was desperate. I just knew that if I went home and married, which I would've had to do, it would be to the wrong person; it would be to a life that wasn't mine, that wasn't mine at all.
On what made her decide to start talking about her abortion
The amazing thing was that it took me so long. There was no women's movement. It was supposed to be a secret. Women didn't share in the same way. So it wasn't until many years later, after New York magazine had started, and I had gone to cover an abortion speak-out held in a church downtown in New York City and suddenly I heard other women standing up and talking about what it was like to have to go out and seek an illegal abortion. This was actually an alternate hearing to one that the New York State Legislature was holding on the liberalization of abortion law in New York state. This was before the Supreme Court ruling, and a group of early feminists had just said, "Wait a minute, in the Legislature they asked 14 men and one nun to testify" — you can't make this up — "let's hear from women who have actually had this experience."
So I sat there as a reporter for New York magazine, listening to women tell their stories that were tragic and ludicrous and every human emotion all wrapped into one, and suddenly I thought, "Wait a minute, I had an abortion." And actually 1 in 3 American women had needed an abortion at some time in her life, so why is this illegal and why is it dangerous? And it's the kind of revelation that comes from people just telling the truth and discovering you're not alone.
On what she saw as the most pressing issues for women
The most important issues are those to the women who are listening. I mean, it's not about dictating to each other what's important, but supporting each other in solving the ones that are in our daily lives.Gloria Steinem
The most important issues are those to the women who are listening. I mean, it's not about dictating to each other what's important, but supporting each other in solving the ones that are in our daily lives. ...
If you add up, in terms of the numbers of people, I would say that competing for No. 1 would be violence against females worldwide. If you add up all the forms of violence, whether it's domestic violence in this country, which is at an enormously high rate — I mean, the most dangerous place for a woman in this country is her own home, and she's most likely to be beaten or killed by a man she knows — or it is FGM, female genital mutilation, or it is female infanticide, or honor killings or child marriage. ... But tied for first place is the ability of women to decide when and whether to have children, because that is a major cause of death, the lack of that ability. ... And it is also a major cause of inability to be educated or to be free outside the home or to be healthy. I would say those two concerns — sexualized violence against women and reproductive freedom or reproductive justice — are right up there in our focus in every country.
On creating a home for herself after many years on the road
I had buried in my head this idea that you only made a home for [a] husband and children. I didn't see a lot of women making a permanent home for themselves; I didn't think that way. And also, I was on the road, so I was always living out of suitcases and cardboard boxes when I was at home, and even though I now, to this day, live in the same apartment that I did then, it was more like a storage place than an apartment.
It was only after I was 50 that ... I began to make a home — a nest — for myself. And I take such pleasure in it. I think in general, as a culture, we tend to think there are two choices: settling down or traveling. And actually you need both. ... Birds need a nest and they still fly. It took me a while [to understand] that it wasn't either/or — it was both.
On having a lumpectomy at 52 and what it taught her
It made me realize … I was less afraid of dying than of aging. ... I didn't know how to enter the last third of life because there were so few role models. … In this culture, women — we know how to be in the central plateau of life. And I'd been there a terrifically long time because I'd become a grown up too early. … From about 10 to 52 or so, I'd been in this central plateau. Now, I was entering a whole new place. It was like falling off a cliff because I couldn't see enough people ahead of me. …
I've realized that this aging in the last third of life or whatever is a new country. I now actually feel excited about it because ... as Carolyn Heilbrun has pointed out so brilliantly in Writing a Woman's Life, women become ourselves after 50. You know, we leave behind this female impersonator role and drop a lot of baggage and really become much more our true selves.
Roberta Shorrock produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
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